The Story She Left Behind is out Today
Happy Pub Day to Patti Callahan Henry + an E-Book Sale
Dear Friends:
I’m writing to let you know that my dear friend and Friends & Fiction sister Patti Callahan Henry’s new novel, The Story She Left Behind, is in stores everywhere today!
Named an IndieNext pick for April, a LibraryReads pick for March, one of B&N’s Best Books of March, a Heather’s Pick for Canada’s Indigo bookstore chain, a SIBA “Read This Next” pick, the Reader’s Digest Book Club pick for April, a Printfresh Book Club pick, and a winner of AudioFile Earphones Award, the early buzz for The Story She Left Behind is amazing. Louise Penny calls it “brilliant, riveting, so beautifully written, impossible to put down,” Shelley Read (Go As a River) calls it a “celebration of family, hope, forgiveness, and the tender generosity of abiding love,” and Adriana Trigiani declares that Patti is “at the height of her literary powers.”
This immersive story was inspired by a real cold-case literary mystery of a child prodigy author who went missing in the 1920s, leaving behind shattered loved ones and a sequel to her most beloved novel written in a secret language that no one could decode. Patti reimagines this real-life case, introducing us to Clara, a young mother still shattered by her mother Bronwyn’s years-ago disappearance, and Clara’s precocious daughter Winnie, who’s utterly captivated by her long-lost grandmother’s stories and fictional characters. We travel with these two across the pond on a quest to track down Bronwyn’s language in hopes it might hold the key to unlock the mystery of her disappearance.
Along the way, Clara and Winnie have adventures, meet with adversity, and, with the help of the charming Englishman Charlie, begin to unravel the haunting mystery at their family’s core. Patti gives us slow burn romance, an absorbing mystery, and, as always, an enchanting story.
This captivating story takes place across three distinct settings—the languid lowcounty of South Carolina, London in peril during the Great Smog, and England’s lush and enchanting Lake District. With beautiful, descriptive prose, Patti brings each so vividly to life, that the mystical lands each become characters themselves.
William Kent Krueger calls The Story She Left Behind, “a lovely mix of so many elements sure to please [Patti’s] universe of readers, a magical mosaic of adventure, suspense, romance, mystery, and even a sprinkle of make-believe.” This is such a lovely description of this story of longing, forgiveness, the beautiful but complicated mother/daughter relationship, and the power of language, imagination, and story.
I just know you will love this book as much as I did. I encourage you to grab your copy from your local indie or on Bookshop.org, and to visit Patti on her book tour if she’s coming to a town near you!
Once you’ve fallen in love with The Story She Left Behind, I hope you will leave online reviews on sites like Goodreads and Amazon, and Barnes & Noble.
Bargain Alert!
Today only—Tuesday, March 18th—the e-book of Summers at the Saint is on sale for just $1.99 at all major e-book retailers. Go ahead and download it now while this sale lasts!
Upcoming Events
I’ve got a couple more in-person events coming up in April in Louisiana and Kentucky. I hope to see lots of you then. Stay tuned to the Events & Appearances page on my website for news of my whereabouts.
Friends & Fiction
This week on Friends & Fiction Ron Block and Kristin Harmel will welcome internationally bestselling author of contemporary and historical fiction, Emma Donoghue, to discuss her latest book, The Paris Express, a sweeping historical novel about an infamous 1895 railway disaster at the Paris Montparnasse train station. Watch this interview on Wednesday, March 19th at 7pm Eastern or listen on our podcast on Friday, March 21st.
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That’s all for now.
All best,
MKA
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this is confusing...is this a book by Mary Kay Andrews or someone else?