About This Book
A Nebraska tornado swept away their mother when Leni was nine and her sister Amelia was twelve. Though bound together by tragedy, the sisters grow apart—Leni wrapping herself in silence and solitude while Amelia craves the chaos of a large, close-knit family. Following their different paths, Leni becomes a librarian and Amelia marries into the large family she always wanted. Concerned with her sister's narrow small-town life, Amelia insists that Leni join her husband's family at their New Hampshire lake house for a massive Fourth of July reunion. Over the long weekend, a stifling heat wave settles over the house and simmering resentments—between the sisters, between husbands and wives, between mothers and daughters—boil over, on the beach and in the kitchen and behind closed doors. As a tornado-like storm rolls in over the lake, devastating secrets are revealed, leaving no one unscathed. "Elizabeth Barrett has successfully created what many writers find too daunting: an extended-family lakeside holiday. Her intelligent and compassionate insights into the complex feelings about pregnancy among several women ripple among spouses, relatives, and in-laws, finally becoming a full-blown storm. Lost Mothers is a page-turner well worth reading." - Martha Barron Barrett, author of Slow Travel
