From the 4-time award-winning author of A Whisper of Smoke comes a female friendship love story that “explores the gritty realities of living with mental illness with sharply dark humor and an interminable optimism, culminating in an unforgettable story that will either leave you with an empathy you didn’t expect, or feeling understood like never before.”

“A raw, emotional foray into the harrowing and yet hilarious capriciousness of mental illness… a novel that can meet you at your darkest moment and give you the power to decide to save your own life.” Reedsy Editor

After surviving a painful divorce, normally fierce businesswoman Claire Colson is on leave from her job, clinically depressed, and quite possibly failing as a mother. As part of her deliberate plan to reclaim her life, Claire enrolls in group therapy at the psych hospital. There she meets Tasha and Gretchen, two single moms from very different walks of life with their own brands of mental illness, and they give her what she didn’t know she needed — acceptance, unfailing humor even in the face of pain and, most surprising of all, friendship. They seem to have this mental illness thing down, so she listens to them when they suggest Claire enter the Nashville dating scene, which they insist will be therapeutic. Unfortunately, the selection seems to consist of middle-age rejects or young men suffering from beer fog, who are ripply and warmer in bed than vibrators, though significantly less reliable. Worst of all, despite all her best efforts, the Darkness doesn’t disappear.

Nothing in her life is what it once was. But when things fall apart for Tasha and Gretchen, Claire is faced with a truly terrifying prospect — what it means to live with mental illness, including that a friendship rooted in it can be dangerous, and also that Group isn’t the end. It’s only the beginning. And time is running out. If Claire can’t get to a better place, she could lose the career she’s worked so hard for, any chance at a healthy relationship, maybe even custody of her daughter. Will Claire find a path to a future worth living, even if it may not look like the life she lost? And will her friendship with Tasha and Gretchen be what saves her or destroys her?

Sort of like Girl, Interrupted meets the Girlfriend’s Guide to Divorce (except with discount shoes), Missing Pictures is an honest depiction of women with mental illness that doesn’t just present them as caricatures or oddities, or focus on shock elements. It shows, in a real way, what it is to live with mental illness every day, and still have jobs, responsibilities and relationships, and how an unexpected friendship can be borne from the shared experience.

Trigger Warning: References to sexual assault (not explicit), depiction of suicidal ideations and delusional psychosis.