“A haunting, sometimes harrowing portrait of the ways that love can go wrong—and how we can right it. . . . Trust me, you’ve never read anything like this—like a shadow, it will stick with you.” —Caroline Leavitt, author of the New York Times bestseller Pictures of You

Therese Wolley made a promise. She works as a secretary, shops for groceries on Saturdays, and takes care of her two girls. She doesn’t dwell on the fact that her girls are fatherless, mostly because her own father abandoned her before she was born, and she has done just fine without him.

Even though her older daughter regularly wakes with nightmares and her younger one whispers letters under her breath, she doesn’t shift from her resolve that everything will be fine. She promises . . . and they believe.

Until the morning an obituary in the newspaper changes everything. Therese immediately knows what she has to do. She cannot delay what she has planned, and she cannot find the words to explain her heartbreaking decisions to her daughters. She considers her responsibilities, her girls, and a promise she made years ago. Then she does the only thing that any real mother would do. She goes on the run with one daughter . . . and abandons the other.

Left is told from the perspectives of Franny, the younger sister who is left behind; Matilda, the troubled older sister who vows to go back and save her; and Therese, a mother on the run.

Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Arcade, Yucca, and Good Books imprints, are proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in fiction—novels, novellas, political and medical thrillers, comedy, satire, historical fiction, romance, erotic and love stories, mystery, classic literature, folklore and mythology, literary classics including Shakespeare, Dumas, Wilde, Cather, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.