Leaving Time

by Jodi Picoult

Jenna Metcalf was with her mother the night she disappeared in tragic and mysterious circumstances, but she remembers nothing.

Over ten years have passed, and still Jenna reads and rereads her mother's journals, hoping to find some clue hidden there, in the meticulous recording of her scientific research with elephants.
Desperate for answers, Jenna uses all her savings to recruit the aid of a private detective - and a psychic.

Jenna knows her mother loved her. She knows she would not leave her. And she will not rest until she finds out what happened that night. In her most gripping mystery since House Rules, Jodi Picoult brings us a powerful story of a young girl's determination to uncover the truth, however shocking and life-changing it might be.

• ISBN10: 1444778145
• ISBN13: 9781444778144
• Publish Date: 4 November 2014 (first published 1 October 2014)
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 29 March 2021
• Publish Country: GB
• Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton
• Imprint: Hodder & Stoughton Ltd
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 416
• Language: English

Reviews

[Leah]

Jodi Picoult is one of the finest storytellers in the world. I feel so lucky that I get to read her books because she very rarely disappoints. I haven’t read all of her books (yet) but of all the ones I have read, they’ve been fantastic. And while she does the law stories really well, sometimes it’s the other stories she writes that are just as incredible. Leaving Time is one I missed when it was first released - I own it, of course, I just haven’t read it, and it was simply phenomenal.

Leaving Time tells the story of 13-year-old Jenna. Her mom disappeared when she was three, her dad is in a residential care home and she can’t help but wonder what happened that fateful night at the elephant sanctuary her parents owned. So she tracks down local psychic Serenity and ex-cop-turned-PI Virgil and they set off to uncover exactly what happened to Jenna’s mom that night years ago.

Leaving Time is basically a mystery but wrapped up in the mystery, we learn how Jenna’s mom Alice is a renowned elephant expert. She spent years in Africa studying them before shifting her focus to grief in elephants and then when she met and fell in love with Thomas, she moved to New Hampshire to be with him at his elephant sanctuary, they’re such a big part of the novel and I learned so much about them whilst reading. Things I hadn’t even known or would have thought to wonder. They are magnificent creatures and I have a new and massive respect for them. I felt so connected to the characters via their work and love of elephants and that really speaks to how Picoult writes. She really makes you care.

I had thoughts about how Leaving Time would end, thoughts about what had happened to Jenna’s mother but I couldn’t have been further from the truth. Picoult is known for pulling a bait and switch and nobody does it quite like she does and in Leaving Time she just about broke my heart. I don’t know how Picoult does it, but I very rarely see where she’s going when she’s writing, and this was no different. Picoult really is a magnificent writer, one of the best of this generation, and Leaving Time shows off her skills excellently.