Until There Was Us by Pamela H Bender When a newborn loses her mother the same day she is given the gift of life, she finds herself shuffled amongst different family members for years on end. Coming of age in the Roaring Twenties and the Depression thirties, she struggles to find connection, adventure, and true happiness while becoming involved in a dark world of speakeasies and deadly bosses. The story of a strong, resilient woman ahead of her time, Pamela Bender's first installment of the Dennison family trilogy is a surprising, heartfelt, and absorbing saga that depicts a young woman's tumultuous journey into adulthood to stunning effect. Mimi Dennison loses her mother the day she is born. Her father unable to care for her or her two year-old sister, she becomes a vagabond ward of the extended family. Separated from her sister and passed from family to family, Mimi develops her own unique blend of survival skills, personality quirks, and thirst for adventure. Once reunited with her sister in Boston, the two search for whatever excitement the world has to offer as they enter the confusing and exhilarating world of young adulthood. Working as a switchboard operator, Mimi segues into the competitive world of 1930's fashion where her sense of adventure and naivete prove to be a dangerous combination. Quickly drawn into a deadly world of Depression-era speakeasies and gangsters, she makes all the wrong decisions and gets in deeper than she ever imagined possible. When she decides to leave that world behind, however, she finds it isn't that easy and it will take the friendship-and love-from a surprising source to help her find the happiness she has been searching for her whole life. Capturing the nuances and emotional landscape of her heroine with extraordinary depth and sincerity, Bender's debut weaves together the dark and light of life as it explores a time and place unique in the collective American psyche. Uninhibited romanticism at its finest, Until There Was Us reminds us all that life is what you make it.