Thank you to all at Curtis Brown, most especially my agent, Sheila Crowley, but also including Jonny Geller, Katie McGowan, Jess Cooper, Tally Garner, Sam Greenwood, Sven Van Damme, Alice Lutyens, Sophie Harris, and Rebecca Ritchie. So, more of them are coming here? More of them pushing their way into our storerooms, eating our food, stealing our animals. I swear, I do not know how we will survive this winter.” I do,” she said. “Sometimes I forget what he looks like. I gaze at his photograph, and I can’t remember anything.”

The Girl You Left Behind is the story of Sophie Lefevre who is living in occupied France 1916, and Liv Halston who lives in modern day London 2006. These two women are connected by a painting, a portrait of Sophie painted by her husband Edouard, called "The Girl You Left Behind". This was quite a story, and I honestly think Jojo Moyes is in a class all her own for pulling it off. She did such an amazing job of intertwining their stories, I was completely absorbed in this book, especially Sophie's story. Hélène shook her head, as if I were a fool she might have to indulge. And then she went to serve Madame Louvier and Madame Durant, who, although they had often observed that my chicory coffee tasted as if it had come from the sewer, had arrived to hear the story of the pig-baby. I could see him clearly for the first time now. He was older than I had thought, in his late forties perhaps, although with fighting men it was hard to tell. They all looked older than they were. I wanted him gone then. I didn’t want him to mention those names. Those memories were mine, little gifts that I could bring out to comfort myself on the days when I felt overwhelmed by life as it was; I did not want my happiest days polluted by the casual observations of a German. The look he gave me was impenetrable. He turned on his heel and walked toward the house door. I followed him, half tripping over my skirts in my attempt to keep up. I knew the mere act of speaking so boldly to him might be considered a crime. And yet, at that moment, I was no longer afraid.Not one artist in particular. I went round the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, looking at the Impressionists on the upper floors, and I imagined Lefèvre as a mixture of many of the artists I saw. I glanced up from the display of gloves and closed the glass case over them, the sound swallowed by the huge atrium that made up La Femme Marché’s central shopping area. Be careful where you walk,” I said. He glanced down, then saw it: the corner of the room where they had attempted to remove the floorboards for firewood last spring. The house had been too well built, its boards nailed too securely, and they had given up after several hours when they had removed just three long planks. The hole, a gaping O of protest, exposed the beams beneath. What kind of research did you do for The Girl You Left Behind? Is there a real artist whose work you imagined as Édouard Lefèvre’s paintings?

Part II : Present Day - Liv is now in possession of The Girl You Left Behind, a gift from her now deceased husband. Through a series of unlikely circumstances, she learns to care for a man named Paul, who also has an unusual interest in the painting. Will these lovers-turned-opponents find a way to settle their differences, or will the painting destroy both of their lives?

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But still. “I am not sure our bar will be suitable for you, Herr Kommandant. We are stripped of comforts here.” I stood and gazed at her, and, for a few seconds, I remembered how it had felt to be that girl, free of hunger, of fear, consumed only by idle thoughts of what private moments I might spend with Édouard. She reminded me that the world is capable of beauty, and that there were once things—art, joy, love—that filled my world, instead of fear and nettle soup and curfews. I saw him in my expression. And then I realized what I had just done. He had reminded me of my own strength, of how much I had left in me with which to fight.

Paris, 1916. Sophie Lefèvre must keep her family safe while her adored husband, Édouard, fights at the front. When their town falls to the Germans in the midst of World War I, Sophie is forced to serve them every evening at her hotel. From the moment the new Kommandant sets eyes on Sophie’s portrait—painted by her artist husband—a dangerous obsession is born, one that will lead Sophie to make a dark and terrible decision. Almost a century later, Sophie’s portrait hangs in the home of Liv Halston, a wedding gift from her young husband before his sudden death. After a chance encounter reveals the portrait’s true worth, a battle begins over its troubled history and Liv’s world is turned upside all over again.” Monsieur Suel, Herr Kommandant, comes here at least twice a month attempting to persuade us that in the absence of our husbands we are in need of his particular brand of comfort. Because we have chosen not to avail ourselves of his supposed kindness, he repays us with rumors and a threat to our lives.” Paris, World War I. Sophie Lefevre must keep her family safe while her adored husband, Edouard, fights at the front. When their town falls to the Germans, Sophie is forced to serve them every evening at her hotel. From the moment the new Kommandant sets eyes on Sophie’s portrait—painted by her artist husband—a dangerous obsession is born. Almost a century later in London, Sophie’s portrait hangs in the home of Liv Halston, a wedding gift from her young husband before his sudden death. After a chance encounter reveals the portrait’s true worth, a battle begins over its troubled history and Liv’s world is turned upside all over again. Edouard : The men here clutch photographs of their loved ones like talismans, protection against the dark - crumpled, dirty images endowed with the properties of treasure. I need no photograph to conjure you before me, Sophie. I need only to close my eyes to recall your face, your voice, your scent, and you cannot know how much you comfort me. Know, my darling, that I mark each day not, like my fellow soldiers, as one that I am grateful to survive, but thanking God that each means I must surely be twenty-four hours closer to returning to you.You are welcome to see the rooms, Herr Kommandant. But you will find that your predecessors have left us with little. The beds, the blankets, the curtains, even the copper piping that fed the basins, they are already in German possession.” Monsieur Armand, the baker, shushed them. “You cannot criticize Madame Lefèvre! We are all their puppets now. Madame Durant, do you criticize me for baking their bread?” I would also like to thank Jeremy Scott, partner at Lipman Karas, for his generous expert help on the issue of restitution, and for answering my many questions with patience. I have had to tweak certain legal points and procedures for the sake of the plot, and any errors or deviations from actual practice are, of course, my own. Almost a century later, Sophie's portrait is given to Liv Halston by her young husband shortly before his sudden death. A chance encounter reveals the painting's true worth, and a battle begins for who its legitimate owner is--putting Liv's belief in what is right to the ultimate test.

She looked at him, and then at the counter where the coins lay. “Keep them,” she said. And, with a furious glance at us, she snatched up the bread, and swept out of the shop. At one point, the Kommandant asks Sophie if they can just “be two people” (p. 72). What did you make of this—did you ever find yourself sympathizing with the Kommandant or any of the German soldiers? Is there room for sympathy on both sides? He caught the flash of surprise on my face, barely suppressed, and I saw that it satisfied something in him. It was perhaps enough for him to know I had believed myself doomed. He was smart, this man, and subtle. I would have to be wary. Look, I know this probably doesn't make any sense, but could we possibly forget about the case? Just for one evening?" Her voice is too vulnerable. "Could we just be two people again?"Her loaves live under the counter by themselves. They contain some special ingredients. Ingredients that I promise you go into none of my other loaves.” David’s sudden death left Liv financially as well as emotionally devastated. “His loss is a part of her, an awkward weight she carries around, invisible to everyone else” (p. 151). But when Liv meets Paul McCafferty during a chance encounter, she starts to feel as though life might have something in store for her yet. Paul’s work lies in the restitution of lost art and the spoils of war—and in a cruel twist, his next case is the portrait of Sophie that Liv loves most in all the world. France, 1916: Artist Edouard Lefevre leaves his young wife, Sophie, to fight at the front. When their small town falls to the Germans in the midst of World War I, Edouard's portrait of Sophie draws the eye of the new Kommandant. As the officer's dangerous obsession deepens, Sophie will risk everything - her family, her reputation, and her life - to see her husband again.