Una went missing almost 20 years ago. Her parents, Kathleen and Yannick, got into a pretty big fight after that. Not right away. But they got into a fight on their front porch and Kathleen may have thrown some things at Yannick. Things like a folding table, perhaps even an ashtray that left a good scar. Since that moment they haven't shared a word between them. Until now.

Yannick called Kathleen and let her know he's coming to town. 19 years without a single word and now he's back. They've each received phone calls from B.C., where Una was living when she went missing. Remains have been found and they want to do DNA testing to establish the identity of them..

Yannick plans on driving out there. He hates flying. He wants Kathleen to go with him. It takes some convincing, and it doesn't happen right away, but what follows is a road trip across Canada that you won't soon forget.

The dialogue is thick with history and feelings, each interaction pregnant with explosive potential, good or bad or some mixture of both. Sometimes what isn't said is just as loud or louder than what is said.

The emotions are raw and easily felt. We get it. Or, at least, an approximation of it. I really appreciate the ease with which you feel this book and the characters within. I found this to be a very moving and enjoyable story. Recognizing the pain at the heart of it and the observation that Canada is a country of missing women, some looked for more than others, it is hard to say that this is a feel-good story but it certainly isn’t a feel-bad read. Like life, it just is.

The characters and scenes confront some heavy topics and feelings but Sarah Leipciger does so with a tenderness that connects with readers on a very human and humane level. There's a lot packed into this story. Read it, feel it, and enjoy it. I know I did.

I received this book as an ARC from NetGalley. The book was underwhelming. The main characters had been estranged for 19 years and reconnect to travel from Ontario to British Columbia after some news there missing daughter’s remains may have been found. The book explores, grief, trauma, loss and familial bonds. It was well written but was a very lengthy telling of a journey filled with grief.

LOVED this book! It is one of the best books I’ve read in a while. Kathleen and Yannick married, in Ontario, and had Una. Although they divorce, Kathleen and Yannick remain friends until a fight. Meanwhile Una disappears. 19 years after the fight both receive a phone call that bones have been found on Vancouver Island. Set in both the present and the past, and told from multiple perspectives, this was an excellent story! I loved grouchy, tell it as it is Kathleen, and romantic Yannick (who has multiple wives after Kathleen). A beautifully written, tragic tale.

I have been struggling with this book for a few weeks. I find the characters quite unlikable, which in turn makes me not really care to read it. I have read so may incredible reviews that I know I really need to dig in and enjoy the ride, but at this point I'm still on the struggle bus.

This was outside my norm but I throughly enjoyed it!

Katherine is just stuck. She has her routines, and her habits and doesn’t want change. She also wants everyone else to stay in roles she has given them. As you read along with her story, you understand how she got to be so stuck and what it might take to release her from it.

It’s very rare that the main characters of a book are in their mid sixties and early seventies, but that is Katherine and Yannick. We are with them through a commute across Canada after they haven’t spoken in almost 20 years. And I love how real it seems! Hours of awkward silence while they drive, only to make small talk about things that don’t really matter. So authentic in how conversations can go after years of not talking.

Being Canadian, I love the Canadian settings. The city names, the west coast scenery with the giant cedars that seem otherworldly. It is nice to read about places and fully understand and know exactly what they are talking about.

As the reader follows Katherine and Yannick, there are flashes of their past, how they met, how they fell in love, how they remained friends, and what caused the fight to end it all. There are also bits from what is perceived to be Una’s point of view. You learn what she was dealing with and how she felt without giving away too much of the story. Some of it is a little tense and unnerving but moving and insightful at the same time.

While this book may sound heavy, as it is about grief, loss, and suffering, it is an enjoyable read. Even with the heavy subject matter it was beautifully written.

Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Random House Canada for the ARC of this novel!

Kathleen and Yannick haven't spoken in nineteen years. Once they would claim to be the love of one another's lives; parents to Una, and eventually friends in raising their daughter. However, Una's disappearance in Victoria BC twenty years before has driven a wedge between them. As they travel to BC from Ontario to uncover the mystery of what happened to their daughter, they begin to connect and bond over their shared history and shared tragedy.

Moon Road was a very enjoyable book where the tragedy of Una haunts each page, and the reader is not quite sure what ti make of the main characters, Kathleen and Yannick. Kathleen is obviously haunted by her daughter's life and disappearance, but still acts questionably twenty plus years later. Yannick clearly is still in love with her, and the complicated relationship between the two is a compelling conflict. I enjoyed the writing style, and truly couldn't put the book down! I thoroughly enjoy complicated characters and well written dialogue. As a Canadian it was also a treat to see this one set in places I know well and love!

Overall, the exact type of suspenseful and complicated story that I can get lost in!

