THE SUMMER WE LOST HER

Elise Sorenson has worked hard in hopes of someday making the Olympic dressage team. At last her dream beckons, but her ambition may destroy her marriage.

Matt Sorenson was raised by his grandfather Nate, who warned him against marrying Elise, a woman he saw as too driven to be a good wife. Cohen (The Search Angel, 2013, etc.) heartbreakingly spins out the dire consequences of Nate’s prophecy, as Elise seems to be punished at every turn. Her career comes at the price of a faltering marriage—her long absences limit Matt’s own career options and push him to assume both parents’ roles for their daughter, Gracie, who has cerebral palsy due to Elise’s fall from a horse while 31 weeks pregnant. And Nate’s disapproval always made her feel like an outsider at the Sorensons’ family cabin on Lake Placid—a home Matt plans to sell to invest in his law partnership. Unfortunately, he now feels compelled to use the proceeds to fund Elise’s Olympic bid. When the family heads north to get the cabin ready to go on the market, Matt quickly rekindles his friendship with the voluptuous Cass, his first love, who now lives next door. But as Matt repairs the cabin, he recognizes the gaps that separate him from the town—the men repairing his roof may remember Nate as a financial savior, but they see Matt as a privileged Manhattan attorney, an outsider. Then Gracie disappears and the Sorenson family splinters, as Cohen smartly sets each character’s crisis on a collision course with the others. Caught between her equestrian dreams and her suspicions about Cass, Elise risks losing everything. Even Gracie, with her hopes to be like other kids, risks too much. And as the summer progresses, Matt realizes that Nate’s legacy may be much darker than he remembers.

A sharp, suspenseful portrait of a family on the verge of collapse.