What Was Lost - by Melissa Connelly (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Reminiscent of Hello Beautiful and The Lying Life of Adults, this powerful narrative delves into social changes from 1970 to 2000 and captures a woman's journey in a pre-#MeToo era via the tale of a mother who returns to her hometown to face the perpetrator of her childhood abuse.

When a young girl feels complicit in her own abuse, how does that thwart her attempts to build a happy life as an adult woman?

When disturbing memories begin to surface, Marti returns to the small Vermont town she ran away from thirty years ago to face her demons. She drags her unwitting teenage daughter along on the journey--heightening already existing tension between mother and daughter. But Marti is determined to achieve what she's returned home for: forgiveness for lies told, and revenge for secrets held.

Exploring the vast social changes that took place between 1970 and 2000 and turning a critical eye on times before language such as #MeToo helped give voice to these all-too-common occurrences, What Was Lost is a raw, powerful tale of one woman confronting the ghosts of her past.

Review Quotes

"What Was Lost spins an enticing story that will especially attract book clubs looking for discussion points about survivors, victims, and the impact of changing social values."--Midwest Review

"What Was Lost still runs around in your mind after you're finished reading. Gripping, deftly told, and full of psychological insight. It always feels like Connelly is describing a living, breathing person as she has a gift for seeing the world through children's eyes, of any age, and making us experience their piercing joys and sorrows. This is a heartbreaking coming-of-age story, both harrowing and delicately observed."--Burkhard Bilger, author of Fatherland and a staff writer for The New Yorker

"What Was Lost operates like a delicate nesting doll of secrets and confessions hidden within each other in a seemingly peaceful small town, the idealized neighborhood family, and childhood traumas. Each doll shatters the lies of the one before. Connelly writes tenderly as if releasing a long-held whisper that her protagonist, Marti, has been holding in all her life. The changes in time and POV deftly reveal the way the past is always present."--Melissa Acquino Coss, Author of Carmen and Grace

"A compassionate portrait of facing past abuse and conflict."--Publishers Weekly

"A vivid examination of how troubles from the past affect an unfolding future."--Kirkus Reviews

"In her searing debut novel, What Was Lost, Melissa Connelly deftly straddles two timelines in the life of a woman who was abused in her childhood, showing us the long shadow of sexual violence, and what it takes to confront the past in an effort to heal family dynamics. I couldn't put it down."--Emily Raboteau, author of Lessons for Survival, Searching for Zion and The Professor's Daughter

"Connelly combines a heavy fist with a light touch, and she knows when to use each. What Was Lost is a searing narrative of sexual abuse, artistic sabotage, and their aftermaths. At the same time, it's an uncommonly compassionate tracing of the webs of confusion and insight that connect parent to child, child to parent, and generation to generation. Reading Marti's story made me tingle and ache."--James L. May, author of The Body Outside of the Kremlin

"Multi-layered mysteries unfold with taut precision and suspense as Connelly walks a tightrope between past and present, coercion and consent, redemption and revenge. What Was Lost is a provocative spin on a classic theme--the seductive power of a charismatic mentor. Told with deft characterizations, a shrewd eye for detail and emotional complexity, no one is let off the hook--not even the heroine--in this uncompromising novel."--Chirlane McCray, Former first lady of New York City, writer

"Stunningly written, unerringly human, and deeply felt, Melissa Connelly's What Was Lost is everything I yearn for in a novel, a story about people that I love in all of their flawed messiness, trying to make sense of and move through the murk and ache of their pasts, to discover and assert who and what else they might be."--Lynn Steger Strong, author of Flight, Want and Hold Still

"Suspenseful and cathartic, the engrossing novel What Was Lost follows a healing woman as she reflects upon the damaged fragments of her past to reclaim her rightful future path."
--Foreword Reviews, 5/5 STARS

About the Author

Melissa Connelly dropped out of high school at age fifteen. In spite of this, she went on to receive a BSN in nursing, an MA in special education, and an MFA in creative writing. She's had a long career working with children in a variety of roles in schools, hospitals, psychiatric clinics, and day cares. Her work has been published in American Heritage Magazine and the anthology It's All About Shoes, and she was a finalist both for the 2019 Montana Prize and in the 2025 Feathered Quill Book Awards. Connelly has a home in the mountains of Western North Carolina but lives most of the year in Brooklyn, New York..