The Summer We Lost Her

April 1, 2019
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.

COPYRIGHT(2019) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

April 29, 2019
Nuanced characters and high-stakes drama drive the plot in Cohen’s latest (after The Search Angel). Elise is a renowned dressage rider whose accident on horseback while pregnant caused their now eight-year-old daughter, Gracie, to be born with mild cerebral palsy, creating an emotional distance between Elise and her husband, Matt. Faced with the mounting expenses from Elise’s riding career and Gracie’s education, the couple decides to sell the acreage Matt inherited from his grandfather on Lake Placid. While at the lakefront cabin, Matt encounters a longtime crush from his past, who creates an even larger emotional rift between him and his wife. When Gracie is abducted while waiting for the bus, Elise and Matt face a potential breaking point. During Matt’s quest to find his daughter, he discovers that the supposedly idyllic town where he grew up harbors some dark secrets. Simultaneously, Elise struggles with guilt over Gracie’s abduction and the lack of support from an increasingly distant husband. Readers will keep turning pages to find out if Gracie is returned home safely. Although abrupt timeline jumps and overly prosaic dialogue sometimes muddle the narrative, Cohen’s depiction of complex characters who constantly challenge the reader’s expectations make this a worthwhile outing. Agent: Daniel Lazar, Writers House.

April 15, 2019
Matt and Elise Sorenson have been walking a tightrope to maintain their marriage for quite a while. After years of struggling as an associate, Matt has finally been offered partnership at his law firm, but the proposal comes with a hefty buy-in, forcing him to sell the lakefront cabin he inherited from his late grandfather. At the same time, Elise's years of diligent preparation for the Olympics as a dressage rider appear to be paying off, which will mean even more time away from Matt and their eight-year-old daughter, Gracie. The family decides to take a break in the Adirondacks to fix up the cabin, but while dealing with secrets from their past, tragedy strikes, and Gracie disappears. In the midst of their worst nightmare and with the odds stacked against them, Matt and Elise must face the question of how much a marriage can take before it begins to fall apart. Fans of Kristin Hannah and Jodi Picoult will enjoy this intense, character-driven story with the fate of a marriage at its heart.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)