Queens, 1984 - Rebellious teen Vicky spends the summer with her great-aunt Elizabeth. As Vicky's own reckless choices spiral, Elizabeth's WW2 past surfaces, giving Vicky an education she never expects over a summer that changed everything.
Before Vicky could truly understand herself, there was a story she needed to understand in her Great Aunt Elizabeth.
Queens, 1984. Dr. Elizabeth Khayat—Palestinian-American, former pilot and pioneering physician—is recently widowed and fiercely private about her past. When her rebellious teenage grandniece, Vicky, is sent to spend the summer with her, the two clash immediately. Vicky is consumed by romance and rebellion; Elizabeth has built her life on discipline and hard-won independence. But Elizabeth’s guarded presence conceals a wartime history in World War II France—where, as a young doctor learning to fly, she formed a dangerous alliance with a German-Jewish colleague and became entangled with the French Resistance. Survival demanded impossible choices, and not all of them can remain buried.
As Vicky’s own reckless relationship begins to spiral, long hidden truth threatens to surface—forcing both women to confront who they are.
Discovering Elizabeth is a dual-timeline novel about legacy, sacrifice and the complicated inheritance between generations of women.