Read Where I Lost Her Online

Authors: T. Greenwood

Where I Lost Her (28 page)

Acknowledgments
First, with enormous love and gratitude to Tricia and Scott for opening your big, big hearts and for your trust. This story would not be the same without
your
story. Thanks to Neal Griffin for your insight and expertise: for making my cops say the right things and my bad guys sound real instead of like some 1920s zoot suit–wearing gangsters. To my early readers—Jillian Cantor and Amy Hatvany for your willingness to read sloppy drafts and offer your sage advice. To my editor, Peter Senftleben, and the rest of the Kensington team who continue to turn my stories into beautiful books. To my agent, Henry Dunow, for your bottomless well of encouragement and support. To my family for being crazy and funny and always the softest place to fall. Lastly, to Patrick, who has been my biggest fan for more than two decades, and to my girls, Mikaela and Esmée, the real Mermaids of Gormlaith.
A READING GROUP GUIDE
Where I Lost Her
 
 
T. Greenwood
 
 
The following discussion questions are included to enhance your group's reading of
Where I Lost Her.
Discussion Questions
1.
From the moment Tess finds the little girl in the road, people doubt her. Do you? Is she an unreliable narrator? Why or why not?
2.
Discuss how Tess and Jake differ in how they handle the loss of Esperanza.
3.
Why do you think it is so important to Tess that she find the little girl? What do you think would have happened if she wasn't able to find her?
4.
Effie has been Tess's best friend since childhood. Discuss the evolution of their friendship. Do you have a friend like Effie?
5.
The Vermont setting is, on the surface, the same pristine and beautiful place Tess has always loved, but underlying this beauty is something more sinister. How is this a metaphor for other areas of Tess's life? Are there any places that you have loved that have changed in this way?
6.
Discuss the different mothers in this story: Effie, Tess, Karina Rogers.
7.
Tess repeatedly puts herself at risk in her investigation; would you do the same? How would you have reacted if you had come across a child in the middle of the road in the middle of the night? Do you agree with all of the decisions Tess made trying to find the girl?
8.
Tess wonders while searching for the girl, “I don't know which is worse: thinking that she is alone out here in the woods or that she isn't.” Which do you think is worse? Why?
9.
The psychic's advice resonates throughout the whole story. Tess is skeptical at first, but then later seeks her help. Do you believe in psychics?
10.
Effie thinks she has lost Plum in this novel; do you think that this will affect the way she parents her daughters in the future?
11.
This book is about a lot of different losses: the loss of a child, the loss of a marriage, the loss of a dream. Discuss the losses you have experienced. How have they been tempered by the things you've recovered or found?
12.
How do you think Tess's experiences with adoption and Esperanza affected her reaction regarding the little girl? Do you think she would have been so tireless if she hadn't gone through that ordeal?
13.
Discuss the police response to Tess's claims. Do you think they gave up too easily, or that they already put in more effort than they should have?
14.
Reread the portion of Yeats's “Stolen Child” at the beginning of
Where I Lost Her
and talk about how it relates to the story and themes of the novel.
15.
Did you notice that the fairy Tess tells Plum and Zu-Zu lives in the forest is also named Star? Talk about the similarities between the little girl and the fairytale Tess created.
16.
At one point, Tess argues that she's not the one who fell in love with someone else, and Jake counters that she did. Do you think she's just as much to blame for their marriage problems as he is? Do you think she cheated on him, in a way? Or do you feel that Jake's infidelity is the cause of their ultimate split? Discuss the devolution of their marriage and how it pertains to Tess's search for the girl.
