Saturday Sneak-Peek: Leaving Time by Jodi Picoult

One of the books I'm really looking forward to reading in the coming weeks is Jodi Picoult's new novel, Leaving Time, due to be released in Australia by Allen & Unwin during October.

Here's the blurb:

"Alice Metcalf was a devoted mother, loving wife and accomplished scientist who studied grief among elephants. Yet it's been a decade since she disappeared under mysterious circumstances, leaving behind her small daughter, husband, and the animals to which she devoted her life. All signs point to abandonment - or worse.

Still Jenna - now thirteen years old and truly orphaned by a father maddened by grief - steadfastly refuses to believe in her mother's desertion. So she decides to approach the two people who might still be able to help her find Alice: a disgraced psychic named Serenity Jones, and Virgil Stanhope, the cynical detective who first investigated her mother's disappearance and the strange, possibly linked death of one of her mother's coworkers.

Together these three lonely souls will discover truths destined to forever change their lives. Deeply moving and suspenseful, Jodi Picoult's 21st novel is a radiant exploration of the enduring love between mothers and daughters."

If you're half the fan of Jodi Picoult that I am, I have no doubt that you, too, are looking forward to this one.

I also recently read the prequel to Leaving Time, entitled Larger than Life, which gives us insight into Alice's past and her study of the memory in elephants. This is a beautifully told story and, if you haven't already done so, I suggest you pick this one up and read it before proceeding to Leaving Time. Not that it will matter in terms of the storyline in Leaving Time, but it will give you a better picture of Alice as you appreciate the poignancy of the scenes with the elephants as well as the memories that these majestic creatures hold. 

This is the blurb from that novella:

"A poignant short story from the internationally bestselling author of My Sister's Keeper and The Storyteller.

Alice Metcalf is unlucky in love and was fired from her last job. She is on a tenuous footing in her current one, and has just received the worst news of her life. But when she comes across a family of elephants, killed for their ivory, she can't abandon the surviving calf. Trying to hide a hundred-pound baby elephant in her camp may be difficult, but Alice is ready to break all the rules to save the one life she can.

A haunting, beautifully told prequel to Jodi's upcoming novel Leaving Time."

And if I still haven't convinced you to pick this novel up, here's the official trailer: