The story she left behind A novel

Review by Booklist Review

Clara's mother, Bronwyn, was best known as a child prodigy who created her own language and wrote a best-selling children's book. However, she was never able to produce the anticipated sequel. By 1927, when Clara is eight years old, Bronwyn is overwhelmed by the world around her and disappears from their South Carolina home. Twenty-five years later, in London, Charlie is going through his recently deceased father's library when he comes across a satchel containing an envelope for Clara, to be delivered in person. Still heavily carrying the weight of losing her mother, Clara agrees to go to London with her own young daughter. She is thrilled to finally have her mother's lost papers, but the more time she spends with Charlie, the more connections she uncovers between his family and hers. Inspired by a true story, and enhanced by vivid descriptions of character and setting, this is a somewhat whimsical tale of a woman drawn to her imaginary world who fiercely loved her family, as well as an exploration of the hard choices that tear families apart and the love that sustains them.

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

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Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

In this captivating outing from Henry (The Secret Book of Flora Lea), a children's book illustrator searches for her mother, a renowned children's book author who disappeared decades earlier. Thirty-year-old Bronwyn Newcastle Fordham disappeared from her home on the South Carolina coast in 1927, leaving behind an unpublished sequel to the novel she wrote as a precocious 12-year-old, which made her famous. In 1952, Bronwyn's daughter, Clara, gets a mysterious call from Charles Jameson, a Londoner who's just discovered a satchel in his recently deceased father's library filled with papers belonging to Bronwyn. Among the materials is a letter stipulating the satchel must be hand-delivered to Clara. She and her asthmatic eight-year-old daughter, Wynnie, arrive in London during the Great Smog, and they accept Charlie's invitation to stay at his mother's Lake District home, where the air is clearer. Clara feels very much at home on the pastoral landscape and finds a romantic spark with Charles. Henry imbues her story with lush descriptions of the landscape and intriguing linguistic puzzles as Clara attempts to decipher Bronwyn's dictionary of the invented language that was central to her work. Readers will be riveted. (Mar.)

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

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Review by Kirkus Book Review

A woman travels from South Carolina to London to try to translate a book written by her long-lost mother. In 1952, Clara Harrington, a divorcée with a young daughter, is an elementary school art teacher and children's book illustrator who's recently won the Caldecott Medal; despite her good life, she's haunted by the 1927 disappearance of her mother, Bronwyn Newcastle Fordham. Bronwyn, who had written a bestselling book in her own unique language as a child, vanished on the night the family house caught fire, killing a fireman and injuring the 8-year-old Clara. Now Clara receives a call from a man named Charlie Jameson, who, while cleaning out his late father's library in London, found a set of papers marked "For Clara Harrington only," with her address and phone number attached, and a note saying they must be delivered in person. They include a dictionary that Clara immediately realizes could be used to translate her mother's sequel, written in the odd language she had made up. Charlie invites Clara to his family home in London, but upon arriving with her asthmatic daughter, Wynnie, the Great Smog of 1952 forces the trio to the Lake District. There, Clara uncovers connections she didn't expect: Eliza Walker, the author for whom she has illustrated numerous books without ever meeting, lives in the area and turns out to have adapted her mother's first book into a play. Clara becomes convinced that the Lake District holds more answers to the mystery of her mother's disappearance. Though the setup is intriguing, the novel is overly long and meandering and fails to provide satisfying answers to the mysteries at its heart. This novel will leave readers wishing for more. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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Chapter 1: Bronwyn Newcastle FordhamCHAPTER 1 BRONWYN NEWCASTLE FORDHAM Bluffton, South Carolina 1927 It is two o'clock in the morning when she leaves everyone she loves. At the edge of the May River, she unties the ropes of the Chris-Craft from the cleats of the weathered dock and steps into the boat. In the velvet quiet, a new moon cowers behind its dark cloak; the stars flare as bright as the fire that is sending her away. She will be long gone before the tide returns in six hours to fill the marsh and secret waterways. She knows the tides of this estuary without having to look at a nautical chart or check the battered barometer that has always hung on the screened porch of their shingled house. She has planned this escape to the minute, and she does not hesitate. The boat rides on the outgoing tide, and the wind-puckered river pushes it gently toward the sea, catching the current more quickly than she'd anticipated. Flickering lights of Bluffton dot the coastline like fireflies. Any minute, she'll start the engine and navigate the boat toward Tybee Island and then into Savannah. She stares at the ink-dark sky, at Orion and the Big Dipper. She doesn't want to witness the familiar and loved landscape disappear. Her mind begins to form a list, a habit she's turned to since she was a child. First, she lists what she's brought with her: a coat, a change of clothes, a hundred dollars in cash that she took from the envelope they kept for emergencies, a notebook and a pen, as well as a leather satchel that contains the words she's spent her life finding and creating. The boat bobs and sways and she stares out to the horizon, waiting to start the engine. Her thoughts tick past what she's brought and move to all she is leaving behind: the quiet crash of the incoming tide onto the oyster shells outside their window; the gray-shingled house that has protected her for ten years now; the room where she writes and reads in a chintz chair with the stuffing blooming out of the seams; the dimming of the day when longing rises and she dives into the warm waters of the river; the midsummer's ivory bloom of the gardenia bush that she planted with her daughter; the soft caress of a breeze when she sits on the porch; her husband reaching for her in their bed and winding his fingers through hers while the crickets seem to cry. And: Clara. She holds the gunwale to steady herself as she walks to the cockpit. She presses the button to drop the single engine into the water while a surge of primal need for her daughter flows through her, causing her to sway with dizziness. She draws on her strength and on the knowledge that if she returns to her house, the world will do to her in full what it's done only until now in part. She thinks of the beauty of this place that she will carry with her: a place where fireflies decorate the nights and pine needles gather in soft beds, where sunrise tosses diamonds onto the water, where minnows flicker silver on the river's surface. The losses mount and she thinks nothing of what others might say, thinks nothing of her own well-being--Bronwyn needs to move forward and away from all that will come to pass if she stays. There are things that cannot be undone. The unseen world has always called to her. She knows what she must do--she will become unseen. This is the answer for the character that she created, and this is her answer. Their destinies were always tangled together, she knows that now. She finds the boat's starter and presses it; the motor purrs, the water churns behind, and she pushes the throttle forward. She places her hands on the wheel. These are her waters, and she does not have to see to know the way. Excerpted from The Story She Left Behind: A Novel by Patti Callahan Henry All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

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