Mother's Ingredients: A memoir, (Paperback)

"The story of the alcoholic addict has been told innumerable times. A child who survives being raised by one is a special find. Tara Cummins's MOTHER'S INGREDIENTS takes a fresh and unflinching approach, detailing what it was like being raised by a mother more concerned with her next fix than putting food on the table for her children. Now as a newly married young woman, Tara is faced with impending motherhood to twin girls. She worries that she will fail as a nurturing mother given she did not have a maternal role model. This emotionally-charged debut memoir beats with heart and unexpected compassion on every page." - Paula Priamos, author of Gold Foreword Indie Winner INSIDE V and THE SHYSTERS'S DAUGHTER: A MEMOIR "

"Children are often the greatest casualties of addiction, suffering traumatic damage to their ability to love, when love has been denied them by the very ones who are supposed to love them most. In Mother's Ingredients, Tara Cummins has written a powerful story of what it's like growing up as the daughter of an addict. Unlike many children of addicts, who, sadly, grow up to become addicts themselves, Tara battles and ultimately transcends the darkness of her past. This is an inspiring, heartrending memoir about a young woman learning to be the good mother she never had." - James Brown, author of The Los Angeles Diaries, This River, and Apology to the Young Addict"

Mother's Ingredients is an innovative memoir written with main chapters that follow Tara's early years growing up with an addict mother, interspersed with vignettes that track her progress through her first pregnancy. Contrast as a four-year-old left in the hands of a pedophile babysitter and dark drug houses while her mother is away feeding her addiction, with the first kicks of her twin daughters and the joy and absolute dread that all too often overwhelms her. Dive back into Tara's young life as she takes beer cans away from her toddler brother and witness the rare happy family moments filled with a mother who is shortly sober. Learn about car seats and baby names while the feelings of unease, both physically and emotionally, build up around her pregnancy. By clashing vivid scenes from her childhood to that of the pregnancy Tara gives readers a sense of tension and emotional depth in every section.

Tara Cummins was born and raised in the mountains of Southern California. She received her MFA from the California State University of San Bernardino and has taught at Victor Valley College. She now lives with her husband and four children in Salt Lake City, Utah. Mother's Ingredients is her first book.