Fiction | Adult
[Cover image]
A long-divorced Ontario couple hit the road together to drive to Vancouver Island on Canada’s west coast, hoping to find out what happened to their daughter, Una, who disappeared there more than two decades ago. Kathleen and Yannick haven’t spoken for 19 years, but a phone call letting them know that the bones of a young woman have been found on the island pulls them together. The drive is a long one, 5,000 kilometres, giving them time to talk about the past, their past. Yannick has aged; time has made him mellower than ever. Kathleen has grown strong, perhaps more stubborn? Most of the story is in present time, with flashbacks to both the initial search for Una and even to Una on the day of her disappearance. It’s a story of loss and of hope, of a marriage and of shared pain and heartache. It’s also funny and touching even as these two aging characters struggle against physical pain and long-ago hurts. The road trip is long – it takes fully half the book, and by the end you feel like you know these people as well as you do your best friend. I came for the road trip from small-town Ontario (Bobcaygeon, I think?) to B.C., and fell in love with Leipciger’s lyrical and powerful writing: “Growing up is, in its way, a little bit like a death. Your kid is two people: the one that belongs to you, needs you, and the one that does not.” I did find this couple, roughly my age, to be rather old-fashioned in their speech, referring to a baby’s “milky thighs” and recalling their child coming home “brown as a berry” after summer camp. And oh my goodness, do they ever smoke, for two people who have allegedly quit… A brilliant, sometimes heartbreaking story of a couple trying to find peace in the face of a never-ending pain. This will remain with me for a long time. My thanks to Viking for the advance reading copy provided digitally through NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.
More discussion and reviews of this novel: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/214194644

Sarah Leipciger‘s novel Moon Road is a slow sad read. It is a story about loss and hope. This character driven book can’t be told fast it must be told gradually – we need to get to know the characters, it can’t be rushed. This book is a journey with two very interesting main characters. Leipciger descriptions of locations are flawless, from the immense roads through Canada, to the small run-down towns and diners, to the of the impressive mountains.
This is beautifully written story.

Thanks to NetGalley and Penguin Random House Canada for the digital ARC..

This book was appealing to me on many levels - the cross-country Canadian road trip, the "mystery" surrounding Una's disappearance, the dynamics between 70-something parents Kathleen and Yannick, reunited on said road trip to head to BC upon learning of the discovery of some remains (some 20 years after Una was last seen). The book is set in present day and has flashbacks to when una first disappeared and the couple travelled to Tofino where she was last seen, with snippets of Una herself's last days as well as flashbacks to

This is a beautifully written (if somewhat slow=moving at times) novel that deals with loss, trauma, grieving, family, forgiveness, healing, anger and love. Kathleen will grow on you as the novel progresses (she comes across as quite unlikable at times but she's forgiven a lot as losing a child and not knowing where they are for so long must make for indescribable pain and trauma). The "mystery" aspect of the book ("What happened to Una?") provides some momentum and suspense in a long-ish novel but you'll keep turning the pages as well because the writing and characters are compelling.

A beautiful read.

Beautiful writing style and I loved the Canadian references however I found the pacing to be rather slow. I wanted to skim at parts to get to the mystery. Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC of this book.

“Because when they grow up, your kids, they are different. Growing up is, in its way, a little bit like a death. Your kid is two people: the one that belongs to you, needs you, and the one that does not.” - Sarah Leipciger. 💜💜💜💜💜 Thank you @netgalley and @penguinrandomca for the digital advanced readers copy of “Moon Road” by Sarah Leipciger. This is hands down one of the best books I’ve read this year. I don’t know if a small review can do justice to the verbal work of art that Sarah has spun. She is a linguistic wizard and her ability to narrate a story with so much beauty and imagery is unmatched. When I wasn’t reading this book I couldn’t get back to it fast enough. This is a book that will stick with me. It’s tragic, and beautiful and full of life and death and grief. So many times I felt like I was Kathleen or I was Yannick or I was Una, not that I was just reading about them but I was actually experiencing their pain and their joy right along side them. Do yourself a favour and read “Moon Road” and I know I will be reading more by this author very shortly.

3.5 stars. Thanks to NetGalley and Random House Canada for this powerful, sensitively written book by Sarah Leipciger, which will be published on August 27. It contemplates grief, loss, and profound suffering written in lyrical, descriptive language, evoking disconnection, hope for closure and understanding.

Kathleen and Yannick were a married couple but divorced after their daughter Una disappeared 22 years ago. They remained friends, but after a significant blowup where Kathleen violently attacked Yannick, he left the home. They haven't spoken for 19 years.

