What She Left Behind: A Haunting and Heartbreaking Story of 1920s Historical Fiction

What She Left Behind interweaves two narratives spanning different eras, following women confronting adversity in distinct ways. The story alternates between a 1920s New York asylum and the present day. Seventeen-year-old Izzy Stone's mother fatally shot her father a decade ago. Now living with foster parents who work at a local museum, Izzy is enlisted to catalog items from a long-shuttered state asylum. Among abandoned belongings, she discovers unopened letters, a decades-old journal, and clues to her own family's history. The second narrative follows Clara Cartwright, a young flapper and suffragette caught between her parents' expectations and her desire for independence. When she rejects an arranged marriage and falls in love with an Italian immigrant, her father commits her to a genteel home for nervous invalids. After the stock market crash of 1929, he can no longer afford her care, and Clara is transferred to a public asylum. As Izzy uncovers Clara's story, she begins to question whether Clara was truly mentally ill—and whether understanding Clara's fate might explain her own mother's violent act. Piecing together the past forces Izzy to re-examine her own choices with unexpected consequences.