Without Her

by Rosalind Brackenbury

Rosalind Brackenbury's WITHOUT HER, pitched as a Ferrante-esque novel about a close, life-long friendship between two women that must be examined after one of them mysteriously disappears, bringing up questions of allegiance, jealousy and betrayal from the past and explores what the strength of lifelong friendship really is, to Joseph Olshan at Delphinium, in a nice deal, for publication in July 2019.

Unknown Binding

First published July 23, 2019

About the author

Rosalind Brackenbury is the author of several novels, books of poetry, and short stories. She was born in England, and has also lived in Scotland and France. She earned a history degree at Cambridge University, speaks French fluently, and has been a teacher, journalist, and deck hand on a schooner.

Reviews

[Heather]

Without Her, by Rosalind Brackenbury, was nothing quite like I had expected. From the synopsis, I knew Claudia had been called by Phil, the husband of her long-time friend, Hannah, when she fails to arrive at their summer home, and is deemed missing. Claudia leaves America to head to the South of France and help Hannah's family find her.

What I did not expect from this synopsis was to find a story rich in exploring relationships, and how far we can bend traditional expectations of them. What can be forgiven, and what cannot be forgotten? What are we willing to ignore in order to hold onto relationships, and what are we forced to give up if we cannot?

Brackenbury presents characters who are sometimes infuriating, sometimes likable, but always honest - sometimes so honest you find yourself cringing. She presents issues of living on our own terms in very different ways through Claudia, Hannah, Philip, and Alexandre, bringing readers to question whether there really is a "right" way of doing things, and opening their minds to other ideas.

Had I known about the topics that would be brought up in this novel prior to reading it, I'm not sure it would have caught my attention. However, it is a very unique story, and I feel thankful to have read it. It's not the type of book where I found myself thinking about the characters in between picking it up, but instead, the struggles they were facing, and how I would ever deal with those same struggles if I were in any of their positions.

Thank you to NetGalley for this advanced copy in order for an honest review. Without Her hits bookstores in July - keep an eye out for it!

[Rosemarie Donzanti]

A novel about the imperfect relationship between two woman who meet at an English boarding school when they are very young. They form a fast friendship based on their shared feeling of being extremely disposable by both their families and the school staff. The book chronicles their journey into adulthood, careers, marriage and end of life decisions. It was a very easy book to get into. I was at first charmed by the characters and the writing style. But the book gets dark...first feeling like a mystery but then veering into a heartbreaking drama. An interesting examination of allegiance, jealousy and competition between woman who are forced to make difficult choices. I went to the author reading and book signing in Key West and was very impressed by the author. Clear in intent, highly educated and a great speaker, she added insight on her writing style and character development. She was a student at an English boarding school and had a great sense of humor about the experience, which sets the backdrop for her main character’s development.

She was clear about it, what she wanted. We all saw and felt it, her inexorable clarity.
- Rosalind Brackenbury -Without Her

[Laura Freeman]

Without Her - A Compelling Story Of The Lifelong Friendship Of Two Women Across Two Continents


Without Her is the story of Claudia and Hannah who became friends in a British boarding school back in the 1960’s. Hannah is a bit capricious and daring. Claudia, on the other hand, is a more serious and introspective young girl.

Claudia eventually follows her dream to become a filmmaker and moves to America. Back in the Great Britain, Hannah marries and has a family. Claudia eventually becomes a cinematography professor and never marries. Regardless of distance and dissimilar lifestyles, the two women remain friends see each other periodically over the years.

Hannah is now a grandmother and she and her husband have a vacation home in France. One day Claudia is contacted by Hannah’s husband asking her to come help him find his wife. Claudia drops everything to help find her missing friend.

Claudia is not completely shocked that her capricious friend might take off suddenly for some little adventure. When Hannah remains nowhere to be found, Claudia has her hands full with Hannah’s family becoming more frantic by the minute.

