WHERE THE MISSING GO
EMMA ROWLEY
*****
When 15 year old Sophie runs away from home, her mother Kate is devastated. A seemingly happy girl in a perfect life, what more should she have done to stop her from wanting to run away? 2 years later, grief is still eating away at Kate as her marriage and life falls apart around her, then a surprise phone call from Sophie brings up more questions and starts Kate on mission to find her daughter and bring her home.
Where the Missing Go is an incredible thrill-ride of a read. It’s perfectly paced, giving you just enough information as it thinks you need to know and stringing you along to keep reading. The first half of the book is entirely in Kate’s perspective before switching and alternating at just the right point in the plot to give you exposition and drop more hints as to what is going on. The ending is brilliant and the twist actually surprised me which is becoming less and less common in books for me at the moment.
Although I’ve read lots of thrillers about abductions recently, this book takes the angle of a girl who seemingly wants to run-away and how that affects the mother-daughter relationship. Kate is very sympathetically written and having half the book completely in her perspective gives you a complex and heart-breaking insight into a mothers love for her daughter and her loyalty to never give up searching. Her friends, family and other characters around her do seem quite vague at times because as the narrator she is more concerned with finding Sophie, but they never feel too over-exaggerated or unrealistic.
Overall, Where the Missing Go is a book I devoured; I picked it up and finished it in just 2 sittings as I got completely drawn in to the story and wanted to find out what happened next. It is also a book that I didn’t have to write any notes about things that annoyed me while I read as a reminder for my review – I just read and enjoyed it for what it was. I am sure Where the Missing Go will become a must-read for 2018 and thank you to NetGalley and Orion Publishing Group for letting me read the ARC in exchange for an honest review.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Where-Missing-mega-twisty-psychological-breathless-ebook/dp/B075JN25B3/