Book description:
**The Lost Girl is a heartrending story of loss and enduring love**
Her daughter disappeared four years ago. . .
Since her daughter went missing four years earlier, celebrated photographer Kurtiz Ross has been a woman alone. Her only companion her camera. Since Lizzie disappeared, she has blamed and isolated herself, given up hope. Until, out of the blue, an unexpected sighting of Lizzie is made in Paris.
Could this lead to the reconciliation she has dreamed of?
Within hours of Kurtiz arriving in Paris, the City of Light is plunged into a night of hell when a series of terrorist attacks bring the city to a standstill. Amid the fear and chaos, a hand reaches out. A sympathetic stranger in a café offers to help Kurtiz find her daughter.
A stranger’s guiding light
Neither knows what this harrowing night will deliver, but the other woman’s kindness – and her stories of her own love and loss in post-war Provence – shine light into the shadows, restoring hope, bringing the unexpected. Out of darkness and despair, new life rises. New beginnings unfold.
Dare she believe in a miracle?
Set during a time of bloodshed and chaos in one of the most beautiful cities on earth and along the warm fragrant shores of the Mediterranean, Kurtiz discovers that miracles really can happen . . .
Book review:
This a superbly written and highly entertaining book which I really enjoyed. I have read a few of Carol drinkwater’s memoirs before but this book is obviously very different to those.
The story is told from three different times, and unusually for me, I found each story as interesting as each other. You know from the blurb that each story fits together so it was intriguing to read on and discover how they are connected.
I thought all the characters were well drawn, well developed and quite realistic. As a mum I felt huge sympathy for Kurtis, it’s very difficult to get the balance between family life and what you want to do. Losing a child or having them involved in a hostage situation is obviously a parents worse nightmare and I read the parts involving that with my heart in my mouth. I so wanted Kurtiz to find her daughter and her to be safe. In this situation you can almost feel her fear and panic as she tries to find out if they are OK. I loved the contrast between the hostage situation and the developing love story between Charles and Marguerite, which was very sweet to read about. Even though I did want to shake Marguerite at times for not realising what she had.
It was quite brave of the author to use such a recent event in her book as it’s an event that everyone remembers so there wasn’t any room to change the story at all. The author describes these parts with great sensitivity and keeps very true to the story. This helped increase the tension in the book for me as I remember a lot about the events of this night and the realisation that there probably were people like Kurtiz waiting to hear news outside the venue made the story more poignant and heartbreaking.
Huge thank you to Sarah Hardwood and Michael St Joseph publishers for my copy of this book.
About the author:
Anglo-Irish actress Carol Drinkwater is perhaps still most familiar to audiences for her award-winning portrayal of Helen Herriot in the BBC series All Creatures Great and Small. A popular and acclaimed author and film-maker as well, Carol has published nineteen books for both the adult and young adult markets. She is currently at work on her twentieth title.
When she purchased a rundown property overlooking the Bay of Cannes in France, she discovered on the grounds sixty-eight, 400-year-old olive trees. Once the land was reclaimed and the olives pressed, Carol along with her French husband, Michel, became the producers of top-quality olive oil. Her series of memoirs, love stories, recounting her experiences on her farm (The Olive Farm, The Olive Season, The Olive Harvest and Return to the Olive Farm) have become international bestsellers. Carol’s fascination with the olive tree extended to a seventeenth-month, solo Mediterranean journey in search of the tree’s mythical secrets. The resulting travel books, The Olive Route and The Olive Tree, have inspired a five-part documentary films series entitled The Olive Route.
Carol has also been invited to work with UNESCO to help fund an Olive Heritage Trail around the Mediterranean with the dual goals of creating peace in the region and honouring the ancient heritage of the olive Farm.
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