Before She Was Helen: A Novel (Unabridged)
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3.5 • 4 Ratings
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
Her life didn't turn out the way she expected―so she made herself a new one
When Clemmie goes next door to check on her difficult and unlikeable neighbor Dom, he isn't there. But something else is. Something stunning, beautiful and inexplicable. Clemmie photographs the wondrous object on her cell phone and makes the irrevocable error of forwarding it. As the picture swirls over the internet, Clemmie tries desperately to keep a grip on her own personal network of secrets. Can fifty years of careful hiding under names not her own be ruined by one careless picture?
And although what Clemmie finds is a work of art, what the police find is a body. . . in a place where Clemmie wasn't supposed to be, and where she left her fingerprints. Suddenly, the bland, quiet life Clemmie has built for herself in her sleepy South Carolina retirement community comes crashing down as her dark past surges into the present.
From international bestselling author of The Face on the Milk Carton Caroline B. Cooney comes Before She Was Helen, an absorbing mystery that brings decades-old secrets to life and explores what happens when the lie you've been living falls apart and you're forced to confront the truth.
Customer Reviews
It ends well at least...
I usually enjoy mindless whodoneit stories, but this one was disappointing. The good: I enjoyed the senior citizen characters, and I enjoyed the changing from current day to reflective memories to unfold the multi layered story. Now the bad: you have to completely suspend disbelief (partial spoiler alert) because the dark past details rape and stalking that persists, again and again, because the victim never tells or tries to get help, and rationale is because in the 1950s, everyone had to keep up good appearances, everyone trusted everyone (e.g. parents willingly share the dorm room location, and later the address of their unmarried daughter with a much older man ??) And it just keeps happening??? My mother grew up in the 50s and no way would her parents have acted like those in this story. The author overuses these themes throughout... if appearances are more important than your personal safety... that’s unbelievable!