Haunting Historical Fiction of the 1920s

The breakout novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Orphan Collector, What She Left Behind weaves together riveting stories of past and present, exploring the strength of women in two different times as they face adversity in two very different ways. Half a million copies sold! The narrative takes readers inside the horrifying walls of a 1920s New York asylum, following a wrongly imprisoned woman as she fights for what is most important to her. It also introduces a young woman confronting the pain and mystery of her own family's mental illness two generations later.

Ten years ago, Izzy Stone's mother fatally shot her father while he slept. Devastated by her mother's apparent insanity, Izzy, now seventeen, refuses to visit her in prison. However, her new foster parents, who work at the local museum, have enlisted Izzy's help in cataloging items at a long-shuttered state asylum. There, amid piles of abandoned belongings, Izzy discovers a stack of unopened letters, a decades-old journal, and a window into her own past.

The narrative also delves into the story of young flapper and suffragette Clara Cartwright, who is caught between her overbearing parents and her desire to be a modern woman. Furious when she rejects an arranged marriage and instead finds love with an Italian Immigrant, Clara's father sends her to a genteel home for nervous invalids. However, when his fortune is lost in the stock market crash of 1929, he can no longer afford her care, and Clara is committed to the public asylum.

Even as Izzy deals with the challenges of yet another new beginning, Clara's story keeps drawing her into the past. If Clara was never really mentally ill, could something else explain Izzy's own mother's violent act? Piecing together Clara's fate compels Izzy to re-examine her own choices, with shocking and unexpected results.

The novel "Screams with authenticity, depth, and understanding," according to The New York Journal of Books. It is "A real page turner…will appeal to all readers of fiction," says The Historical Novels Review. "Amazing…A great read!" exclaims The San Francisco Book Review, while SpaWeek praises it as a "moving, and at times chilling story that totally endears you to her characters." Finally, School Library Journal deems it "A great coming-of-age story."

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