This character-driven story treats Kathleen with sympathy, but I found her unlikeable. She is independent, runs a flower business, and marks off the days since Una went missing (now over 7900)). Each year, she hosts a Una Awareness party. The latest party is described. She is short-tempered, rude to friends trying to help, and self-centred and demanding. This party seems more creepy and destructive than a tribute to her daughter's memory. She realizes her words and behaviour were unpleasant but will never apologize. I had to wonder how much her personality was due to her profound loss or if she had always been that way, resulting in Una leaving home.

Yannick has been unsettled and always looking for new relationships and love. He is a quiet man who hides anger and grief. He has been remarried a couple of times and has four children. Kathleen was tolerant of his sons but hostile when his ex-wife gave birth to a girl. Kathleen is now in her mid-60s, and Yannick is entering his 70s. Shde unexpectedly hears from Yannick after all these years of silence. He is feeling his age from backaches and mobility issues. She is in pain from an extracted tooth and not following the dentist's advice.

He wants Kathleen to accompany him from Ontario to BC, 2500 miles in his rickety old truck. Female remains have been found in BC near where Una was last seen years ago. She reluctantly agrees to join him on the long road trip and give a DNA sample to identify the body. Will the answers bring closure for either one? The book's closure is brillaint. Recommended!

When Una disappeared many years ago, her parents flew to the seaside town of Tofino in the province of British Columbia to join the search. Now, once again, they make the trek across the country to learn if the newly uncovered bones belong to their daughter. Estranged and worn by life, their drive allows them time to reflect on the past in poignant yet profanity-laden memories.

The grief described in this book is undeniably heartbreaking. While neither of the main characters felt sympathetic—Kathleen is irascible, and Yannick is scattered—the reader cannot help but feel the pain the two endure. Sadly, this story felt all too real, as though it were a genuine autobiography.

Naturally, the subject matter discourages a recommendation of this book as an easy beach read. This book is one for quiet contemplation.


Thank you to Netgalley, Penguin Books and Sarah Leipciger for the opportunity to review this eARC. My opinions are my own, honest and true.

I loved this book. Which surprised me! I wasn’t sure going in if I truly would because it seemed like it was going to be a tad tedious and wordy, but it proved me wrong.

Very Canadian, it’s slightly in the same vein as The Observer by Marina Endicott (another Canadian author - a book I read last summer and somehow I still remember). However, Moon Road was an easier read with a bit more of an interesting premise. Not that I should really be comparing the two, but sometimes it’s hard not to.

It’s told from the point of views of an ex-couple, now both in their 70’s, whose daughter has gone missing for some 7000 odd days. She left in her early 20’s to get out of Ontario and answered the call to the west coast only to not be heard from by anyone after being there for a while. Her parents take a road trip out to British Columbia in the latest discovery that there’s a possibility bones found buried could be hers.

It flips back and forth from the past and present; their previous trips to find any kind of clue or insight out in BC for their daughter and the searches that were held to try and find her to no avail.

The ending reveals what truly happened to “our girl” as the narrator affectionately calls Una, the lost daughter. And it’s heartbreaking but relieving to find out. I was worried the author would leave it open ended.

Moon Road by Sarah Leipciger was hauntingly poignant and evoked some very strong feelings. Perhaps the Canadian landscape and familiar names made it hit closer to home, or knowing that if my math was correct "our girl" is of my generation, or it could be the author's writing is just so precise and moving... but this book enveloped me, ripped me apart, and spit me back out again, breaking my heart into a million different pieces while also being strangely poetically beautiful - or if not beautiful, bitingly complexly real.

This story captured me from the beginning and didn’t let go. Kathleen and Yannick were entirely believable characters, full of flaws and contradictory behaviour, as we humans tend to be. The ending was poignant and perfect.

This was my first novel by this author and it is a well written , intriguing read, the characters grew on you over time and you became invested in their heartache and resolution. The book portrays the story of a divorced couple Kathleen and Yannick in their 70s who travel across Canada together from Ontario to British Columbia for Kathleen to do an ( mRNA ) DNA test to find out if the 20 plus year old remains of a woman found are that of their missing daughter Una. The POV comes from all three characters and jumps ack and forth between the past and present day. This book does a good job of portraying the unending grief those left behind feel with no closure and how it shaped their lives.

This book is beautifully written and great for those who like literary fiction.


Thanks to Netgalley and Penguin Random House Canada | Viking for this ARC . This is my honest review.

The writing style was very poetic and beautiful but I found it difficult to follow the narrative. I wanted to feel a greater sense of setting with each place they stopped at but I felt removed from the whole thing. Definitely for fans of literary fiction, but not quite my cup of tea.