Where is Hannah? Is she just off on a flighty adventure? Or has something untoward happened to her? As Claudia delves deeper into Hannah’s life she is confronted with her own life as well. Without Her, a compelling story of the lifelong friendship of two women across two continents, reminds us that true friendship is not always easy.


Without Her reminds us that while true friendship is a precious gift, but one that may not always be easy to sustain.

[Lauren Archer]

When I received this book, I saw the comparison to Elena Ferrante, I mean how do you even to compare anything to her. I started reading this and was like oh man, the author is trying replicate My Brilliant Friend, however if you can get through the first 25% of the book Brackenbury develops this story into a book that rightfully stands on it’s own.

For my full review, please visit my blog at: http://obsessedbookaholic.com/2019/09...

Thank you NetGalley and Delphinium for an Advanced Reader’s Copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

[Becky Loader]

Brackenbury has written an intense novel about the lifelong friendship of two women. She shows the development of the friendship from the time they are young girls at boarding school to the moment life ends for one of them.

[Charlotte]

Informed by a desperate phone call that Phil's wife, Hannah has gone missing, Claudia travels from America to France to help find her lifelong friend. Early-on, Claudia acknowledges that "We all have our stories, and sometimes they spill out of us in bits and pieces, and we let ourselves, just for a moment, be seen." As the story unfolds, she, Hannah's family and Alexandre (Claudia's lifelong lover) struggle to establish an explanation for the disappearance and are incapacitated by their confusion. As the search fails to move forward, we learn instead about the years leading up to this point through Claudia's account of their companionship from boarding school onwards. In so-doing we learn far more about Claudia than Hannah.
And here is where I perhaps struggled to fully understand, because very little of the relationship revealed, describes a friendship that I would want to maintain. At one point Claudia relays a summer spent at Hannah's home; "I knew that already there was a gap between the photograph and the original image; in this gap, an ache opened that I did not know how to fill." But, I felt throughout there was a gap between events and the reported affinity. Hannah comes across as self-absorbed, inward-looking and apathetic towards the feelings of those who care about her the most. Throughout the life described, her actions place her at the front of the orchestra, initiating and influencing the decisions and actions of those around her. Now, in this later stage of their lives, it is no different. Claudia states; "I will lose her. And in losing her, I will lose part of myself" At no point did I get the impression that Hannah would feel the same.
Brackenbury writes with observational accuracy and creates poignant snapshots I could not help but relate to my own life and relationships. The very fact that I wanted to sit down with Claudia and have the type of conversation I have with my daughter about friendship issues, demonstrates how effectively the author has moulded her characters. Unfortunately, I just did not care for them; rather, I found myself questioning whether, instead of finding Hannah, Claudia was better off 'Without Her'.

[Stevie]

When I first started this book based on the description I though murder/mystery thriller type book. This is not that type of book. This is a person who has walked away from everyone and we get to see if they come back, if they are ok. There is no urgent feeling in this book but it is a good story about lifelong best friends.

The author did a great job with description and I really felt for the characters. Not in a good way. I disliked all the characters. They were written so well.

It wasn’t what I expected but it was a good read.

[BMR, LCSW]

I received an ADC from Netgalley and the publisher Delphinium Books for review.

This is the story of 3 "friends" who come together after decades apart to help one of the friends on her final journey.

I put "friends" in quotes, because they are quite horrible to each other. The premise of the story held more promise than the novel itself. I felt sad and betrayed at the end alongside the protagonist, Claudia. She's much more forgiving than I am.

Recommended for those who want something different in their fiction.

[Jennifer Young]

Rosalind Brackenbury’s Without Her is a thoughtful and beautifully-written piece of women’s fiction. Claudia is living in America where she’s approaching retirement from her job as a lecturer in film studies when she learns that her lifelong friend, Hannah, (the Her of the title) has gone missing. Claudia drops everything to fly to the south of France where Hannah’s husband, Philip, is waiting at the family holiday home for Hannah to turn up.

