[Synopsis]

One Dark Secret. One act of revenge.
When Emma Joseph met her husband David, he was a man shattered by grief. His first wife had been killed outright when her car veered off the road. Just as tragically, their six-year-old daughter mysteriously vanished from the scene of the accident.
Now, six years later, Emma believes the painful years are behind them. She and David have built a new life together and have a beautiful baby son, Ollie.
Then a stranger walks into their lives, and their world tilts on its axis.
Emma’s life no longer feels secure. Does she know what really happened all those years ago? And why does she feel so frightened for herself and for her baby?
When a desperate Emma reaches out to her old friend DCI Tom Douglas for help, she puts all their lives in jeopardy. Before long, a web of deceit is revealed that shocks both Emma and Tom to the core.
They say you should never trust a stranger. Maybe they’re right.

[My Review]
Stranger Child by Rachael Abbott was this month’s book choice. I was really pleased it had been picked as I have wanted to read this for a while, and it’s just thy sort of book I always find myself really getting into- so I wanted to see if it was as good as I expected.
We all felt that this novel was really fast paced and engrossing; everyone in our group really enjoyed it, and the people who don’t tend to read psychological thrillers like this said that they would definitely read more of her work and of the genre too, which was brilliant!
The characters were interesting, and some of them were not quite as they appeared which is always fun to read! All them made us want to read more about them, even though some were actually really horrible characters! They all seemed quite realistic and convincing, which is something I really like about her writing; though we might not in any way agree with all their actions, we can understand why some of them may have behaved the way they did. There were twists and turns, and the storyline moved along at just the right pace, leaving us wanting to read more. Tom Douglas seems to be a likeable, interesting protagonist who you’re really rooting for and I can certainly see how Rachel Abbott has built up a whole series around him!
This is actually the 4^th book in the DCI Tom Douglas series; the lady who picked this novel had read others but the rest of us hadn’t. We didn’t feel like this had any negative effect whilst reading it though- it just made us want to read more! There is a new novella called Nowhere Child, out at the moment, which appears to be a sort of sequel to Stranger Child. So if you enjoyed this, check Nowhere Child out – I know I will!
[Book Club Rating: 5/5]

‘It was a beautiful, breezy, yellow-and-green afternoon…’
This is the way Abby Whitshank always begins the story of how she and Red fell in love that summer’s day in 1959. The whole family on the porch, half-listening as their mother tells the same tale they have heard so many times before.
From that porch we spool back through the generations, witnessing the events, secrets and unguarded moments that have come to define the family. From Red’s father and mother, newly arrived in Baltimore in the 1920s, to Abby and Red’s grandchildren carrying the family legacy boisterously into the twenty-first century – four generations of Whitshanks, their lives unfolding in and around the sprawling, lovingly worn Baltimore house that has always been their home…