What does it mean to honor the memory of someone you loved but may have never fully known? Heather Clay's riveting debut novel, about the overlapping lives of two starkly different sisters, will invite comparisons to Sue Miller, Jane Hamilton, and Elizabeth Strout.

Born and raised on their parents' lush Kentucky horse farm, Charlotte and Knox Bolling grew up intimately connected; yet their bond frayed as one of them sought to rebel within their close family. When Charlotte moves north to New York and marries Bruce, leaving her sister firmly rooted on home soil, the two women seem to stand on opposite sides of a geographic and ever-widening emotional divide. But their fates are forever intertwined when Charlotte dies giving birth to twin boys, and Knox steps into her sister's vanished life for an interim to help care for them. For Knox and Bruce grief is initially subsumed by exhaustion and duty as they plow through their daily rounds. The crucible of their devastating weeks together is the backdrop against which these survivors, all but strangers to each other, will be tested in unforeseen ways and grapple with a deeper understanding of the woman they both loved.

Lyrical, haunting, and psychologically acute, Losing Charlotte marks the emergence of an electrifying new storyteller.