Forgotten

If you had the chance to start over again, would you take it? How much of your present life would you incorporate into your new one? Forgotten is a new novel from author Catherine McKenzie that looks at how those questions might be answered in one young woman’s life.

Emma Tupper is an ambitious young lawyer with a bright future ahead of her. She’s focused and articulate and making rapid progress upwards in her profession. But her mother has just died. Her mother was obsessed with the continent of Africa but never made it there herself. As a parting gift, she leaves Emma tickets for a safari. Emma’s not sure if she should go–after all, her career is very important to her. But she decides to honor her mother’s memory.

While there, she falls terribly ill and is left in the care of 2 NGO workers in a small, isolated village. Then, a devastating earthquake rocks the area, effectively stilling the chance of any outside communication. Emma is stuck. She’s better, but there’s no way for her to let the people back home know she’s even survived.

And they don’t think she has. Six months later, when the roads reopen and Emma manages to make her way back home, dealing with severe culture shock in Heathrow Airport on the way, she find that her apartment’s been rented to someone else, her job and office given to her rival, her car towed and in storage.

Her apartment’s new tenant is a handsome photographer. The two NGO workers are back in New York and opening a center for disadvantaged families. As Emma struggles to regain her former life/apartment/job/office/boyfriend, she has choices to make. Should she go back to how things were, or is it time for a change?

Forgotten looks at how rapidly life can change, and what one can do about it.

Elizabeth managed to change her life nearly completely when she moved to Africa herself over 10 years ago. Learn more at her blog Planet Nomad.