All That is Lost Between Us by Sara Foster

I first read this in 2016. I have just listened to the audio version which I also enjoyed. This certainly hasn’t lost any of its pertinence in the intervening years.

EXCERPT: GEORGIA
It was only a memory now. The three of them walking along the dark, narrow lane. The awkward silence that lingered in their footsteps. The phone buzzing insistently in her pocket. They had been there just a few hours ago, but already it had become a distant recollection of a time when their lives had travelled in a neat, straight line. Georgia could see them vividly without needing to close her eyes – hear the tread of their shoes on the deserted road, feel the chilly late-September wind toying with her hair, a contrast to the warmth of her right hand, wrapped within Danny’s. They hadn’t known that they were sleepwalkers, unaware of what headed towards them, until it was too late. Until all Georgia could see was darkness, before the minutes snuck in and made an unbridgeable gap of time, and it was impossible to go back and change anything.

ABOUT ‘ALL THAT IS LOST BETWEEN US’: Seventeen-year-old Georgia has a secret – one that is isolating her from everyone she loves. She is desperate to tell her best friend, but Sophia is ignoring her, and she doesn’t know why. And before she can find out, Sophia is left fighting for her life after a hit and run, with Georgia a traumatised witness.

As a school psychologist, Georgia’s mother Anya should be used to dealing with scared adolescents. However, it’s very different when the girl who needs help is your own child. Meanwhile, Georgia’s father is wracked with a guilt he can’t share; and when Zac, Georgia’s younger brother, stumbles on an unlikely truth, the family relationships really begin to unravel.

Georgia’s secret is about to go viral. And yet, it will be the stranger heading for the family home who will leave her running through the countryside into terrible danger. Can the Turner family rise above the lies they have told to betray or protect one another, in order to fight for what matters most of all?

MY THOUGHTS: I enjoyed the wild ride this book took me on. Every time I thought I knew where it was going, something unexpected would happen.

Families are difficult. Relationships are difficult. Familiarity breeds contempt.

Secrets and lies, both well intentioned and malicious, are exposed.

Anya and Callum have been married for what seems like forever. Their marriage is feeling a little stale, but neither will yet admit there is a problem. They snipe at each other. They are rushed, harried, and spend little time together. Anya resents the time Callum devotes to volunteering with Mountain Rescue. And Callum feels pushed aside for the children.

Anya is a counsellor at the school her children Georgia and Zac attend but feels excluded from her children’s lives as well as from her husband’s life.

But then seventeen-year-old Georgia is involved in a hit and run accident that leaves her cousin Sophia seriously injured. Georgia and Sophia have always been close, but this summer they have drifted apart, each harboring their own secrets.

Was the hit and run deliberate or a random accident? Who is the woman seen lurking outside Sophia’s hospital room? And how will Zac’s actions affect the family? Will they pull together, or will this be the thing that finally shatters their fragile relationship?

This book is beautifully written from multiple points of view, but only Anya’s pov is in first person.

I am sure that most of us will be familiar with the emotions that rage in this book – teenage angst and bravado, fragile friendships, first love, forbidden love, marriage worn thin by the daily grind, temptation . . .

I found All That is Lost Between us to be a gripping read, even the second time around. It is a coming-of-age story, a family drama, a story of secrets and discovery, and the perils of social media. It is a story of a mother’s fierce love for her children as they struggle to assert their independence, and of a marriage breaking down due to lack of communication. Sara Foster weaves these threads together into a taut and suspenseful tale that kept me reading late into the night.

I have also listened to the audiobook of All That is Lost Between us which is superbly narrated by Anne Dover.

⭐⭐⭐⭐.5

#AllThatisLostBetweenUs #NetGalley

THE AUTHOR: Sara is passionate about developing strong women characters and female-led stories, She is currently studying for her PhD, looking at maternal representation in fiction with young adult heroines, and she lives in Western Australia with her husband and daughters.

DISCLOSURE: Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for providing a digital ARC of this All That is Lost Between Us by Sara Foster for review. All opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own personal opinions.