What happens when discovering your origins reshapes not only your past, but your entire sense of identity?

In this deeply personal and literary episode of Between the Covers with Danielle, we explore Rachael Johns’ The Lucky Sisters — a moving, beautifully layered novel about adoption, sisterhood, mortality, and the families we’re born into… and the families we choose.

Nora and Stevie Lucky’s search for their biological parents uncovers a life-changing revelation that forces them to rethink everything: their relationships, their identities, their futures, and the bond that has held them together for nearly fifty years. Through Johns’ sharp emotional insight and nuanced character work, The Lucky Sisters becomes a powerful exploration of what it means to belong.

But this episode isn’t just literary analysis.
For the first time, I share part of her my own adoption journey — discovering my biological family in my late forties through a DNA test gifted by my adoptive mother. What unfolded was both heartbreaking and healing: learning my biological mother had died when I was four, discovering uncles and aunts living closer than I ever imagined, and navigating the emotional fallout within her adoptive family.

This episode unpacks:

• the novel’s themes of identity, nature vs. nurture, and mortality
• the emotional and structural craft behind Johns’ storytelling
• the real-life resonance of adoption and rediscovered family
• why The Lucky Sisters is a powerful reflection on belonging and truth

Grab something sparkling — Lillian Lucky would insist — and settle in for one of my most personal, insightful episodes yet.