Publication Date: December 22, 2023
An unexpected friendship changes everything for two women facing the hardest challenges life can dish up.
Cranky, aging newspaper publisher Anne Canfield is determined to live forever, no matter what. Young, brilliant writer and teacher Indira Anand thinks she wants to die. But the winter morning Anne saves Indira Anand from drowning, everything changes.
When Anne is diagnosed with incurable brain cancer and has only months to live, she must hurry to save her newspaper, heal her regrets, keep her secrets hidden, and protect her son from the truth before time runs out. Indira, thwarted by both the law and her distant husband but desperate to escape the pain she watched her grandmother endure, wavers about her decision. Out of options, Indira reaches out to Anne, and they make a pact to help each other. Now it’s just a question of time.
Two women explore life and death in this heart-tugging story, highlighting the value of friendship.
Author Ginny Fite delivers relatable main characters in Leave Everything You Know Behind. As the aging matriarch of her family, Anne Canfield has no intention of slowing down while operating the family newspaper. No one is safe from her sometimes acerbic tongue.
Indira Anand, a writer and teacher at the local college, meets Anne under trying circumstances. Their next encounters highlight how each woman faces the news of a terminal diagnosis. Rather than opting for potential treatment for her second bout of ovarian cancer, Indira wants to die on her own terms. Her frustration and pain as her loved ones reject the idea of an assisted death is evident.
Meanwhile, Anne’s health takes a tragic turn as she is diagnosed with brain cancer. Her response, however, is much different than Indira’s because Anne wants to live. The friendship between the two deepens as Indira reads to Anne. There’s some extra family drama that reveals long-buried secrets, impacting relationships.
Readers will find themselves immediately connecting with the characters, recognizing their worries and fears. However, the author uses this story to demonstrate how love can soften even the hardest of hearts.
Leave Everything You Know Behind takes on the complicated messiness of a terminal illness and turns it into a beautiful legacy.
Award-winning writer and journalist, Ginny Fite has been a journalist, a spokesperson for a governor and for a member of Congress, held posts in higher education institutions, and a robotics R&D company. Writing about ordinary people who grapple with extraordinary circumstances, her eight novels span the genres of mystery, thriller, adventure, and women’s fiction.
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