The Cankered Rose and Esther's Revenge begins the author's dramatic journey of adopting his teenage daughter with severe attachment issues in Seattle. The heartbreak of then seeing Cordelia "stolen" by the efforts of his former wife and the child-welfare legal complex in Los Angeles, alongside that of the trauma of being denied during efforts to reunify with her are each foreshadowed here.

Issues surrounding adoption trauma, parenting children with reactive attachment disorder, and the author's own struggles with Asperger's syndrome will be his constant companions on this perilous journey of adopting, losing, and then trying to reunite with his beloved daughter.

In this and subsequent volumes, the author will also be questioning the ability of the child-welfare legal complex and the Los Angeles Juvenile Dependency Court to understand the nature of damaged child attachment or the therapeutic parenting needed to heal children with "special needs." Ultimately, each would be as responsible for "failing Cordelia" as the breaking of the violent waves for the shattering movement of the rocks on the beach.