The story is slender in terms of action but that doesn’t matter. It’s many-layered and thought-provoking, picking up on themes of social obligation, of sacrifice, of control over one’s own life. Claudia is the narrator and as she and Philip wait to see whether Hannah (who has something of a history of disappearing and reappearing) will turn up, she reviews their friendship and their fallouts, the things they did together and the things that kept them apart.

The writing is terrific. I could feel the heat of the summer sun on the back of my neck and smell the lavender; I could sense Claudia’s emotions and feel the tension as concerns for Hannah’s welfare began to rise. The problem for me, though, was that no matter how well the book was written and constructed I didn’t enjoy it as much as it probably merited.

The reason? I really, really didn’t warm to any of the characters, with the possible exception of Philip. Hannah was positively dislikable, an attention-seeking diva who put her nearest and dearest through stress and misery in the name of her own self-obsession, and all of those people she hurt seemed to adore her all the more because of it. The end of the book raised questions that I should have been more interested in answering than I was, but when it got to the end I’m afraid I really wasn’t invested enough to care what happened to Hannah.

It’ a shame, because it’s otherwise an excellent book, highly accomplished. But I’m afraid I really, really wasn’t engaged enough to give it five stars.

Thanks to Netgalley and Dreamscape Media for a copy of this book in return for an honest review.

[BookTrib.com]

From the very start, I wasn’t sure about Hannah – a small, thin girl playing chess against herself in the damp cloakroom of an all-girls boarding school. It’s here we’re introduced to a budding friendship between the narrator, Claudia, and this mildly enigmatic woman-child who tells her about-to-be-new best friend about her solo chess game, “I’m never sure who’s going to win.”

I wasn’t, either, while reading Rosalind Brackenbury’s Without Her (Delphinium Books). The two girls become inseparable partners in crime, unapologetically late for meals and brazenly absent from roll call altogether. But from page 3, it’s clear who’s the inspiration for misbehavior, who has the moxie; and so right away, we readers know who the “her” is in the title. It’s Hannah.

Brackenbury’s sentences have an arresting cadence. I had the feeling that each sentence was heavier at the end, that words slid downhill, taking me with them. This made for easy reading, but not a hurried read because Brackenbury has a lovely penchant for appealing to as many of the five senses as she possibly can. The cloakroom smelled sweaty and polluted, the housemistress had the piercing stare of a bird of prey, chair legs scraped on bare wood floor, there was cold leftover food and leaves at the window like hands against glass, footsteps and shouts. All this in the first five pages.

The rest of the review: https://booktrib.com/2019/07/a-parisi...

[Susan]

Without Her is a story of relationships over a span of decades. Although the central relationship is between Claudia and Hannah, who meet in an English boarding school, as time passes, their initial connection expands to other people and places. The author develops these relationships as elegantly as a time-lapse series of photos of a flower opening from bud to full bloom.

The story begins with a frantic call from Hannah’s husband to Claudia announcing that Hannah is missing; failed to arrive at their summer house in France. Claudia travels to France and embarks on a search, eventually tracking down Hannah and learning her deep secret and agreeing, after much thought, to do as Hannah asks.

This brief summary can’t be expanded without revealing spoilers. I liked how the story is spun with details from the past and present intermixed so the reader learns every detail, just as we can imagine that flower blooming. While at times extremely sad, this book describes beautifully the bonds of friendship and what people will do in the name of love.

Highly recommended.

I received this book as an ARC from the publisher and NetGalley.

[Karen]

Claudia and Hannah were inseparable at their all girl’s boarding school. Growing up in England and feeling abandoned by their parents these young girls bonded like sisters. Always dreaming of running away together the pair eventually attend Cambridge and their lives take completely different paths after graduation. Claudia follows her passion for filmmaking all the way to America and Hannah marries Phil and settles down into a somewhat predictable English life. It is many years later that Claudia receives an urgent message from Phil reporting that Hannah is missing. As Hannah’s oldest and dearest friend, he doesn’t know who else to turn to. Together they search out the many possibilities of Hannah’s sudden disappearance. This absolutely beautiful story is a witness to a most fragile and precious friendship. All the choices one makes throughout their lives affect not only themselves but those closest to them as well. The meaning of love, jealousy, loyalty and even friendship changes as we age and is redefined over our entire lives. This is a quiet, intense and very well written novel.

