Author: Sue Watson
Narrator: Jasmine Blackborow
Publisher: Hachette UK - Bookouture
Publication Date: November 2019
Genre: Mystery / Thriller
Buy The Book: Amazon | BN | Audible
Description: "Sometimes we can’t see what’s right in front of us, Kat. Everyone has secrets, even the people we love, the people we live with...."
Kat remembers the days when her only daughter Amy wouldn't leave her side. Amy was the baby who cried when you walked out of the room, the toddler who was too shy to speak to strangers, the small child who clung to Kat's legs in the school playground.
But now Amy is grown up, and Amy is gone - to university in a town several hours away. Kat's house - which once felt too full, too noisy, too busy - is deathly quiet, and Kat awaits the daily phone call to tell her that her beloved daughter is thriving and happy.
But one day Amy doesn’t call. Kat’s husband and friends think she is being paranoid - surely Amy is just out, having fun with her friends. But Kat knows right away that something is very wrong. Her daughter would never forget to call. She would never just disappear.... After all, Amy has nothing to run from. Or does she?
A gripping and suspenseful psychological thriller with more twists and turns than a rollercoaster. Fans of The Wife Between Us, The Girl Before, and Gone Girl will be gripped by this story about a mother’s obsessive love for her child.
My Thoughts: I am so conflicted with this book. Sue Watson is one of my go-to authors when I crave the twisty and suspenseful, but this one just didn’t pull me in gripping the edge of my seat in high anticipation like she has with her other stories. The story was good, it definitely wasn’t that, so the only thing that I can conclude is the audio narrator really had me annoyed and irritated at Kat for most of the book. I just couldn’t connect with her, though I felt tremendous empathy for the fear and anxiety she is feeling. It was just so over the top and like a lot of the other characters in the book, I wanted to tell her to chill the eff out.
Obviously, it turns out that Kat was right to worry, but she was in near hysterics and panic mode practically from the moment the book started. Yes, I get it. You and your daughter have a special relationship. You’re extremely close. What I couldn’t help wondering, like a lot of people, is maybe Amy needed a breather from her helicopter mom, always hovering overhead, breathing down her neck. She’s away at university in Wales and for the first time in her life living on her own so maybe the girl just wants to embrace that freedom for a hot minute without her mother smothering her. Five minutes after Amy is supposed to walk through the door for a weekend home, her mother is obsessively checking her phone, scrolling through Amy’s Instagram, calling the friends.
Five minutes turns into 24 hours turns into 48 hours turns into 8 days and the police are involved. Facebook pages have been created for people to post information about her and then things start to turn quite ugly. Amy’s roommates tell the police that they saw Amy with an old guy the night before she was supposed to go home for the weekend. Then the roommate tells the police that the man is Richard, Amy’s stepfather. Shut The Front Door! Why was Richard in Amy’s flat? Why didn’t Kat know about it?
I’m all in now, let me tell you. Still not enough information to determine if Amy was taken or if she left on her own and who she left with remains a mystery until nearly the end. In typical and brilliant Sue Watson fashion, she rips the rug right out from under me and I’m completely blown away.
Thumbs up must also go to Jasmine Blackborow for her superb narration performance. In addition to making Kat sound as neurotic as humanly possible, she breathes life into the other characters so magnificently that when the final twists come, the reader is so trusting of the people around, just like Kat, that I could hardly believe what was happening!
My Final Verdict: Readers who like a very slow burning story and don’t mind characters that get on your nerves in the beginning will adore this story. It wasn’t my favorite, but once things started to heat up beyond Kat’s hysterics, I couldn’t pull myself away.
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