Every secret has its price. Anna Clark and Lia Clay were unlikely best friends in high school, but their yin-and-yang personalities drew them together in a sister-like bond. Then during college, Lia inexplicably walked out on their friendship and disappeared, leaving Anna hurt, confused, and disillusioned. Twenty years later, Anna discovers a letter Lia wrote the summer after high school—a letter … wrote the summer after high school—a letter that contains a cryptic postscript concealing a devastating truth. With her twenty-year high school reunion approaching, Anna moves closer to uncovering the secret in Lia’s letter and the devastating consequences it set in motion.
As the layers of deceit and betrayal begin to unravel, Anna is forced to question everything she believes and come to terms with what it means to forgive the one person who hurt her in the worst way imaginable.
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Anna and Lia are best friends in high school until Lia leaves severing their bond. What’s left in its wake is a young girl who is hurt and left wondering what happened. It take their high school reunion some twenty five years later for Anna to get closure and with it comes a tale that is shocking. This story will have your emotions all over the place and will have you all caught up in the story. I voluntarily agreed to receive an ARC of this book for an honest review.
Anna and Lia were best friends in high school when suddenly Lia walks out of their friendship suddenly without any explanation, except for a cryptic letter with some hidden message about why she had to leave so suddenly.
Now, Anna is happily married to Jack, her high school sweetheart, and has three daughters. Still thinking of her best friend Lia she wonders if she will connect with her in their upcoming twenty-year high school reunion.
Meeting Lia sets in motion the discovery of the truth behind what happened twenty years ago in a most shocking deceit and betrayal stories I have read.
Wow this story was a ride, and Leimkuhler certainly knew how to deliver a family drama story with a punch, with a jaw dropping delivery of a twist so shocking my mouth is still open. This was a great read I enjoyed in one afternoon. Fair warning – hard to put down, and will make you turn those pages until you get to the shocking revelation.
Thanks for the wild ride Sherri!
A thought-provoking story of friendship, betrayal, and ultimately, forgiveness, WHAT’S LEFT UNTOLD spans thirty years in the lives of two inseparable friends who have become tragically estranged. What led to the end of their friendship? Should the secrets that are revealed be disclosed or kept hidden forever? And who has the right to make that determination? There are no easy answers here. This is a memorable story worthy of reader thought and discussion—a great option for book clubs.
I am sitting here wondering how to review this book because while I didn’t agree with the outcome, this is a really good book. Anna and Lia were best friends in high school until Lia abruptly leaves. Anna doesn’t know what happened until they meet again at their high school reunion twenty years later. This is when they rekindle their friendship until Lia’s secret comes to light. Anna is horrified by what Lia has kept from her. What a tangled web of deception! This book is so well written and you will be enthralled and bewildered. The characters are finely tuned and believable. Filled with angst, heartache, love and secrets this book will leave you wondering, “what would I do?” The tension mounts throughout this book. It made me feel angry, sad, and yes, bewildered. All in all this is a fantastic book with a very powerful ending. I recommend it because it will really make you wonder how you would handle this secret.
I’m so thrilled to be a tour stop for Suzy Approved Book Tours and What’s Left Untold, Sherri Leimkuhler’s debut novel, a novel about female friendship and what it means to truly be a friend. While I was reading What’s Left Untold, I was reminded of conversations that I’ve had with my own friends, either back in high school and college like Anna and Lia, or my mature female friendships like Anna and Faith. Sherri does a masterful job of capturing the absolute joy of finding a friend that truly understands you, that you share common interests with, that shares your joy and your pain, and is brutally honest with you when you need it most.
Congratulations to Sherri Leimkuhler for achieving that rare quality in a debut, the one that makes you feel, makes you remember, makes you pick up the phone and call or text your best girls, just to tell them you love and appreciate them
WOW! Sherri Leimkuhler, author of “What’s Left Untold” has written a suspenseful, intriguing, captivating, compelling, and thought-provoking novel. The genres for this novel are Literary Fiction, Suspense, and Women’s Fiction. The story is set in the present and in the past, where it pertains to the characters and events in the story. The author describes her characters as complex and complicated. This is a story about family, friendship, betrayal, loyalty, forgiveness, love, and hope.
Anna Clark is a loving wife and mother of three daughters and would love to have a son. Unfortunately, it just doesn’t seem to be in the cards to have any more children for Anna and Jack, who were high-school sweethearts. Often Anna misses her best friend Lia Clay, who just left one day. She finds a note that Lia had given her years ago that there was something important she had to tell Anna before she disappeared. Somehow as hard as Anna has tried to move on, Lia is always on her mind.
Anna does go to a therapist, and tries to make friends, and does things she likes. Anna is ambivalent about a 20-year school reunion that is coming up. She wants to see Lia and is afraid to see Lia. The question of why Lia left suddenly, with no explanation has Anna very upset.
There are deep dark secrets and betrayals, twists and turns, that make this a very edgy and suspenseful story. I would highly recommend this thought-provoking and riveting story.
This book was too long!! I figured out the storyline right away. The author used way too many words to describe situations and thoughts. Nothing that the characters went through rang true or were actually believable most of the time. There was way too much descriptive “prose”. I just cannot recommend this book.
Kinda slow moving we meet a character and they go away.
The title is very appropriate for this book. This story had a twist I didn’t see coming. It was well written and plausible. So my 3 stars may be underselling it, but it just wasn’t my kind of story. We all have preferences and this wasn’t mine.
Quite early in the book I knew where it was going but the twist in relationships was too much for me.
Too graphic and too much unnecessary bad language.
The main character is a little hard to like. Her head-space language is whiny. She definitely has trust issues and confidence issues which I find exhausting but I understand that there are usually reasons why people are the way they are. I saw the ending twist coming a long way out so that was disappointing.
ridiculous ending. absolutely did not fit with the characters history. the story was written with basically decent characters, responsible parents. how the story played out with the oldest daughter and son/step-son was actually disgusting. I cannot imagine one mother in the entire world not disclosing what she knew IMMEDIATLY. ruined the entire story.
Boring, kept reading thinking it would get better, but it got worse. An awful book in so many ways, particularly, the ending.