[Judy]

Claudia and Hannah's friendship goes back to their childhood in boarding school. When this mystery/novel begins, Hannah has failed to arrive home and her husband Philip enlists Claudia's help in finding her. As Claudia tries to imagine what could have happened, there are many flashbacks of their friendship and their experiences together. A picture of their tightknit history emerges which reveals that in the closest of relationships, jealousy, mistrust, and suspicion can also exist. There are unanswered questions that have lurked in Claudia's mind for many years.

The reason for Hannah's absence is a surprise, even though the author has hinted at something of this nature. The conclusion of the novel is sad, and it is hard for me to imagine filling that role for an old and dear friend.

Beyond the specifics of the plot, this novel addresses the fact that in all relationships, regardless of age or gender, one individual seems to play the dominant role. In this story, that person is Hannah, which is ironic because she has chosen to live the more conventional life.

[Henriette]

This book is all about two friends.... Hannah and Claudia.

There are times where it's all just:


but those are few and far between.

This is the story of how Hannah went missing and Claudia, an old childhood friend is asked to help find her. The girls met when they went to the same boarding school and then went off to university together and although there was a year between them at school they went off to study at the same time. Throughout their adult lives their lives drift apart but they stay in touch, sometimes getting together once a year.

For the most part this is the story of Hannah and Claudia and about how Hannah disappeared, but over half the book focuses on the past... their friendship and it's ups and downs. Present day in this book is in their late sixties so they have a lot of ground to cover.

Without giving too much away, this book had me thinking about life in general and the effects of the choices we make.

[Ileana Renfroe]

A fast-paced suspenseful novel, Without Her, has interesting characters and easy to follow storyline.

Synopsis:
When her old friend Hannah doesn't show up at her house in the south of France, everyone assumes that Claudia, who has known Hannah since their shared years at boarding school, will know where she is, and what has happened. But as Claudia travels from the USA to France to help Hannah’s husband and children conduct their search, she is forced to deal with her old jealousy of Hannah, as well as her own relationship in the present with her French lover, Alexandre. As events unfold, Claudia begins to wonder if Hannah and Alexandre may have had an affair and if that has had something to do with Hannah's mysterious disappearance. In this exquisitely written, Ferrante-esque novel the question of whether or not Hannah will come back becomes urgent and bewildering. And if she doesn't come back, what will the lives of her friends and family be without her?

[Brigitt]

This novel is about the long friendship between the two very different women Hannah and Claudia. This friendship began in boarding school, through their teenage years and early student years. Even as these two women grew apart; Claudia being a film lecturer in the USA and Hannah, wife and mother. The narrative begins with Hannah’s disappearance and as Claudia rushes to help Hannah’s husband Phil find out more. The memories about the different stages of the friendship surface mixed with a range of emotions; closeness, rivalry, jealousy and meanness. This book will make you think of the meaning of friendship and how far you will go and if friendship has to be equal in giving and receiving. Unfortunately, one of the friends is a character who is difficult to like. Nevertheless, it is an interesting and stimulating book.

[Stven]

I found this text to be gently compelling. The story hit close to home because much of it involved Claudia's memories of her time as a college student in France around 1970: the trains, the petit economies, the contrasts of cultures, the adolescent ambitions, the cinema as window on real life, the encounters amongst young singles, etc., and even the intense best friend so apparently free-spirited and so freely self-serving. So much that I could relate to, and so finely written, ever laced but never burdened with detail.

But it is about the present, too, that is to say, our real contemporary 2015 or thereabouts and a moment when old friends reconnect in life's twilight years. This is not a story for everyone, although I think it is a story for so many people who can bear to contemplate this place in life's passage.

