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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Leimkuhler’s captivating, suspenseful dual time-line debut kept me glued to the page. Her well-developed complex characters drew me in to the point of yelling at them, encouraging them to be honest, as if I knew them personally. It made me question each characters’ motives and wonder who was actually right. Your going to want to talk about Anna and Lia, the complexities of female friendships and marriage, as well as ponder whether secrets are actually lies – and what is the best action to take – reveal or keep silent.
The reviews I’ve read say What’s Left Untold is filled with plot twists the reader never sees coming. I wondered about that. There’s nothing I like more than finding the twists before I’m supposed to. So I read this book searching them out. I watched every direction this story led me wanting to outsmart the author. I failed.
You never see it coming!
What’s Left Untold is written beautifully by debut author Sherri Leimkuhler. It is fast-paced; her words glide across the page; her characters are human and flawed. The secrets are mind-bending. And when you race to the last page, because you simply cannot turn the pages fast enough to find out what happens next, you are left with one thought: what would you have done?
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A perfect book club pick with lots to discuss! What’s Left Untold is a fabulous debut novel. I can’t wait to read what Sherri writes next!
The story of Anna and Lia is one that many people can relate to until the plot twists. The remainder of the book is controversial and may not be to everyones liking.
I loved this book. The characters and story interesting with many unexpected turns. I even stayed up until the early morning hours to finish it because I couldn’t put it down!
What truths are best left untold and who gets to decide? Leimkuhler is a marvel in this shocking debut about friends and the secrets that bind them. I read the last 10% with my jaw on the floor!
Two girls with totally opposite personalities, Anna and Lia, find an unlikely friendship in high school, one that survives even their interest in the same boys. They have a falling out in college—and Lia walks out of Anna’s life without further word. That event reverberates through their lives, with each wondering what happened to the other. Twenty years later, Anna finds a letter she’d tucked away in a book. In it, Lia writes an enigmatic post-script asking Anna to meet her, but Anna fails to keep the rendezvous.
At their twenty-year high school reunion, the two women reconcile and begin to make amends to each other for past hurts. As breaches of trust and misrepresentations unravel and the final truth is revealed, earth-shattering events are set in motion that resound through their families. Anna, forced to question everything she believes, has to forgive the one person who hurt her in the worst conceivable way.
What’s Left Untold is women’s fiction in the best sense—women’s foibles and egos working both for and against them. Also, this book deals with a taboo topic, one I can’t reveal without spoiling the plot. But Ms. Leimkuhler handles the forbidden behavior deftly, blending fact with social, religious, cultural attitudes, legal ramifications, and sanctions against what many deem a sin. I’d love to see a sequel to this book in which the consequences of this taboo further play out.
Friends have secrets and sometimes those secrets change lives forever. This debut novel by Sherri Leimkuhler describes a turbulent friendship between two teenagers and the important secret one friend keeps from the other friend until they are reunited years later. Well written and thought provoking it is a great read, especially for book club discussions. I appreciated that both women had character flaws that contributed to the consequences they faced. The ending was surprising, leaving me wondering what I would have done in the same situation as the main character, Anna, and just what I would have left untold.
well written story about best friends who have a falling out that lasts for 20 years. Mainly it’s about Anna the main character who seems very self absorbed, this is a look into the mind of Anna who spends alot of time feeling sorry for herself, but thinking she’s worrying about her husband or children. Her thyrepist and dear friend is sick and dying slowly, but she doesn’t seem to notice. I have trouble relating to this type of woman & it seems they’re being written about a lot lately
Could not predict the turns and twists of this story and how this story ends. It brought out strong emotions in me.
Difficult subject but interesting and informative.
Really enjoyed the characters
Awesome book. Read it in one sitting.
Sherri Leimkuhler’s What’s Left Untold is a grand, sweeping saga about the evolution of family and friendship—how best friends can break our hearts, make us angry, crazy, and sad, and carry us through good times and bad. Leimkuhler’s plot twists and turns will keep readers glued to the page!
Leimkuhler’s authentic prose puts you inside Anna’s head and heart as she unravels the secrets of a childhood friendship that threatens not only her own mental health, but also her marriage and her daughter’s happiness. What’s Left Untold is a heartfelt and surprising examination of friendship, honesty, and whether ‘love is love.’
My Review of What’s Left Untold by Sherri Leimkuhler; published by Red Adept Publishing, LLC
(4.5 )
I had to step back and reflect on this story for a while due to personal experiences. With that being said, Sherri Leimkuhler wrote an exemplary debut novel covering topics that are difficult at best. Secrets, lies, betrayals, and deception are all encapsulated in What’s Left Untold. How far would you go to protect the ones you love? Sherri will have you pondering this question long after you’ve read her book. There’s several twists and turns you will face as you are embarking on Anna’s journey. Some of which will leave you gawking at what you just read. Although this book is centered around the bonds of friendship, Sherri brings forth a few powerful topics worthy of book club discussions. I highly recommend What’s Left Untold by Sherri Leimkuhler.
