The Story She Left Behind

Author: Patti Callahan Henry
Genre: Historical Fiction
Publisher: Atria Books, 2025
Pages: 352
Rating: Recommend

Synopsis: In 1927, eight-year-old Clara Harrington's magical childhood shatters when her mother, renowned author, Bronwyn Newcastle Fordham, disappears off coast of South Carolina. Bronwyn stunned the world with a book written in an invented language that became a national and heartbroken daughter, but also the hope of ever translating the sequel to her landmark work. As the headlines focus on the missing author, Clara yearns for something far deeper and more insatiable: her beautiful mother.

By 1952, Clara is an illustrator raising her own daughter, Wynnie. When a stranger named Charlie Jameson contacts her from London claiming to have discovered a handwritten dictionary of her mother's lost language. Clara is skeptical. Compelled by the tragedy of her mother's vanishing, she crosses the Atlantic with Wynnie only to arrive during one of London's most deadly natural disasters - the Great Smog. With asthmatic Wynnie in peril, they escape the city with Charlie and find refuge in the Jameson's family retreat nestled in the Lake District. Is there that Clara must find the courage to uncover the truth about her m
other and the story she left behind.

Review: I wanted to love this novel, but I really didn't. The build up was slow and the resolution was weak. Everything was just a little too neat and tidy. It had The Secret Book of Flora Lea vibes, whereas I think I would have preferred something more along the lines of Surviving Savannah. Both of these are novels also written by Patti Callahan Henry.

I waffled on how to rate this novel. I loved Flora Lea, but was I ready for a book so similar to it by this author? I don't think so. I also struggle with books that venture into the imaginary and mystical and I just finished Peony in Love (by Lisa See) which was a lot that. 

Maybe The Story She Left Behind was the right book, just at the wrong time.

Patti Callahan Henry Novels
Surviving Savannah
The Secret Book of Flora Lea

Peony in Love

Author: Lisa See
Genre: Historical Fiction
Publisher: Random House Publishing, 2007
Pages: 304
Rating: Do Not Recommend

Synopsis: In seventeenth-century China, an elaborate villa on the shores of Hangzhou's West Lake, Peony lives a sheltered life. One night, during a theatrical performance in her family's garden, Peony catches sight of an elegant, handsome man and is immediately overcome with emotion. So begins Peony's unforgettable journey of love and destiny, desire and sorry, the living world and the afterworld.

Eventually expelled from all she's known, Peony is thrust into a realm where hungry ghosts wander the earth, written words have power to hurt and kill, and dreams are as vivid as waking life. Lisa See's novel, based on actual historical events, evokes vividly another time and place - where three generations of women become enmeshed in a dramatic story, uncover past secrets and tragedies, and learn that love can transcend death.

Review: I have read Lisa See before and loved her novels, but I didn't care for this one. Lisa's strength as an author is her knowledge of Chinese culture, and I did learn a lot, but the plot wasn't my cup of tea. Let's file this under "meh."

Other Lisa See Novels:
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan
The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane

When the Jessamine Grows

Author: Donna Everhart
Genre: Historical Fiction
Publisher: Kensington, 2024
Pages: 400
Rating: Do Not Recommend

Synopsis: Talk of impending war is a steady drumbeat throughout North Carolina, though Joetta McBride pays it little heed. She and her husband, Ennis, have built a modest but happy life for themselves, raising two sons, fifteen-year-old Henry, and eleven-year-old Robert, on their small subsistence farm. They do not support the Confederacy's position on slavery, but Joetta considers her family to be neutral, believe this is simply not their fight.

Her opinion is not favored by many in their community, including Joetta's own father-in-law. A staunch Confederate supporter, he fills his grandsons' heads with stories about the glory of battle and the Southern cause until one night Henry runs off to join the war. At Joetta's frantic insistence, Ennis leaves to find their son and bring him home.

But soon weeks pass with no word from father or son and Joetta is battered by the strain of running a farm with so little help. As the country becomes further entangled in the ramifications of war, Joetta finds herself increasingly at odds with those around her - until one act of kindness brings her family to the edge of even greater disaster.

Though shunned and struggling to survive, Joetta remains committed to her principles, and to her belief that her family will survive. But the greatest tests are still to come - for a fractured nation, for Joetta and for those she loves...

Review: This is a time period I generally enjoy reading about, but I have to admit, When the Jessamine Grows was boring, and more than once I sort of rolled my eyes.

Carrie Soto is Back

Author: Taylor Jenkins Reid
Genre: Fiction
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group, 2023
Pages: 416
Rating: Highly Recommend

Synopsis: Carrie Soto is fierce, and her determination to win at any cost has not made her popular. But by the time she retires from tennis, she is the best player the world has ever seen. She has shattered every record and claimed twenty Grand Slam titles. And if you ask Carrie, she is entitled to every one. She sacrificed nearly everything to become the best, with her father, Javier, as her coach. A former champion himself, Javier has trained her since the age of two.

But six years after her retirement, Carrie finds herself sitting in the stands of the 1994 US Open watching her record be taken from her by a brutal, stunning player named Nickie Chan.

At thirty-seven years old, Carrie makes the monumental decision to come out of retirement and be coached by her father for one last year in an attempt to reclaim her record. Even if the sports media says that they never liked the "Battle-Axe" anyway. Even if her body does move as fast as it did. And even if it means swallowing her pride to train with a man she once almost opened her heart to: Bowe Huntley. Like her, he has something to provde before he gives up the game forever.

Review: I love Taylor Jenkins Reid's writing style and I've read many of her books to great enjoyment. I know nothing about tennis, and quite frankly, I'm not even remotely interested in it, but this book was great. I live with an athlete whose drive is an animal of its own, and found Carrie relatable on that level.

The audio version of this novel is excellent - it's performed, not read (similarly to the audio version of Where'd You Go, Bernadette).

Other Taylor Jenkins Reid Novels
Daisy Jones and The Six
Malibu Rising
Maybe in Another Life
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo