Title: The Night She Disappeared
Author: Lisa Jewell
Publisher: Cornerstone
sYNOPSIS:
2017: 19 year old Tallulah is going out on a date, leaving her baby with her mother, Kim.
Kim watches her daughter leave and, as late evening turns into night, which turns into early morning, she waits for her return. And waits.
The next morning, Kim phones Tallulah’s friends who tell her that Tallulah was last seen heading to a party at a house in the nearby woods called Dark Place.
She never returns.
2019: Sophie is walking in the woods near the boarding school where her boyfriend has just started work as a head-teacher when she sees a note fixed to a tree.
‘DIG HERE’…
MY REVIEw:
I look forward to every Lisa Jewell book with excitement, and The Night She Disappeared did not disappoint! A teenage couple – nineteen-year-old Tallulah and her boyfriend Zach – go missing one evening after attending a party at a local girl’s house, leaving behind their young baby. Her mother, Kim, is left to pick up the pieces as she searches desperately for her daughter.
Fast forward a year, and Sophie has just moved into the village with her boyfriend, the new Headmaster of the nearby Private school. She meets Kim, becomes intrigued by the case and finds herself involved in trying to work out what happened to Tallulah and Zach last year.
The story is a fairly slow but, I found, very atmospheric novel. There’s not a huge amount of action but Lisa Jewell, as ever, writes in a way that makes you completely absorbed by what really happened. The story gives flashbacks to the time leading up to Zach and Tallulah’s disappearance as well as the present day, and we see various people’s points of view as we, along with Sophie, try to piece together what happened.
I love the various plot threads that come together as the book goes on, and despite there being a hugely high standard set by Lisa Jewell’s other novels, The Night She Disappeared lives up to them despite the slower pace – I was eagerly turning the pages and found the character development excellent.
Highly recommended.
rATING: 4/5
Many thanks to Cornerstone for providing a copy of this novel on which I chose to write an honest review.