Have you read all of T. Greenwood's critically acclaimed novels?
Available in trade paperback and as e-books.
THE FOREVER BRIDGE
With eloquent prose and lush imagery, T. Greenwood creates a heartfelt story of reconciliation and forgiveness, and of the deep, often unexpected connections that can bring you home.
Sylvie can hardly bear to remember how normal her family was two years ago. All of that changed on the night an oncoming vehicle forced their car over the edge of a covered bridge into the river. With horrible swiftness, Sylvie's young son was gone, her husband lost his legs, and she was left with shattering blame and grief.
Eleven-year-old Ruby misses her little brother too. But she also misses the mother who has become a recluse in their old home while Ruby and her dad try to piece themselves back together. Amid all the uncertainty in her life, Ruby becomes obsessed with bridges, drawing inspiration from the strength and purpose that underlies their grace. During one momentous week, as Hurricane Irene bears down on their small Vermont town and a pregnant teenager with a devastating secret gradually draws Sylvie back into the world, Ruby and her mother will have a chance to span the gap between them again.
BODIES OF WATER
In 1960, Billie Valentine is a young housewife living in a sleepy Massachusetts suburb, treading water in a dull marriage and caring for two adopted daughters. Summers spent with the girls at their lakeside camp in Vermont are her one escape—from her husband's demands, from days consumed by household drudgery, and from the nagging suspicion that life was supposed to hold something different.
Then a new family moves in across the street. Ted and Eva Wilson have three children and a fourth on the way, and their arrival reignites long-buried feelings in Billie. The affair that follows offers a solace Billie has never known, until her secret is revealed and both families are wrenched apart in the tragic aftermath.
Fifty years later, Ted and Eva's son, Johnny, contacts an elderly but still spry Billie, entreating her to return east to meet with him. Once there, Billie finally learns the surprising truth about what was lost, and what still remains, of those joyful, momentous summers.
In this deeply tender novel, T. Greenwood weaves deftly between the past and present to create a poignant and wonderfully moving story of friendship, the resonance of memories, and the love that keeps us afloat.
BREATHING WATER
Three years after leaving Lake Gormlaith, Vermont, Effie Greer is coming home. The unspoiled lake, surrounded by dense woods and patches of wild blueberries, is the place where she spent idyllic childhood summers at her grandparents' cottage. And it's where Effie's tempestuous relationship with her college boyfriend, Max, culminated in a tragedy she can never forget.
Effie had hoped to save Max from his troubled past, and in the process became his victim. Since then, she's wandered from one city to another, living like a fugitive. But now Max is gone, and as Effie paints and restores the ramshackle cottage, she forms new bonds—with an old school friend, with her widowed grandmother, and with Devin, an artist and carpenter summering nearby. Slowly, she's discovering a resilience and tenderness she didn't know she possessed, and—buoyed by the lake's cool, forgiving waters—she may even learn to save herself.
Wrenching yet ultimately uplifting, here is a novel of survival, hope, and absolution, from a writer of extraordinary insight and depth.
GRACE
T. Greenwood's extraordinary novels deftly combine lyrical prose with heartrending subject matter. Now she explores one year in a family poised to implode, and the imperfect love that may be its only salvation.
 
