The Truth About Delilah Blue [Paperback]

In a previous life, Lila Mack had been Delilah Blue Lovett, living out an idyllic childhood in Toronto with her unconventional mother, Elisabeth. Everything changed, however, when at age eight, her father, Victor, whisked her away to California, where he gave her a new name, dyed her hair, and tucked her away in a house with no windows facing onto the world.

Although father and daughter have lived happily together, Victor has kept Lila so sheltered that she’s never doubted his explanation that her mother didn’t want her. By age 20, Lila is lost and lonely, posing nude as an artist’s model because it’s as close as she can get to being an artist herself. When her mother reappears in her life, she’s shocked to learn that her father had effectively kidnapped her as a child and that Elisabeth has been searching for her ever since. This revelation shakes up her life, but it turns out to be only the beginning: Elisabeth is not all that she seems, and Victor is starting to show symptoms of early onset Alzheimer’s. 

This is the sort of novel readers have come to expect from the author of Town House and Inside Out Girl. Cohen’s popular fiction is balanced comfortably between heavy and light; the author employs humour to touch on serious issues, and she has a thing for precocious little-girl characters. Her prose is intelligent and sparkling, her characterization is deft, and she absolutely nails essential details, such as Lila’s habit of doodling on her boots when she’s nervous.

The Truth About Delilah Blue is not without its problems – there is too much plot, a few tortured metaphors, and the ending is too tidy. A tidy ending, however, also lends its own appeal – this is a book that goes down easy. Cohen uses humour, pathos, and a dose of suspense to create a perfectly enjoyable read.

"There is not one single wrong note in this story of crisis and courage." -- Jacquelyn Mitchard, New York Times and bestselling author of The Deep End of the Ocean

"Cohen knows how to focus on character in ways that make readers care." -- Kirkus Reviews

There is not one single wrong note in this story of crisis and courage. --Jacquelyn Mitchard, New York Times and bestselling author of The Deep End of the Ocean

Cohen knows how to focus on character in ways that make readers care. --Kirkus Reviews

"In order to secure a stealth art education, 20-year-old Lila Mack, who moved to Los Angleles from Toronto when she was 8, secretly becomes a model. She has no other option, because her father, Victor, refuses to pay for anything that isn't business school. Told by a psychic to "go west," Lila's long-absent mother, an artist herself, suddenly reenters her daughter's life and promptly delivers some shocking revelations about Lila's father. Conflicted, Lila is torn between protecting Victor, who is showing signs of early-onset Alzheimer's, and pressuring him to tell her his side of the story. What's more, she discovers that the idealized memories she has of her mother have blocked out a history of careless parenting and selfish whims. The perspective flip-flops between Lila and Victor, sliding back and forth between the present and 1996, when they left Toronto. The slow reveal of the "whys" and "what fors" feels a little coy at times, but the coming-of-age story itself-the transformation of outsider Lila into self-assured Delilah Blue-proves satisfying and will definitely appeal to the crossover audience that straddles YA and adult fiction." --Courtney Jones

"A father abducts his daughter, flees to Los Angeles from their home in Toronto, creates a new identity for the two of them, lives in anonymity for eight years'and then gets diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's just as his wife catches up with him." At the age of 20, Delilah Blue-now Lila Mack-finds herself posing nude for an art class, for she wants to become an artist. She has talent but no money, and she hopes to pick up pointers from crusty art professor Julian Lichtenstein (aka Lichty), far less well known than his famous second cousin, Roy. Until now she's had little confusion about her identity: Her father Victor has persuaded her that her mother, Elisabeth, didn't want her, and Lila readily accepts this explanation. It turns out, however, that flaky mom is now in L.A. (along with Lila's seven-year-old half-sister) because a Canadian psychic had told her she'd find her daughter there. Elisabeth-an artist manqué-keeps checking art galleries for evidence of her daughter's existence and eventually finds a nude sketch of her. Mom is rather vindictive because it appears Victor has been feeding Lila a line-although he kidnapped her to get her away from her mom's lax maternal qualities and her spacey artiste, dope-smoking friends, all the time mom had been searching for her daughter. Victor now has problems of his own, however, for even though he's only 53, he's forgetting his appointments--and showing up at odd times-as a salesman for a medical-supplies company. He's also becoming more irrational and impulsive. (A symptom of the problem emerges when he steals a dog left temporarily in his care.) Elisabeth wants to prosecute her husband for kidnapping, but Lila-who ultimately assumes her original and rightful name of Delilah--acts like the only adult in this dysfunctional trio by trying to protect and care for her father and fend off the mother's pent-up aggression. Cohen (Little Black Lies, 2009, etc.) knows how to focus on character in ways that make readers care. --Kirkus Reviews

"There are some books you can't put down, and others that won't even let you look away. Tish Cohen's new novel is both. ... Tish Cohen may never win a Nobel Prize ... [b]ut that hardly matters. The Truth About Delilah Blue is still a powerfully good read, perfectly timed for release under the hot rays of summer." --The Globe and Mail