In 1967 Patience Bickersleigh is a teenager who discovers a talent for telling people what they want to hear. Fifty years later she is Patrice Leigh, a nationally celebrated medium. But cracks are forming in the carefully constructed barriers that keep her real history at bay. Leo is the journalist hired to write Patrice’s biography. Struggling to reconcile the demands of his family, his grief … grief for his lost son, and his need to understand his own background, Leo becomes more and more frustrated at Patrice’s refusal to open up.
Because behind closed doors, Patrice is hiding more than one secret. And it seems that now, her past is finally catching up with her.
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Patrice Leigh – insightful medium and gifted spiritualist who can indeed make contact with those who have passed over into the spirit world? Or deceitful fraud who has made a tainted fortune out of offering false hope to the grieving relatives of the deceased?
Once plain Patience Bickersleigh, the daughter of Methodist parents whose grand ambition for their only child was to send her to secretarial college, Patrice grew up, turned her life around, became gratifyingly wealthy and, as she approached old age, she certainly didn’t want anyone rocking any boats. So why does she allow a journalist to start interviewing her about her life for an authorised biography? As Leo starts rummaging around in Patrice’s past, surely he’s bound to come up with some contentious material and raise some ghosts Patrice would hope she has buried or laid to rest long ago?
Leo’s son Olly went missing on a camping adventure in New Zealand and is presumed dead. But Leo can’t quite give up hope that Olly somehow survived. Or is Olly dead and, if so, maybe Patrice can get in touch with him?
Louise comes to one of Patrice’s public performances hoping that Patrice will be able to contact the spirit of her son Kyle, who was brutally stabbed to death in a brawl outside a nightclub. When Leo and Louise meet, their shared grief and desperation pulls them together. But will these two wounded souls start to heal each other or will they do themselves even more harm?
Alison’s writing is lucid, fluent and sincere. She has a talent for getting inside the heads of her characters, encouraging the reader to empathise with them, however badly or irresponsibly they behave. Of course, we’re not all trying to convince each other (or ourselves) that it’s possible to contact people on the other side, but most of us tell ourselves stories and decide how we’re going to present ourselves to the world. We deal with grief and suffering in different ways, and the novel suggests how we might be able to move on, even after experiencing the most catastrophic loss of all: the death of a beloved child.
This story makes the point that some kind of redemption and renewal is often possible, even after a great tragedy. It offers us all hope for the future, whether we’re believers in the afterlife or not.
All That Was Lost is an exploration of loss and grief and the lies that we have to tell ourselves to get through the days afterwards. There is a running theme of untruths – Patience learns to lie and slowly discovers about the lies that keep wheels turning in her family, Patrice’s whole life is a lie, Leo lies in tiny ways at first, Louise’s life revolves around the untrue belief. Running alongside is the thread about loss.
The characters are vividly drawn and their grief, and in one case, mental illness, is described so realistically that at one point I was practically shouting at Louise not to misinterpret something. Alison May captures the stifling nature of being an adolescent in a northern sea side town perfectly.
This book is very different to Alison May’s other novels. It’s not a romance. Whilst it’s not a jolly book, but it is deeply moving. It was compelling enough to keep me reading until 2 o’clock in the morning. I really enjoyed it.
Patrice Leigh also once known as Patience, had lived her life touching and helping people needing to “hear and to “know” their loved ones were “OK”. She had a Gift.
Yet, her own life was one of regrets and sadness. As time goes on, these memories resurface. Secrets from years ago begin to interfere with what was once well hidden. The walls begin to crumble.
A wonderfully written heartfelt novel that kept me engaged.
It displayed heartache from those who had lost their loved ones and the desperate need to reconnect with those souls.
I enjoyed the way in which the plot unfolds and the chapters go between Patience’s early years to the present days.
A beautiful and compelling story that delves into what is real, what we are willing to believe and the power of grief.