What She Left Behind

Half a million copies sold! 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 presentexploring the strength of women in two different times as they face adversity in two very different ways. Go inside the horrifying walls of a 1920s New York asylum as a wrongly imprisoned woman fights for what is most important to her—and meet the young woman confronting the pain and mystery of her own family’s mental illness two generations later. Ten years agoIzzy Stone’s mother fatally shot her father while he slept. Devastated by her mother’s apparent insanityIzzynow seventeenrefuses to visit her in prison. But her new foster parentsemployees at the local museumhave enlisted Izzy’s help in cataloging items at a long-shuttered state asylum. Thereamid piles of abandoned belongingsIzzy discovers a stack of unopened lettersa decades-old journaland a window into her own past. Young flapper and suffragette Clara Cartwright is caught between her overbearing parents and her desire to be a modern woman. Furious when she rejects an arranged marriageinstead finding love with an Italian ImmigrantClara’s father sends her to a genteel home for nervous invalids. But when his fortune is lost in the stock market crash of 1929he 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 beginningClara’s story keeps drawing her into the past. If Clara was never really mentally illcould something else explain her own mother’s violent act? Piecing together Clara’s fate compels Izzy to re-examine her own choices—with shocking and unexpected results. “Screams with authenticitydepthand understanding.” —The New York Journal of Books “A real page turner…will appeal to all readers of fiction.” —The Historical Novels Review “Amazing…A great read!” —The San Francisco Book Review “Will both haunt and inspire you… a movingand at times chilling story that totally endears you to her characters.” —SpaWeek “A great coming-of-age story.” —School Library Journal