Author: Emiko Jean
Year published: 2024
Category: Adult fiction (thriller)
Pages: 320 pages
Rating: 4 out of 5
Location: (my 2024 Google Reading map): USA (WA)
Summary: Detective Chelsey Calhoun’s life is turned upside down when she gets the call Ellie Black, a girl who disappeared years earlier, has resurfaced in the woods of Washington state—but Ellie’s reappearance leaves Chelsey with more questions than answers.
It’s been twenty years since Detective Chelsey Calhoun’s sister vanished when they were teenagers, and ever since she’s been searching: for signs, for closure, for other missing girls. But happy endings are rare in Chelsey’s line of work.
Then a glimmer: local teenager Ellie Black, who disappeared without a trace two years earlier, has been found alive in the woods of Washington State.
But something is not right with Ellie. She won’t say where she’s been, or who she’s protecting, and it’s up to Chelsey to find the answers. She needs to get to the bottom of what happened to Ellie: for herself, and for the memory of her sister, but mostly for the next girl who could be taken—and who, unlike Ellie, might never return.
Review: Book of the Month Club hardly ever steers me wrong on books and this one was no exception. I thought I had the whole story figured out, but I didn't so that a good sign in a thriller.
The story is harrowing and every woman's nightmare: your children (or you) are taken by a lunatic. This novel plays on that fear, showing us both sides of the experience: those who are left behind and are trying to figure it all out, and those going through the experience. I like that we get to see both as it propels the story along at a good clip.
I liked both Chelsey (the cop) and Ellie (the main victim) since they are both flawed, both experiencing pain in the present and in memories. It's easy to see why they behave the way they and at the same time hope that I would act differently, more assuredly. But, the creepy people who are holding the girls are so icky and well done. There is just enough creep factor to make your skin crawl. I knew that people like them are real and that they weren't over the top. That makes them even scarier.
Challenges for which this counts:
- Cloak and Dagger
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