What We Leave Behind

<p><strong>From the author of <em>Summer Hours at the Robbers Library</em>, a tenderhearted story of two very different women grappling with the messy emotional legacies passed down by their parents—for fans of Dani Shapiro, Ann Napolitano, and Jody Picoult.</strong></p><p>It’s the perennial question: are we a product of how we were raised, or is our identity hardwired by our genetic inheritance? When her adoptive mother dies in a freak accident, high school senior Melody Marcus doubles down on her refusal to learn anything about her birth parents. In this age of 23&me, though, that may not be possible, and the secrets hidden in her DNA threaten to upend everything she knows about herself and her family. </p><p>For Candace Milton, a successful woman in her forties, the collateral damage from her parents’ tortured marriage has led to a life of intentional unattachment. She is happy—enough. But a chance encounter with a friend of Melody’s father will challenge this assumption and force her to reimagine who she is and who she might become.</p><p>Big-hearted evocative, and achingly relatable, <em>What We Leave Behind</em> grapples with destiny, belonging, and love, and makes us question our own idea of family: the kind we’re born into and the kind we create.  </p>