Without Saying Goodbye
A Novel
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4.0 • 6 Ratings
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
"Heartfelt, thrilling, and emotionally complex, this is the author’s best work yet." —Publishers Weekly, STARRED review
Two women will do whatever it takes to protect their own – no matter the cost to anyone else.
Cerys leaves her life behind in a fiery wreck. Lily slips away from hers early one morning, silent as a shadow. Both are mothers. And both are desperate.
When the two women are thrown into each other’s paths, they strike a tentative bond. Cerys is a mother with no children to care for anymore, and Lily is doing all she can to take care of a four-year-old on her own. But each keep secrets from the beginning—the scars, the loneliness, and, most importantly, who they actually are. They need to work together to survive, but how can they trust each other? Because everybody knows: the longer a secret is kept, the worse its consequences will be when the truth comes out.
As the past catches up with them in the form of a deranged father with a shotgun, Lily especially finds herself backed into a corner. But mothers will do what they must to protect their children, no matter who else gets hurt along the way.
A deeply emotional and complex thriller that explores motherhood, love and the desperate need to protect it... at any cost.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
At the start of this memorable thriller from Jarratt (Two Little Girls), 53-year-old Cerys, brokenhearted by her empty nest and emotionally distant husband, drives to the Welsh countryside where she lived as a child. After a suicide attempt, she meets Lily, a frazzled young woman scrambling to take care of her four-year-old son, Sammy. Lily says she and Sammy are in town on an impromptu holiday, but Cerys suspects there's more to their story. Soon, Cerys finds work as a housekeeper for a feisty widow and moves into her guest cottage with Lily and Sammy, forming a makeshift family unit. Meanwhile, Lily's abusive husband vows to find Lily and "make her regret every last second she'd made him suffer," and Cerys tries valiantly to keep the younger woman safe. Jarratt's lyrical descriptions of Wales ("The gray Irish Sea lay ahead, white horses riding the choppy waves") complement the propulsive plot, which culminates in an explosive confrontation. Heartfelt, thrilling, and emotionally complex, this is the author's best work yet.
