Author Joy Fielding delivers her most glamorous and intriguing book to date in a novel about the disappearance of a gorgeous young actress, and a mother whose life is thrown into turmoil as a result.
Losing Julia has become a constant in Cindy Carver's life. The first time Julia disappeared, she was five years old and vanished at the playground. That inspired motherly paranoia. The second was when, at age fourteen, Julia decided to move in with her father. That broke Cindy's heart. But when twenty-one-year-old Julia disappears without a trace after a promising audition with one of Hollywood's most powerful and influential directors, Cindy begins a frantic search. Secrets are revealed, lives are forever altered, and Cindy is forced to acknowledge the disturbing truth about the young woman she realizes she never really knew... "Joy Fielding's writing...is a cross between Margaret Atwood and Patricia Highsmith.... Once again, Fielding has created an unusual and compelling central character who is sure to mesmerize."
-The Globe and Mail Joy Fielding is the author of the acclaimed New York Times best-seller The First Time, and other bestselling novels including Whispers and Lies, The Other Woman, Grand Avenue and See Jane Run. She divides her time between Toronto and Palm Beach. "Has she ever done anything like this before?"
"You mean, stayed out all night?"
Neil nodded. He was sitting beside Cindy on one of two tan leather sofas in her living room. Behind them a wall of windows overlooked the spacious backyard. Facing them were three paintings of pears in varying degrees of ripeness. Cindy couldn't remember the name of the artist who'd painted these pictures. Tom had bought them without asking either her opinion or approval. I make the money; I make the decisions, being pretty much the theme of their marriage. Along with the never-ending parade of other women, Cindy thought, smiling sadly at the good-looking man perched on the opposite end of the couch and wondering if he'd ever cheated on his wife. She ran her hand across the sofa's buttery surface. Find Italian leather. Guaranteed to last a lifetime. Unlike her marriage, she thought. The sofas had also been Tom's decision, as was the checkered print of the two wing chairs sitting in front of the black marble fireplace. Why had she never bothered to change anything after he left? Had she been subconsciously waiting for him to return? She shook her head, trying to excise her former husband from her brain.
"Cindy?" Neil was asking, leaning forward, extending his hands toward hers. "Are you all right? You have this very strange look on your face."
"Yes, she's stayed out all night before," Cindy said, answering his question, wondering how long ago he'd asked it. "But she always calls. She's never not called."
Except once just after she moved back home, Cindy recalled, when she was making a point about being an adult and no longer answerable to her mother. Her father, she'd argued pointedly, had never placed any such restrictions on her. Her mother, Cindy had countered, needed to be assured of her safety. It was a matter of consideration, not constraint. In reply, Julia had rolled her eyes and flounced out of the room, but she'd never stayed out all night again without first phoning home.
Except one other time when she forgot, Cindy remembered, but then she'd called first thing the next morning and apologized profusely.
"Shouldn't you be at work?" she asked Neil, trying to prevent another example from springing to her mind.
"I take Fridays off in the summer."
Cindy vaguely recalled him having told her that last night. "Look, you don't have to stay. I mean, it was very thoughtful of you to come over and everything, I really appreciate it, but I'm sure you have plans for the long weekend..."
"I have no plans."
"...and Julia should be home any minute now," Cindy continued, ignoring the implications of his remark, "at
