Her life didn't turn out the way she expected―so she made herself a new one
When Clemmie goes next door to check on her difficult and unlikeable neighbor Dom, he isn't there. But something else is. Something stunning, beautiful and inexplicable. Clemmie photographs the wondrous object on her cell phone and makes the irrevocable error of forwarding it. As the picture swirls over the internet, Clemmie tries desperately to keep a grip on her own personal network of secrets. Can fifty years of careful hiding under names not her own be ruined by one careless picture?
And although what Clemmie finds is a work of art, what the police find is a body. . . in a place where Clemmie wasn't supposed to be, and where she left her fingerprints. Suddenly, the bland, quiet life Clemmie has built for herself in her sleepy South Carolina retirement community comes crashing down as her dark past surges into the present.
From international bestselling author of The Face on the Milk Carton Caroline B. Cooney comes Before She Was Helen, an absorbing mystery that brings decades-old secrets to life and explores what happens when the lie you've been living falls apart and you're forced to confront the truth.
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“Cooney gives us Clemmie—a senior citizen living a long deception, who fights back with intelligence and courage against dangerous foes, both present and past…An emotionally rich page-turner about the lives we want-and the lives we make.”
— Jeff Abbott, New York Times bestselling author of Never Ask Me
“A mystery with a lot of twists and secrets. Every chapter is a new finding.”
— Fresh Fiction“[A] terrific suspense tale…Clemmie and the other residents are fully fleshed characters, not a cutesy oldster in the bunch. How each of them, including Clemmie, deal with disruptions in their placid lives is hilarious and familiar.”
— Library Journal (starred review)“Clemmie faces an unspeakable fear that will keep readers hooked in this twisty whodunit.”
— Julie Hyzy, author of Grace Takes OffBe the first to write a review about this audiobook!
Caroline B. Cooney is the bestselling author of thriller and mystery novels, as well as many young adult books, including the bestseller The Face on the Milk Carton, the first volume in the Janie series, which sold over a million copies.
Kimberly Farr is an actress and winner of numerous AudioFile Earphones Awards for narration. She has appeared on Broadway and at the New York Shakespeare Festival, the Roundabout Theatre, Playwright’s Horizons, and the American Place. She created the role of “Eve” in Arthur Miller’s first and only musical, Up from Paradise, which was directed by the author. She appeared with Vanessa Redgrave in the Broadway production of The Lady from the Sea and has acted in regional theaters across the country, including a performance in the original production of The 1940’s Radio Hour at Washington, DC’s Arena Stage.