The Night She Disappeared
Fiction
Atria Books
September 7, 2021
Advance reader copy
416
Free from publisher
2017: 19 year old Tallulah is going out on a date, leaving her baby with her mother, Kim.
Kim watches her daughter leave and, as late evening turns into night, which turns into early morning, she waits for her return. And waits.
The next morning, Kim phones Tallulah's friends who tell her that Tallulah was last seen heading to a party at a house in the nearby woods called Dark Place.
She never returns.
2019: Sophie is walking in the woods near the boarding school where her boyfriend has just started work as a head-teacher when she sees a note fixed to a tree.
'DIG HERE' . . .
A cold case, an abandoned mansion, family trauma and dark secrets lie at the heart of Lisa Jewell's remarkable new novel.
The queen of the domestic thriller has managed to create yet another page turner of a novel. First let me say, as I do every year when I review books by this author, that her non-thriller book The House We Grew Up In is a must read! Now with that promotion out of the way, let's discuss this latest release. As is the case with all her novels, the author tells this story with multiple POV's (points of view) and a couple different timelines. As is also the case, reading a Jewell book takes me back to my Nancy Drew obsession. Remember when there was always a cliffhanger at the end of each chapter to make you want to continue on? That's pretty much how I feel when I read Jewell's books! The writing and storytelling is so compelling, you will want to keep your eyes glued to the pages to find out how it's all going to end. The mother character worked the best for me in this one, I'm not much of a fan of young people behaving badly, so those characters and their backstory were more secondary and a bit boring for me. However, the mystery aspect was what definitely propelled this one. I had some ideas, some I was correct on, some not, I always like to be right at least once in awhile, so I can appreciate the easy clues fed to the reader. I loved the conclusive ending, I'm not one to want to guess at what happened to the major players, so I appreciated the closure.
Another fast paced, riveting read from and author I know I can count on to provide a few hours of quality entertainment and amateur sleuthing. Definitely will be a hit for those who know this author, and hopefully will be picked up by others who want an immersive reading experience.
