What Was Lost

Melissa Connelly’s debut novel, WHAT WAS LOST, explores the reverberations abuse can have through a lifetime. Marti brings her teenage daughter to the small Vermont town she ran from as a teenager. A sexual relationship with her art teacher when Marti was fourteen left her pregnant. The repercussions of her choices around the relationship and illegal abortion, and what she thought were choices but were more abusive manipulations, have shaped her life. What she hopes will be a trip of reconciliation and redemption turns out to have even deeper consequences, as she learns what her lies set into motion, and how the agendas of those she trusted were rarely in her best interest. Connelly’s writing is strong and often harrowing and WHAT WAS LOST is a powerful and profound story about how those we trust can shape us, for good or ill.