#redadeptpublishing
Sherri Gladwell Leimkuhler
This novel covers ten years, from February 2006 to May 2016, with the main character, Anna Wells, at the beginning age 34. She has a handsome husband who is totally in love with her. He is her “best friend, her soulmate.” And yet Anna yearns for a close woman friend, feeling that gives her something else she needs. She had found one in high school—Lia (even though Lia had been unabashedly promiscuous), but after graduation she suddenly disappears, and Anna is angry about that. She finds another such woman friend in her therapist Faith. In the description of Anna’s relationship with Lia in high school and later, Faith, we see a Thelma-and-Louise-like definition of friendship between women, with lots of mouthwatering descriptions of food and drink and hilarity. We also begin to see the theme suggested in the title: Faith moves away and keeps a secret from Anna, and after Anna and Lia reconnect at a high school reunion, though Lia gives an explanation for the lost years, Anna senses Lia is still holding something back.
The novel picks up suspense and speed as the years pass and Anna at last learns the real story of Lia’s disappearance. In these later events, the novel probes most deeply the question of whether honesty is always best or whether it is sometimes better to have something “left untold.” The novel is a great read with interesting characters, increasing suspense, and a thought-provoking theme.
“What’s Left Untold” (Red Adept Publishing May 2020) by Sherri Leimkuhler is a brave book, with a well-written, unique surprise revealed near the end. Brave because the author dares readers to broaden their concept of “after all, love is love.” It is also a compelling, poignant book which touches on many pivotal points in a woman’s life, and is told in crisp, clear sentences replete with insight and tenderness.
One of the most effective, and therefore, hardest things to do in a novel is to have an ending or climax which seems unforeseeable, but which once revealed also feels inevitable. And so it is that “What’s Left Untold” does just that, with whispers rather than clues or hints building to the big reveal. Thus, there is a mystery in the novel, though this is not per se a mystery but rather is women’s literary fiction.
Along the way to the climax, readers get to know some intriguing, sympathetic characters guarding secrets and faced with difficult, even gut-wrenching, choices. The deepest secret–what is left unsaid– is kept not because of selfishness or self-preservation, but out of love for another. What appears cruel is revealed to be kindness, even if perhaps misguided.
The basic story is about two women who were once best friends as teenagers, have an unexplained break-up, and twenty years later meet at a reunion and guardedly attempt to rebuild that friendship with ensuing complications. Many other story lines, however, weave through this novel’s main plot. The author skillfully weaves the then-stories with the now-stories, pulling in the marriages of both women as adults and story lines involving their children.
In high school, Anna Clark and Lia Clay were very different in personality and in their home lives, but they never the less enjoyed a closer-than-sisters relationship. But once high school is behind them, Lia appears to break off the friendship in an abrupt and disturbing way. Anna does not understand and retains the hurt of that seemingly cruel separation for decades. As Anna deals with the emotional pain of miscarriages, she becomes close friends with yet another woman, but the wounds from the break-up with Lia shadow the new friendship. Anna must also deal with her oldest daughter’s leaving home for college and the way the daughter, Kathryn, asserts her growing independence and spends more time with her friends than her family. These passages are especially tender and well done, and the author has Lia (who has sons of her own) quoting author Elizabeth Stone that “To have a child is to forever have your heart go walking outside your body.”
Despite the twists and turns in “What’s Left Untold,” the fundamental strength of the novel is based upon the friendship between Lia and Anna. If you think there is nothing new or fresh that can be written about the intrinsic value and enduring strength of women’s friendships, “What’s Left Untold” will prove you wrong as Sherri Leimkuhler brings something unique with new vigor and insight into this abiding theme.
What’s Left Untold is the sparkling story of love in many forms: between spouses, friends, and children. Sometimes, in order for love to continue, secrets are maintained that keep the relationship intact. On the other hand, maybe the secrets interfere with the relationship and need to be swept away in a river of honesty. Leimkuhler’s book explores the way that holding onto secrets changes us and changes our relationships. Readers will love the women who hold the lives of others in their hands as they carefully tiptoe through a minefield of secrets.
Leimkuhler’s authentic prose puts you inside Ana’s head and heart as she unravels the secrets of a childhood friendship that threatens not just her own mental health, but also her marriage and her daughter’s happiness. What’s Left Untold is a heartfelt and surprising examination of friendship, honesty, and whether ‘love is love.’