Most of us love a good story and have some story tellers that become our favorites. Patti Callahan Henry is one of those for me so I preordered her newest book, The Story She Left Behind, and it took me on a wondrous adventure that I could hardly put down.

In the beginning we meet Clara Harrington who lives in Bluffton, South Carolina, with her father and daughter, Wynnie. Clara’s life focuses on illustrating children’s books and raising her daughter but it is shadowed by an event 25 years prior when her mother disappeared without a trace in 1927 when Clara was only 8. Wondering why she could have abandoned her after their relationship full of so much creativity and joy haunts her.

Her mother was a literary prodigy whose first novel was published when she was only 12 years old. That story featured a fantasy about a little girl named Emjie including words she created that filled the void for describing things the usual language was inadequate to supply. Her sequel was tucked away in a safe and unable to be translated from that unique language. 

Clara continually assures Wynnie she will never leave her as a result of her own trauma and the divorce of Wynnie’s dad due to a gambling addiction.

But one day in 1952 Clara’s phone rings from a man named Charlie Jameson from England. This stranger tells her that he has found a satchel in his father’s library after his recent death. He describes the satchel in detail and then adds a letter was attached to it addressed to Clara Harrington that is to be opened by no one except her. The envelope states she must come to England to get it and it is not to be mailed to her.

Clara initially suspects this is all a hoax. Many journalists and investigators have looked for her mother and called to offer clues that were always dead ends about her mother’s disappearance. But the detailed description of the satchel creates an uncertain twinge within her and she determines not to respond to this unusual call. She tells Charlie after he shares this information that she will need to call him back and hangs up the phone.

Could this be the answer she has been looking for? How could someone in England have a satchel that sounded like one she recalls her mother had? Why a note to her addressed as it was and how did it end up in Charlie Jameson’s father’s library and Charlie had never seen it nor heard his father speak of it?

Clara’s dad, a local physician, tells her to dismiss this stranger and what would likely only result in her disappointment and hurt but after a short time, Charlie Jameson calls again to try to resolve the matter and determine what to do about the satchel. He offers to pay for Clara’s passage on a ship to England along with her daughter. She says she cannot possibly accept but later the twinge inside nudges her to call him back, take what little savings she has and travel to England in the hopes the satchel may have a dictionary of her mother’s words she could use to publish the sequel. Perhaps she might even discover what happened to her mother.

Clara and Wynnie arrive in England during the Great Smog (also known as the Great Smoke) swallowing London in a combination of coal smoke, cold weather, and an anticyclone air pattern creating a toxic soup of air that creates significant issues for Wynnie’s asthma.

As the adventure in England begins, it offers enticing twists and turns for the reader that looks at not only the mystery of Clara’s mother’s disappearance but also family legacy, love, and forgiveness.

This novel of Patti Callahan Henry’s will not disappoint and quickly draw you into the story and the story hidden within the story with suspense, adventure, mystery and make-believe.