<b>On the Road to Find Out</b>
<i>Review of the NetGalley Kindle ARC (downloaded July 31, 2024) of the upcoming Penguin Random House Canada paperback (August 27, 2024).</i>

Kathleen and Yannick are the 70+ something parents of daughter Una who went missing in Tofino, British Columbia close to 22 years ago. They were already divorced by that time and in the intervening years Yannick has remarried twice and parented 4 other children. He hasn't even spoken to Kathleen for 19 years. Kathleen has withdrawn into a somewhat curmudgeonly life (apparently the female equivalent is supposed to be <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Termagant">termagant</a>, but does anyone really know that word?) of flower farming in a small town on the Otonabee River (near Peterborough) in Ontario, Canada.

Yannick suddenly appears at Kathleen's annual remembrance party for Una. Both of them have received a phone call from RCMP investigators in British Columbia. Unidentified bones have been found when a hiking trail was being cleared / built in parklands outside Tofino. Kathleen's DNA* is required for testing but she has hesitated to provide it, perhaps wanting to keep hope alive in Una's possible survival. Yannick convinces her to join him in a cross-country trip to British Columbia to provide the DNA (rather than do it via a local lab) but to seek some closure at the site where the bones were found.

That setup perhaps overstays its welcome, but when they hit the road and both bicker and snipe at each other, but gradually reconnect, the book really came alive for me. I've always enjoyed road books and this one had the humour and the pain of old partners becoming reacquainted and reaching a new found acceptance. The book examines the different ways we deal with family and grief as it contrasts Kathleen's and Yannick's lives.

As the journey progresses, we read flashbacks of their original trip to Tofino when Una was first reported missing. We also get intermittent peeks into Una's own life in her fateful final days. Not everyone's questions will be answered by the end, but the reader does obtain closure and Sarah Leipciger provides a somewhat transcendental conclusion.

My thanks to author Sarah Leipciger, Penguin Random House Canada and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this preview ARC, in exchange for which I provide this honest review.

<b>Soundtrack</b>
It also provided my lede, as I couldn't help but think of the Cat Stevens song <i>On the Road to Find Out</i> from the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea_for_the_Tillerman">Tea for the Tillerman</a> (1970) album. You can listen to that track on YouTube <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocu7XObxRZ8">here</a> or on Spotify <a href="https://open.spotify.com/track/6que7uzO7kWGJDseSSi6Ag">here</a>.

In the book, Kathleen is listening to the car radio when an old favourite song of hers by the Violent Femmes comes on. The song is unnamed, but from the few sample lyrics quoted it is obviously <a href="https://genius.com/Violent-femmes-american-music-lyrics">American Music</a> from the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Why_Do_Birds_Sing%3F">Why Do Birds Sing?</a> (1991) album. You can listen to the song on YouTube <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ag0XRlEvap8">here</a> or on Spotify <a href="https://open.spotify.com/track/21F39lpBdWHu5aRy68V8xj">here</a>.

<b>Footnote, Trivia and Link</b>
* The DNA genealogical testing which only a mother can do is Mitochondrial DNA or mDNA testing. These are passed unchanged from mother to child but not by the father. It is especially useful in the forensic & anthropological cases of testing bones in which the nuclear DNA is degraded. You can read more about Mitochondrial DNA at <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitochondrial_DNA">Wikipedia</a>.

Kathleen and Yannick, a divorced couple, drive from Ontario to Vancouver Island when the bones of an unidentified woman are unearthed 20 or so years after their daughter mysteriously disappears.

I was attracted to this book because I was born in Winnipeg but have lived all but four years of my life on Vancouver Island. I’ve made a number of road trips across the prairies and through the mountains, and innumerable sailings across the sea between the mainland and the island, not to mention several trips over the years to Tofino where Kathleen and Yannick’s daughter Una is last seen. The road trip felt real to me. I could relate to all the descriptions and moods of the variable landscape, roadside stops, cheap restaurants and motels.

When I started reading Moon Road I initially disliked Kathleen, a prickly, self-centred woman in her mid-60s. But as the story unfolded I found I had greater empathy for her and the grief she’s living with. Yannick I liked from the get-go. As the couple journeys across Canada the story moves between the present and past, from both Kathleen’s and Yannick’s perspectives, and interspersed throughout those moments and memories are glimpses into the last day of Una’s life.

I thought the story was beautiful. It was rather dreamlike and poetic once the road trip got underway which I thought was fitting because that’s how long trips feel to me. We learn a great deal about both parents; their feelings, their memories, their regrets. The trip of course is hard on both of them, but it’s also very cathartic, especially for Kathleen.

The ending wasn’t quite what I was hoping for but at the same time it was also just right and very satisfying.

I highly recommend this book!