Title: WHAT COULD BE SAVED
Author: Liese O’Halloran Schwarz
Read: January 2022
My Rating: 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 all the stars!
Book Description:
Washington, DC, 2019: Laura Preston
is a reclusive artist at odds with her older sister Bea as their elegant,
formidable mother slowly slides into dementia. When a stranger contacts Laura
claiming to be her brother who disappeared forty years earlier when the family
lived in Bangkok, Laura ignores Bea’s warnings of a scam and flies to Thailand
to see if it can be true. But meeting him in person leads to more questions
than answers.
Bangkok, 1972: Genevieve and Robert Preston live in a beautiful house behind a
high wall, raising their three children with the help of a cadre of servants.
In these exotic surroundings, Genevieve strives to create a semblance of the
life they would have had at home in the US—ballet and riding classes for the
children, impeccable dinner parties, a meticulously kept home. But in truth,
Robert works for American intelligence, Genevieve finds herself drawn into a
passionate affair with her husband’s boss, and their serene household is
vulnerable to unseen dangers of a rapidly changing world and a country they
don’t really understand.
Alternating between past and present as all of the secrets are revealed, What
Could Be Saved is an unforgettable novel about a family shattered by loss
and betrayal, and the beauty and hope that can exist even in the midst of
brokenness.
My musings:
I stumbled across WHAT COULD BE SAVED purely by
accident and I am so glad that I did because I loved every minute of this book!
Forty years ago, Laura’s brother
Phillip was abducted in Bangkok when his parents failed to pick him up after
his judo lesson. The loss of their son and brother left lasting scars on the
family, even long after they returned home to America. Now, decades later,
Laura receives a phonecall from a woman in Thailand claiming that her brother
has been found and is ready to be reunited with his family. With her father
long dead, her mother suffering from dementia and her sister convinced that the
call is a scam, Laura must trust her own instincts whether the man is her long
lost brother or not.
Told in two separate timelines – the
four years in the early 70’s leading up to Phillip’s disappearance, and today -
WHAT COULD BE SAVED is the intriguing portrait of a family destroyed by
tragedy. Or was the catalyst much earlier, before Phillip vanished? As Laura and
her sister Bea are forced to confront the past, they uncover secrets about
their family they never had to face up to – and come to terms with the way it has
affected all of their lives.
I found WHAT COULD BE SAVED
intriguing and captivating in equal measures, especially the chapters that tell
of the family’s early days in Bangkok and the events leading up to Phillips
disappearance. We hear very early on that Robert Preston, the children’s
father, is working for British intelligence, even though his wife thinks they
are in Thailand for a humanitarian project that is taking much longer than the
three years they had initially signed up for. Both the descriptions of the
ex-pats’ lives in Bangkok as well as the details regarding Robert’s posting
were most interesting and kept me eagerly listening for more. Raised more by
the servants than their absent and distracted parents, the siblings each adapt
quickly to their new environment and each take on their own roles in the family
they will keep long into adulthood. The events leading up to Phillips
disappearance were tragic and as heartbreaking as the aftermath.
I often find that dual timelines
don’t hold my interest equally, but this was not a problem in WHAT COULD BE
SAVED. As much as I loved hearing about the children’s early years in Thailand,
I was equally intrigued by their adult relationships and finding out more about
Phillips fate. You know that your audio book is a winner when you pull into the
driveway after your long commute and then sit in the car for ages in the dark because
you need to listen just a bit longer.
Summary:
Exploring some dark themes such as infidelity,
drugs, alcohol, the sex industry, revenge and the trauma of losing a child,
WHAT COULD BE SAVED was an emotional rollercoaster of a book that had me
totally enthralled from beginning to end. Each character was authentically
drawn and believable, and I was very quickly drawn into the story and found
myself deeply emotionally involved. The
author also paints Bangkok as an atmospheric and vivid backdrop to her story,
which provided some great (if often troublesome) armchair travel, both from the
perspective of the expats as well as one of their Thai employees who was
working for the family at the time of Phillip’s disappearance. WHAT COULD BE
SAVED will appeal to readers who love a character driven family saga full of
intriguing secrets and sibling relationships. Highly recommended!
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