Finding Lisa

Tara Richards is unhappy with her job as a rehabilitation nurse and disenchanted with her marriage, but lacks the courage to make a major life change. When her best friend Lisa disappears, Tara's life is thrown into turmoil. Has Lisa jeopardized her sobriety by going on a drinking binge or is she hiding the news that she may be pregnant from her partner Ryan, who has a history of battering, and it's not his baby? Lisa is her rock, her confidant, her reality check. Tara can't live without her. Despite the near paralysis of bad hair days and her dread of turning forty, Tara joins a massive search to look for her friend in conjunction with the police, her colorful women's collective, Lisa's old-world Italian parents, and a twenty-four-year-old man Tara finds particularly captivating. One evening Tara is having a conversation with her best friend Lisa, the next morning Lisa is missing and the search begins. In the two weeks that follow, Tara will go through a lifetime of emotions. What’s happened to Lisa? The shocking truth is not revealed until the very end and it will have you sat on the end of your chair. Tara is leading an unhappy but safe life, stuck in a career and marriage she doesn't like, until her best friend vanishes. is about having everything, losing something important, and re-evaluating life, love, and purpose as a result. It stands out from other stories of disappearance and searching because of its focus on a variety of themes beyond the event itself. These include women's connections and friendships, the kinds of shared interactions that keep such connections alive, and underlying issues of spousal abuse, midlife changes, and new possibilities. The first step to making meaningful changes is to confront evidence that one's values, perceptions, and patterns are no longer serving their purpose. As long as Lisa is part of her life, Tara isn't compelled to take this step or make these realizations; but Lisa's disappearance prompts a cascade of grief, self-examination, and determination in ways than one, and this in turn fosters new experiences and choices. Set against the backdrop of Canadian culture, follows Tara's journey as she learns to trust strangers, runs into danger and even possible romance, and navigates strange new worlds in which her usual responses need revision. Her shortcomings and failures are reassessed as her search leads to not only dead ends, but a passage of time that gives her the feeling that Lisa is being left behind as life moves forward without her. As she faces questions about whether Lisa lost her sobriety and whether her boyfriend Ryan was involved, Tara confronts her own life decisions. Ultimately, is about Tara finding herself, her place in the world, and her own willingness to accept pat answers and appearances that defy easy explanations. The emotionally charged conclusion that takes an unexpected twist will delight readers who anticipated a very different ending from Tara's thought processes, making a delightful study in surprises that holds the power to thoroughly engross right up to its stormy conclusion.