Jackie’s Reading Corner

SYNOPSIS

Her missing daughter was just the start of the nightmare

Twenty years ago, Christine Donovan took a call she should have ignored while shopping. In those few seconds while her back was turned, her toddler, Heidi, was kidnapped. She’s never been seen again.

Despite having two other children with husband Greg, Christine remains guilt-stricken that her neglect caused her child to be stolen, while haunted by a secret that consumes her.

Just as she takes measures to finally heal, a note is posted through her door, with the words she has always longed to hear: Heidi, isn’t dead.

Christine might finally get the answers she craves – but what she doesn’t know is that finding her daughter will uncover dark secrets close to home.

In seeking the truth, Christine might destroy everything that she loves…. So how far is she willing to go to find Heidi?

MY REVIEW

OMG, where do I start? This is the best psychological thriller I have read this year. A massive rollercoaster ride, that just kept me hooked from the prologue to that final word. I know we all say twists that you won’t see coming well this one really had twists that I never saw coming. At times I thought I had it all worked out, I knew who had done what but I wasn’t even close.

For me, I normally have to like at least one character in a book that I can root for, if I don’t have that character I tend to get bored which ends up in me checking my phone, going on social media. But this time I just couldn’t put my kindle down, it was 3am and I was at 90% I had really wanted to finish the book but my eyes were getting sore so I was forced to put it down, but once I was armed with a nice cup of chai the following morning I grabbed the kindle and settled down. What an ending! That last 10% had even more twists and turns.

The story is told in two timelines the now and the before. There are multiple points of view, so getting different perspectives as to what was happening. Christine or ‘Chrissy’ lost her daughter Heidi 23 years earlier, she had taken a phone call whilst out shopping , had moved away from the pushchair to get a better signal, had turned her back on her daughter and when she turned back round Heidi was gone. For 23 years she has lived in hell, everyday blaming herself, her husband Greg also blamed her. But Chrissie never told the whole truth to Greg or the police that day, who was she on the telephone to?

Chrissie and Greg had gone on and had two more children Ella and Daniel, but Chrissie never bonded with them, she was distant, she pushed them away. Greg tried his best as a dad and Ella and Daniel love him, but he also buried himself in his work so wasn’t always around. Chrissie’s best friend Janine has always been there for her, her husband Nate had been one of Greg’s best friends but had recently died. Miranda was an ex of Greg’s who reluctantly became friends with Chrissie as it was the only way she could keep Greg in her life, she was still in love with him despite being married herself.

Chrissie is seeing yet another Psychiatrist, she has seen many over the years but she has never really been truthful and opened up to them, she had never felt comfortable enough to do that. Dr Freya Cousins is the latest, Miranda recommended her to Janine after she had lost Nate, and Janine had recommended her to Chrissie, it couldn’t hurt to try one more. Her marriage to Greg was in tatters, her relationship with Ella and Daniel was almost non existent they hated her. And she had bottled everything up for all these years. Could Dr Cousins help? Could she get Chrissie to open up?

Then a letter arrives saying that Heidi is still alive, and that she is better off with the person she is with than she ever was with Chrissie. Could Heidi really be alive after all these years of nothing? When Greg sees the letter he wants to understand what the person means, why is Heidi better off with someone that is not her mother? He knows that Chrissie has held something back but he doesn’t know what. He had been so in love with Chrissie when they met but that love had gone, when he looks at her now, he feels nothing, he hasn’t loved her for years.

Each character in this story is so complex, I thought I would like Chrissie, I thought I would feel sorry for her losing a child like that and never having the closure. But I just couldn’t like her, the more I learnt about her the more I disliked her. But it became the same with most of the characters each of them had there flaws. Obviously Dan and Ella were the way they were because of the way they had been raised, Chrissie had never shown them any affection. In some ways you could see why, she was afraid to love them in case they disappeared the same way Heidi has, obviously it could have gone the other way where she could have been overprotective.

All the characters are believable, three dimensional and very well developed throughout the story. As each character tells their points of view you get to know them. This is such a well written story I don’t know how the author managed to juggle the characters so well as each piece gradually slots in, solving the puzzle at the end.

This is an absolute ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ read, in fact if I could I would give it more stars. I cannot wait to see what the author comes up with next. This is a book I will be recommending and it is definitely in my top 10 for this year without a doubt.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

A. A. Chaudhuri is a former City lawyer. After gaining a degree in History at University College London, she later trained as a solicitor and worked for several major London law firms before leaving law to pursue her passion for writing. She is the author of The Scribe and The Abduction, books 1 and 2 of her Kramer & Carver legal thriller series featuring the feisty Maddy Kramer, also published in audio. Her first psychological thriller with Hera Books, She’s Mine, will be published in 18th August 2021. Represented by Annette Crossland of A for Authors Literary Agency, she lives in Surrey with her family, and loves films, all things Italian and a good margarita!

#1 Amazon Australia Amateur Sleuth Mysteries (Aug ’19); #1 Amazon Canada Women Sleuth Mysteries; (Aug ’19) top 10 Amazon UK Legal crime thrillers (Aug ’19); #1 Amazon Australia Legal Thrillers (November ’19)

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