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Title : Then She Was Gone
Author : Lisa Jewell
Published : 14/12/2017
Pages : 448
Genre : Psychological thriller
Publisher : Arrow

     Ten years on, Laurel has never given up hope of finding Ellie. And then she meets a charming and charismatic stranger who sweeps her off her feet. But what really takes her breath away is when she meets his nine-year-old daughter. Because his daughter is the image of Ellie. Now all those unanswered questions that have haunted Laurel come flooding back.

     When it comes to the loss of a child I can't imagine much worse, All I can think of is losing a child an not knowing what happened to them. Spending years lost in this limbo must be some of the worst kind of torture.  It's a theme that I have seen run through many a book in recent years. So I tend to choose which ones I read carefully. I think in some ways what I found curious about this one was not that it was about a long lost child suddenly turning back up at a parents door. But a child who looked so much like the young girl who had gone missing all those years before. 

     Laurel feels eerily similar to those parents you see on police appeal programs decades after the children have gone missing. For the outside world, they put up thick masks, They project this strong image of defiant people who are still fighting to get justice. A united front holding back a tidal wave the real world is trying so hard to break over them.  But peel that back and the cracks and damage did come flooding out in waves of grief. For Laurel, her life is being held together with spit and twine. Her family has been ripped apart and scattered to the winds never to be pulled back together. But for her that outer mask does go a little deeper she is still got a little fight in her and with some help, she might just find out what happened.

     But this is a book of twin timelines and as we navigate the past we also get flung back into Ellie's timeline in the days before she goes missing. With the time we get to spend with her you can see that she is like a million other teenage girls with all the complexity's that go with it. She is struggling with exams and a love life she is still learning to navigate. But much like her mother, she is full of fight and a strength that comes from somewhere deep down inside. I liked that the author is not afraid to write strong and intelligent women. They are whole and not one of them seems like a cardboard people to fill in plot holes.

     For me, it was interesting to read a book where men are set to be the side characters. This is book essentially about the trauma women go through and how they can slowly fix themselves. While Floyd does play his part and helps in Laurel 's quest to get to the truth, It is her belief that gets her to the finish line. As many of you who read my reviews know I do enjoy things on the dark side, and with this book, it does go to that place that lives in the shadows. This author, however, takes her flashlight and shines it into a different facet of this dark and all to real world. It is all too difficult to give too much away in saying anything about the second half of Ellie's story. What I will say is that Jewell writes it to be all to be all too believable with every twist in the story nothing feels out of place. I enjoyed being able to follow each twist in the past to its eventual conclusion in the present. and ones or twice the other way around as facts become uncovered. It all aids in binding the story of a mother and her lost child together. 

     This book for me read quickly as I was racing to find out what happened to this missing girl so long ago. This book has a more than satisfying ending wrapping up its loose ends without straying into the world of wish lose. I would be happy to recommend it to fans of psychological thrillers.