Where He Left Me
By Nicole Baart
From Nicole Baart, the bestselling author of Everything We Didn’t Say, comes a twisty, atmospheric suspense novel about a newlywed whose husband disappears, leaving her isolated in Washington’s North Cascades.
College professors Sadie Sheridan and Felix Graham are on sabbatical at Hemlock House, located on a remote mountain homestead established years ago by Felix’s family. When Felix leaves on a work trip but doesn’t return, effectively stranding Sadie on the mountain, her world collapses.
Alone at Hemlock House, frantic Sadie struggles to make sense of what her missing astronomer husband left behind. Forced to confront two mysterious trespassers just as a powerful storm bears down, Sadie and the strangers have no choice but to ride it out together. As conditions worsen and shocking secrets are revealed, Sadie must face whether or not she ever knew the man she married and is she fighting only for her own survival now—or still for the man who promised her the stars?
Where He Left Me is another compelling, emotional thriller from an author who “writes with a poet’s eye for language and a storyteller’s gift for suspense” (William Kent Krueger, New York Times bestselling author).
My thoughts:
I picked this one up on a whim from Book of the Month last year and then let it sit on my shelf for almost six months. Classic me. I finally decided to give it a go, and I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised by how much I liked it.
This isn’t a super twisty thriller. It’s a well-paced mystery with a side of murder and some genuine isolation, and the whole thing just works. I went in not really expecting to be as invested or as hooked as I was.
Sadie and Felix have not been married long. They’re both college professors, and they head out to Felix’s family’s mountain place, a remote spot in the North Cascades called Hemlock House, for an extended stay during their sabbatical. It’s the kind of property that’s been in his family for generations, the kind of place where the nearest neighbor is too far away to matter. A few days in, Felix has to take a quick work trip, except he never comes back. Sadie is stuck up there alone, with no idea what happened to her husband. Did he walk out on her? Did something happen to him on his way wherever he was going? On top of that, there are people moving around outside the house at night, and a serious snowstorm is rolling in. She isn’t going to be able to leave, and the people who keep showing up at the edge of the property aren’t going anywhere either.
I was so invested in Sadie. Her panic and her confusion felt real, and watching her try to piece together what was happening while also keeping herself alive and figure out where the hell her husband was, kept the book moving briskly. The questions about Felix never let up. Did he leave on purpose? Was he keeping something from her the whole time they’ve been together? Is the man she thinks she married the same man at all? The longer the book goes, the more those questions get tangled up with whatever is actually happening on the mountain.
The isolated setting also adds a lot to the overall tension. There’s something about a remote mountain house in a snowstorm that just hits a specific switch in my brain. Baart leans into all of that, and the storm becomes a character in its own right. By the time it really kicks in, Sadie has no power, no phone, no way out, and she’s stuck waiting out the weather with people she doesn’t know and isn’t sure she can trust.
The characters are well drawn across the board. Sadie is a great anchor. Felix is interesting even when he’s offscreen, which is impressive. The two strangers are written with enough ambiguity that I went back and forth on them for most of the book. Nobody felt like a placeholder.
What I appreciated most was how much restraint this book showed. It isn’t trying to shock you on every other page. It isn’t throwing one ridiculous twist after another at you. It trusts the story, it trusts the characters and it trusts the reader to be patient. I always appreciate an author who does that, and that approach is what made the back half land for me. When the answers come, they feel like answers rather than cheap gotcha moments.
That said, this is also why I’d be careful recommending it to someone who needs constant twists and cliffhangers every ten pages. That’s not this book, but it is briskly paced and keeps the tension amped in a way that keeps you pushing forward.
If you like a quieter mystery, an isolated setting that closes in on you, and an author who actually trusts you as a reader, this one is worth your time. I’m glad I finally pulled it off the shelf. I just wish I hadn’t waited so long to do it.