Every family photograph hides a story. Some are suffused with warmth and joy, others reflect the dull ache of disappointed dreams. For thirteen-year-old Trevor Kennedy, taking photos helps make sense of his fractured world. His father, Kurt, struggles to keep a business going while also caring for Trevor's aging grandfather, whose hoarding has reached dangerous levels. Trevor's mother, Elsbeth, all but ignores her son while doting on his five-year-old sister, Gracy, and pilfering useless drugstore items.
Trevor knows he can count on little Gracy's unconditional love and his art teacher's encouragement. None of that compensates for the bullying he has endured at school for as long as he can remember. But where Trevor once silently tolerated the jabs and name-calling, now anger surges through him in ways he's powerless to control.
Only Crystal, a store clerk dealing with her own loss, sees the deep fissures in the Kennedy family—in the haunting photographs Trevor brings to be developed, and in the palpable distance between Elsbeth and her son. And as their lives become more intertwined, each will be pushed to the breaking point, with shattering, unforeseeable consequences.
NEARER THAN THE SKY
In this mesmerizing novel, T. Greenwood draws readers into the
fascinating and frightening world of Munchausen syndrome by
proxy—and into one woman's search for healing.
 
When Indie Brown was four years old, she was struck by lightning. In the oft-told version of the story, Indie's life was heroically saved by her mother. But Indie's own recollection of the event, while hazy, is very different.
Most of Indie's childhood memories are like this—tinged with vague, unsettling images and suspicions. Her mother, Judy, fussed over her pretty youngest daughter, Lily, as much as she ignored Indie. That neglect, coupled with the death of her beloved older brother, is the reason Indie now lives far away in rural Maine. It's why her relationship with Lily is filled with tension, and why she dreads the thought of flying back to Arizona. But she has no choice. Judy is gravely ill, and Lily, struggling with a challenge of her own, needs her help.
In Arizona, faced with Lily's hysteria and their mother's instability, Indie slowly begins to confront the truth about her half-remembered past and the legacy that still haunts her family. And as she revisits her childhood, with its nightmares and lost innocence, she finds she must reevaluate the choices of her adulthood—including her most precious relationships.
THIS GLITTERING WORLD
Acclaimed author T. Greenwood crafts a moving, lyrical story
of loss, atonement, and promises kept.
 
One November morning, Ben Bailey walks out of his Flagstaff, Arizona, home to retrieve the paper. Instead, he finds Ricky Begay, a young Navajo man, beaten and dying in the newly fallen snow.
Unable to forget the incident, especially once he meets Ricky's sister, Shadi, Ben begins to question everything, from his job as a part-time history professor to his fiancée, Sara. When Ben first met Sara, he was mesmerized by her optimism and easy confidence. These days, their relationship only reinforces a loneliness that stretches back to his fractured childhood.
Ben decides to discover the truth about Ricky's death, both for Shadi's sake and in hopes of filling in the cracks in his own life. Yet the answers leave him torn—between responsibility and happiness, between his once-certain future and the choices that could liberate him from a delicate web of lies he has spun.
UNDRESSING THE MOON
Dark and compassionate, graceful yet raw,
Undressing the Moon
explores the seams between childhood and adulthood,
between love and loss....
 
At thirty, Piper Kincaid feels too young to be dying. Cancer has eaten away her strength; she'd be alone but for a childhood friend who's come home by chance. Yet with all the questions of her future before her, she's adrift in the past, remembering the fateful summer she turned fourteen and her life changed forever.
Her nervous father's job search seemed stalled for good as he hung around the house watching her mother's every move. What he and Piper had both dreaded at last came to pass: Her restless, artistic mother, who smelled of lilacs and showed Piper beauty, finally left.
With no one to rely on, Piper struggled to hold on to what was important. She had a brother who loved her and a teacher enthralled with her potential. But her mother's absence, her father's distance, and a volatile secret threatened her delicate balance.
Now Piper is once again left with the jagged pieces of a shattered life. If she is ever going to put herself back together, she'll have to begin with the summer that broke them all....
THE HUNGRY SEASON
It's been five years since the Mason family vacationed at the lakeside cottage in northeastern Vermont, close to where prizewinning novelist Samuel Mason grew up. The summers that Sam, his wife, Mena, and their twins, Franny and Finn, spent at Lake Gormlaith were noisy, chaotic, and nearly perfect. But since Franny's death, the Masons have been flailing, one step away from falling apart. Lake Gormlaith is Sam's last, best hope of rescuing his son from a destructive path and salvaging what's left of his family.
As Sam struggles with grief, writer's block, and a looming deadline, Mena tries to repair the marital bond she once thought was unbreakable. But even in this secluded place, the unexpected—in the form of an overzealous fan, a surprising friendship, and a second chance—can change everything.
From the acclaimed author of
Two Rivers
comes a compelling and beautifully told story of hope, family, and above all, hunger—for food, sex, love, and success—and for a way back to wholeness when a part of oneself has been lost forever.

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