[Peggy]

I'd been put on the waitlist for some book at the library and clicked on the "While You're Waiting" button. I'm delighted to learn of Rosalind Brackenbury's work (and have ordered another). I read this and then kept extending the due date because I was very taken with the idea of exploring friendship the way that she did (exquisitely). I admired the back and forth quality that led us through the beginnings and aging of the friendship. I won't be spoiler about what didn't work for me as well, because it might just be personal. Thank you Brackenbury for making me want to write about friendship.

[Janilyn Kocher]

Without Her is a story about two steadfast friends: Hannah and Claudia. They met in boarding school and because lifelong friends. Claudia receives a message from Hannah's husband that she is missing. She rushes to Europe and the story flashes back to various time frames to fill in the story of the women, I didn't care for the ending, but I understand why the author chose to handle the situation in that manner. It's a novel about friendship and difficult choices. Thanks to NetGalley for the early read.

[Sheri]

Without Her was a very well with book about two longtime friend that met in boarding school years before. Claudia hears from Hannah's husband that she's missing. Claudia, who lives in America, flies to Europe to help locate Hannah.

The book is filled with flashbacks to their shared past and present day. It's a great book about friendship, choices and change.

I would have given the book 4 stars, but I didn't care for the ending.

*I'd like to thank the author/publisher/Netgalley for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for a for and honest review*

[Elaine Moore]

In Without Her, Rosalind Brackenbury describes the lifelong friendship of two women who met in an English boarding school when they were young girls. Their perfect friendship becomes strained after their college years in Cambridge when Claudia leaves Hannah behind and moves to America to become a filmmaker. Despite this geographical separation, Claudia visits often enough that when Hannah goes missing, her husband seeks Claudia, the person who knows her best, to help find his wife.
This book was impossible to put down and I read it in one day. Thanks to NetGalley for providing me with an electronic copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

[Jo Ann]

I received this book as an ARC from NetGalley.

The story focuses on the life-long relationship between two women. We follow them from the time they met as youngsters until they are in their late 60s. The characters are well drawn. We see how their feelings for each other and reactions to situations change over time. Over the years, their trust in their friendship is tested, but ultimately, they are always there for each other despite very challenging circumstances.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and was particular captivated by the raw emotion of the ending.

[Caitlin]

By the last few pages I was in tears. I applaud Brackenbury for bringing out this kind of deep emotion in me from her literary realness. Maybe my life has some similarities with death, despite an age difference between the characters and I...

This is an excellent, quick read. If you've ever been to Paris, you'll soon start smelling the bakeries and walking the those unforgettable streets as you read this book.

[Karen Proctor]

I loved this book. It's about women friends from childhood and coming of age into late life. Keeping that friendship, sometimes a betrayal, but also having your friends back. This story had me from the beginning and I could relate to my set of "sisterhood" friends.

[Kirsten]

This has a slow start, but eventually I got wrapped up in wanting to know what was coming next. I liked the twinned explorations of their old frienship and where all the characters were now. I did guess several of the major twists, but it still went in some interesting unexpected directions.

[Ann Augustine]

very poignant story of a friendship begun young and grown old... what do we do to preserve friendships? to preserve ourselves? to reach out beyond ourselves for the sake of friendship? for the sake of ourselves?

[Becky]

This is a book that as I was reading I imaged the film version - very cinematic, in addition to the film references throughout. A tender story about lifelong friends Hannah and Claudia who meet in a British boarding school, who endure the jealousies and the closeness of friendship.

[Shkolnikjx]

A great novel, beautiful depiction of the characters with some tense moments thrown into the mix. Will definitely pick more books by this talented author.

[Jennifer Baratta]

Thank you Netgallery for the preview of this book. Got it at #Bookcon this year

[Kelly]

Without Her puts you right in the pages.. Jam-packed with action and adventure..
I was in suspense the entire time.