Before She Was Helen

A Novel

By: Caroline B. Cooney

Narrated by: Kimberly Farr

Length: 11 hrs and 13 mins

Publisher's summary

Her life didn't turn out the way she expected - so she made herself a new one

When Clemmie goes next door to check on her difficult and unlikeable neighbor Dom, he isn't there. But something else is. Something stunning, beautiful and inexplicable. Clemmie photographs the wondrous object on her cell phone and makes the irrevocable error of forwarding it. As the picture swirls over the internet, Clemmie tries desperately to keep a grip on her own personal network of secrets. Can 50 years of careful hiding under names not her own be ruined by one careless picture?

And although what Clemmie finds is a work of art, what the police find is a body...in a place where Clemmie wasn't supposed to be, and where she left her fingerprints. Suddenly, the bland, quiet life Clemmie has built for herself in her sleepy South Carolina retirement community comes crashing down as her dark past surges into the present.

From international best-selling author of The Face on the Milk Carton Caroline B. Cooney comes Before She Was Helen, an absorbing mystery that brings decades-old secrets to life and explores what happens when the lie you've been living falls apart and you're forced to confront the truth.

©2020 Caroline B. Cooney (P)2020 Random House Audio

Warning …. Spoilers!

I really enjoyed the twists in the story, but found Clemmie’s life almost unbearably heartbreaking. To have never known a man’s love, to have lived in fear, hidden under an alias and remained a peripheral player in everyone else’s lives makes it seem like the coach won, even after death.

I would have enjoyed an epilogue where Clemmie ended up getting married, and where her son’s DNA test led his way to her and they were able to build a relationship.

Still, the story was entertaining and kept me engaged the whole time, so it was definitely worth my “two for one” credit special.

Slow start.

I didn’t know where this was going, but I persevered, mostly out of curiosity.
I’m so glad I did!
When people reach a certain age, there’s an assumption that they have nothing to offer the world, that they led lives as uninteresting as you’d assume them to be living currently.
This story makes you realise that absolutely everyone who is over 60 or 70 has a tale to tell and in some instances tales that haunt them or forced them to live thru the deepest kind of hell, to emerge the other side and to keep living.
I believe that the elderly have much to offer, if only by way of a retelling of their lives, and usually their accumulated experiences.
Too often the elderly aren’t seen. But they want happiness, to be useful, and to learn to party!
But, there’s hope, in the end. That’s what matters.

Original .... quirky and fun.

Enjoyed it.... narrator was good but "over the top" at times. Captured life in a retirement community.

what a pleasure

it has been a while since I have really enjoyed a book. I am a baby boomer in that 70ish age range so loved the references to life in the 50's and 60's. But when our main character described cell phones as the modern day pacifier , I was hooked. That image of everyone stroking their phones was genius. And so many twists and turns in the plot.

One of her best

The storyline had both suspense and humor and kept you there. The characterizations were great. Clemmie is a real humor being, and if you have ever done anything you want to hide from, you can relate and wish the best for her. Clemmie is a heroine in her feelings of compassion toward the less than perfect.

Good listen

Very entertaining murder mystery with some interesting twists and unlikely heroes in a retirement community.

Great story!

So many twists and turns. Fast paced, sad, but also some humor. Kept me guessing right up to the end.

Fun

Full of twists and turns.
At first, I had a hard time listening to the narrator, but as the story progressed, the narration improved.

I fell in love with Clemmie

I loved it that this older protagonist was not a caricature but an intelligent and unsentimental person. I couldn’t stop listening and wish for a sequel with Clemmie and her friends. A wonderful and often humorous story. And oh yeah, there’s a mystery too!

Twisty and funny

I really enjoy this narrator. The story line holds you entranced to the very end. Great listen.