I was drawn in by the premise—lost language, missing mother, and a decades-long mystery—but The Story She Left Behind just didn’t land for me. The writing was lyrical, but the pacing felt slow and meandering, and the emotional weight never fully hit home. Clara’s journey had potential, but I struggled to stay invested in the story or its resolution.

It’s a beautifully written book, but the plot felt thin and at times overly sentimental. I really wanted to love this one, but it missed the mark.

Thanks to the publisher for the ARC

This story is loosely based on a true story, and Patti Callahan Henry has filled it out quite nicely. The characters are believable, and this reader felt herself rooting for Clara on in her journey. The background of Clara and her mom, Bronwyn, is released like cookie crumbs on the journey. Clara and Wynnie’s relationship is sweet and shows the closeness that Clara had wanted from her mom. Readers liking a character driven story will want to hop on for the journey.

I wish I could say I loved this. I wanted to love it, and the settings, both in South Carolina and the English countryside, were charming. But Clara was just not a relatable main character, and Bronwyn was even less. Clara’s behavior went from one foolish thing to another, and the love story was totally unnecessary and unbelievable. I really liked Charlie and all his family, and Clara’s father was a sweetheart. Bronwyn on the other hand was just self-absorbed, and Wynnie was too precocious for her age. I am not too fond of magical realism, but it was just a suggestion here so that didn’t bother me. While I didn’t love it, I did enjoy reading this story. My critique didn’t keep it from being an interesting read, and others may very well love it.
My thanks to Netgalley and Atria Books for an Advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you NetGalley for an advanced copy of this book. I'm just reading this amazing story after the book has been published. What a lovely book with a beautiful cover! I loved this book about a missing mother, a daughter looking for answers, a secret language/words/writing and love. This wonderful book touched on a quest for answers, abandonment, love, loss, legacy, family, found family, longing, and forgiveness. I was intrigued by the secret language, the mystery, and the characters. I loved the character of Charlie the best! I also listed to the audible and the narrators made the story!

What a lovely book with a beautiful cover! I loved this book about a missing mother, a daughter looking for answers, a secret language/words/writing and love. This wonderful book touched on a quest for answers, abandonment, love, loss, legacy, family, found family, longing, and forgiveness. I was intrigued by the secret language, the mystery, and the characters.

Always a fan of Patti Callaghan’s work and this is so transportive and beautifully written. I never wanted it to end. Thank you NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book in advance!

4.5 stars

This book reminds me of a cross between The Wishing Game and Where the Crawdad Sings.

The Story She Left Behind by Patti Callahan Henry is about a woman's search for answers regarding her mother's disappearance, as well as the dictionary to her mother's secret language in the hopes of translating her highly anticipated unpublished sequel.

From the beginning, I could tell this would be a 4-5 star read. Henry's prose is so beautiful and vivid that I could picture every aspect of everything she describes. This does cause the pacing to be on the slower side, but I didn't mind it and I absolutely savored every page.

I will say that the end is a bit anticlimactic, even though the author gives a logical reason for it all. But the explanation provided just doesn't feel like enough to justify the mother's actions.

With that being said, if you enjoy novels with a touch of historical fiction and some mystery elements, this is the book for you, especially if you love lyrical prose as much as I do.

Very special thanks to NetGalley and Atria Books for this e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

The Story She Left Behind is available now wherever books are sold.

With a wonderful premise and a mystery of sorts this book was wonderful at the start introducing us to Clara Harrington, a mother and book illustrator, Bronwyn Newcastle Fordham, a author with a strange language written into her book, and Wynnie, Clara's ultra precocious daughter.

Clara has been in the hunt for her mother, who mysteriously disappeared years ago bearing a new manuscript that was suppose to be a continuation to her renowned first story.
When a letter arrives from London telling of a found envelope with her name on it, Clara is convinced its her mother's work describing her unusual language is on its pages, and she and Wynnie sail to London where the holder of the envelope, Charlie Jameson, welcomes her into his family. (of course he is rich!)

The second part of the book was a trip down fantasy lane, complete with copious flowery language, a love story, and a text that seemed to go on and on until its conclusion, which if you love happy endings is one for you.

While I liked it, I didn't love it as I hoped I would especially as I have loved this author's previous books. For lovers of adult fairy tales, this book if for you!

Clara’s mother, Bronwyn, disappeared when she was a young girl. Now many years later, she gets a call from a man in England named Charlie who informs her that he has found a bag of her mother’s writings. Clara hopes that these writings could hold the answers that she longs for regarding her mother’s disappearance and work. With this hope, Clara and her daughter, Wynnie, travel to England to claim the writings. Unbeknownst to them, they are starting on a journey that will lead them to more that they could have hoped to find.

The author’s writing was beautiful and her descriptions were vivid. She is gifted in being able to help you not only picture a place but desire to visit the places she describes. I also enjoyed that literary mystery that was found in this book. I wanted to find out what happened to Bronwyn and how all of the pieces of the puzzle were connected. However, I felt as if the book was slow to start taking me awhile to be drawn in. It felt as if the book dragged on in places but was too fast in others. In my opinion, it took too long for things to get started with Clara’s journey, but then the resolution felt too fast at the end. I love a happy ending and when things come together in a story, but the resolution felt almost too perfect and neatly tied up. Overall, it was a good story with beautiful descriptions that I enjoyed.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ebook in exchange for an honest review.

In 1927, Bronwyn Newcastle Fordham simply disappears. She is last seen in a small boat off the coast of South Carolina, where she has lived for a decade with her husband and young daughter. Bronwyn has been living quietly in the area avoiding publicity; she’s famous for writing a bestseller when she was only 12 years old. What’s more, she invented a whole language herself to write the book, about the fairy world around us. There was supposed to be a sequel, but Bronwyn locked away the manuscript.

In 1952, Bronwyn’s daughter, Clara, is an illustrator and teacher raising her own daughter, Wynnie, in the house she grew up in. Years later, she still misses her mother and wishes she knew why she disappeared. When she receives a phone call from a stranger in London, telling her he has just found a dictionary of her mother’s language in his late father’s library, she’s skeptical but cautiously hopeful. Her mother had taken the handwritten dictionary with her when she left, and it’s presumed to be at the bottom of the ocean, just as her mother is presumed dead.

Clara takes Wynnie to London to learn more about the possibility Charlie Jameson has shared with her. She plans for it to be a short trip and an opportunity to show some of the city to her daughter, but then the Great Smog drives her out of London. Charlie takes her and Wynnie to his mother’s country home in the Lake District, and there Clara ends up finding out far more than she had expected.

The Story She Left Behind is a novel about family, about buried secrets and self-perception. It’s a mystery and romance. The settings are beautifully rendered; I felt such comfort easing into the lovely South Carolina scenery as well as the Lake District countryside. Because the character of Bronwyn was so enamored of the unseen world and left behind the idea of connecting to the fairies and nature, it informs the whole book and lends it an enchanted touch. I savored the story, the places, the people, the light mystery, and the romance.

An interesting note is that Henry based it on the true story of an author much like Fordham, whose disappearance was never solved. Here, she solves it for us in a satisfying way.

In 1927, under mysterious circumstances, a young mother flees her home, leaving behind a manuscript, a husband, and a now motherless little girl. The Story She Left Behind by Patti Callahan Henry weaves together the tale of Bronwyn Newcastle Fordham (the mom, who was a world-famous author), Clara Harrington (the now grown daughter with a young daughter of her own), and Charlie Jameson (a man dealing with the recent loss of his father). When Charlie places an overseas call to Clara in South Carolina, letting her know his father has left behind some papers with her name on them — apparently from her missing mother — Clara has new hope for understanding what happened to her mother. She travels to London with her young asthmatic daughter to retrieve the papers. Events conspire to keep the pair in England longer than anticipated, leading to more unexplained coincidences and Clara seeking answers to the unsolved mystery she refuses to leave behind.

If you enjoy historical mystery with a strong female lead and a bit of romance, this book is for you. It’s also a wonderful family-centered, women’s fiction drama. This lyrical novel takes place in the first half of the 20th Century. I loved that it was not war-centered, as so many seem to be these days. Patti Callahan Henry, a fabulous storyteller and one of my favorite authors, has created another lovely tale, following on the heels of 2023’s The Secret Book of Flora Lea.

The audiobook is a narrative duet between Theo Solomon and my favorite female narrator, Julia Whalen, so that is worth checking out if you prefer audiobooks.

Thank you to NetGalleyand Atria Books for the ARC. All opinions are my own.

Thank you NetGalley for an advanced copy. This book took me over a month to get through. I put it down to read other books and picked it up in between. Why did I keep reading it? There was enough intrigue to see what happened to Clara's mom and the sequel to her book. It was cool that this was lightly based on a true story but it was very slow and uninteresting to me.

I read this author's debut and enjoyed it enough that I was looking forward to seeing what they were coming out with next. Unfortunately, I didn't love this one as much. It was just okay for me.

Thanks to the publisher for the gifted copy.

Patti Callahan Henry truly has a way of sucking me into a story and holding me there until the very last page. I absolutely loved everything about this book. The fact that it was based on a real person, the mystery surrounding the disappearance of Bronwyn, the characters, the setting - it was all just perfection. This book encompasses so many genres seamlessly as it tells the story of Clara and Wynnie, and Bronwyn.

The mystery surrounding the disappearance of Bronwyn, Clara's mom and a child prodigy author, is the main focus of the book. She disappeared when Clara was 8, but Clara has never given up hope in finding her. Clara receives a strange call from Charlie in London, saying he found her mom's satchel and a letter to Clara within his father's things. Clara and her daughter Wynnie go to London to collect these items, and end up at Charlie's family's country house due to the Great Smog that is endangering Wynnie's health. Once there, Clara and Wynnie feel strangely at home, and Clara finds answers to her questions.

This book has it all - mystery, love, family, friendship, and history wrapped up in a beautifully written story.

I absolutely love this historical fiction author—she’s one of my all-time favorites, and I’ll read anything she writes. As always, the cover is stunning and immediately drew me in. I picked up the audiobook through my library app to read alongside my ARC, and was thrilled to discover that Julia Whelan was one of the narrators. She’s a favorite of mine, and—as expected—she delivered a fantastic performance. Theo Solomon was equally compelling. I highly recommend the audiobook experience for this story.

What I loved most is that this fictional narrative is rooted in real-life events and historical context. The writing is beautiful and immersive, with vivid prose that pulled me in. While the beginning started off a bit slow, once Clara and her daughter Wynnie traveled to England, I was completely invested. The pacing picked up, and the mystery surrounding Clara’s mother and her disappearance became utterly captivating. I found myself searching for clues and forming theories—my hunch ended up being correct, so the big reveal didn’t surprise me, but the journey there was still thoroughly engaging.

The novel explores powerful themes such as grief, loss, abandonment, forgiveness, trust, belonging, and the complex bonds of family. These emotional layers gave the story real depth, and I found myself reflecting on them long after I finished.

The budding romance subplot added a tender touch and offered some lightness to balance the heavier moments. It’s a sweet, closed-door romance with no explicit scenes and minimal language—perfect for those who prefer a gentler approach to love stories. I also appreciated the thoughtful portrayal of family dynamics throughout the novel.

Some scenes played out so vividly, they felt cinematic—especially the one where Clara and Wynnie get caught in the thick fog that engulfed London. I felt like I was right there with them. I only had a basic knowledge of the Great Smog of the 1950s from watching The Crown on Netflix, so it was fascinating to see that real event reimagined through the lens of fictional characters. It added a layer of realism and historical weight that made the story even more compelling.

There are some truly beautiful, poignant messages woven into this book. I’d love to own a physical copy just so I can revisit and highlight my favorite passages. This was an engaging, moving, and thought-provoking read, and I loved going on this journey with these characters.

Highly recommend!!

Thank you to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this advanced copy in exchange for an honest review. These are my own thoughts and opinions.

I feel a bit indifferent about this book. It’s good, but I do not think it will be one I remember or talk about much.

The book is set in 1952 and tells the story of Clara, whose mother (the author of a famous children’s book) disappeared when she was a child. Clara receives a phone call from a man in London who has found papers and a letter that he claims are from her mother, so Clara and her daughter travel to England to unravel the mystery of what happened to her mother.

The set up of the story is great. I really enjoyed the first half of the book and the mystery behind her mother’s story. The writing is very atmospheric with a good amount of description. Unfortunately, the second half of the book just did not live up to my expectations. I was a bit disappointed in the resolution, and I felt the romance element was rushed and unnecessary.

I do think this is a book that will appeal to many readers, especially those that like this author’s writing style.

*Thank you to @atriabooks and @netgalley for providing me an advanced copy in exchange for my honest review.

Patti Henry tells us an intriguing story of a young woman who disappears. It is based on true events. Henry's main character is her daughter and she has been troubled by her mother's disappearance when she was a young child for years. Feeling abandoned and neglected even with a loving father she and her own daughter follow clues to England where an unsuspecting son is following the instructions in his father's will. The two lives intersect in present day to solve the mystery of what happened years ago. The author puts her own spin on the real story and it is a very good read. Thanks to #NetGalley#TheStorySheLeftBehind#PattiCallahanHenry for the opportunity to read and review this well-written story.

This book disappointed me since I enjoyed reading The Secret Book of Flora Lea. But this book fell flat for me. The characters were not interesting, the plot was slow and boring, and there really was not a secret language involved. Also, I enjoy books told in two timelines, and though this book is touted as being told in two timelines, it was not. The only time there was a second timeline involved was in the prologue. It was told in two voices, but those voices were in the same time period. I honestly had trouble finishing the book as it just did not grab my attention in any way. I did not find the characters interesting or believable, and the storyline dragged. I do thank NetGalley and Atria Books for the e-arc.

This was a lovely story. Clara is a children's book illustrator living alone with her daughter, Wynnie. One day, she receives a call from the UK that he is in possession of her mother's manuscript. Her mother was a international bestseller of a book she wrote as a young girl. When Clara was 8 years old, her mother disappeared and is presumed dead. She sails to London with her daughter to find out more about her mother's writing.
I enjoyed the story, it's beautifully written and engaging, however the characters were somehow unbelievable, and frustrating. My pet peeve is children that act beyond their age, and speak like adults - really creepy!

Patti Callahan Henry has really hit it out of the park this time with The Story She Left Behind! I was swept into the story from the get go and didn't want it to end but I couldn't put it down. I love a novel where the setting is as much of a character in the story as any of the actual characters, and I wanted to move into this novel I loved the settings so much, Officially now my favorite of her books I've read.