The Story We Left Behind - BFBC Alert!

Title: The Story She Left Behind

Author: Patti Callahan Henry

Publisher: Atria Books

@atriabooks

Genre: Historical Fiction + Mystery + Literature

I couldn’t let March slip away without sharing one of my favorite reads of the month—The Story She Left Behind. Oh, @pattichenry I just adore you and the way your writing makes me feel all.the.things!!!

{Thank you to @simon.audio @librofm for the audiobook narrated by the beloved Julia Whelan!}

💕Dual Timeline/POV

💕Lyrical

💕Enchanting

💕Multigenerational

💕Family Legacy

💕Abandonment

💕Forgiveness

💕An Artist

💕A Writer

💕Prodigy

💕Secret Language

💕Hidden Manuscript

💕A Quest for Answers

💕Found Family

The Story She Left Behind is a beautiful book inside and out. A book about books. I was really invested in the story of a missing mother and her unpublished story. Clara and her mother Bronwyn had a special—dare I say magical—mother/daughter relationship until her mother goes missing off the coast of South Carolina in 1927. Bronwyn was a prodigy and wrote and published a book when she was just twelve years old! Did the pressure for a sequel make her crack? What happened to make her leave?

I like the way the author repeated a closely bonded mother/daughter relationship in the 1950s timeline with Clara and her daughter Winnie. When Clara, an artist, is contacted by a stranger in London having found a handwritten dictionary of her mother’s lost secret language, she is initially skeptical, but ultimately needs answers. So, Clara and Winnie decide to travel to London, only they arrive during the ‘Great Smog’, thus forcing them to relocate to the Lake District. Will this detour actually be where they were meant to be all along?

I could go on and on, but I’m going to save my final thoughts for April when spoiler alert @bookfriendsbookclub will be reading this. Check back next week for more on this announcement!

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ I was smitten that this book included Beatrix Potter!