[Synopsis]

Twenty years ago
21-year-old Sophie Collier vanishes one night.
She leaves nothing behind but a trainer on the old pier –
and a hole in the heart of her best friend Francesca.
Now
A body’s been found.
And Francesca’s drawn back to the seaside town she’s tried to forget.
Perhaps the truth of what happened to Sophie will finally come out.
Yet Francesca is beginning to wish she hadn’t returned.
Everywhere she turns are ghosts from her past.
The same old faces and familiar haunts of her youth.
But if someone knows what really happened to Sophie that night then now’s the time to find out – isn’t it?
Except sometimes discovering the truth can cost you everything you hold dear – your family, your sanity and even your life…

[My Review]

This was a gripping novel that really had me intrigued from page 1 – and one that, to write a really comprehensive review, everyone needs to have already read, so as not to give anything crucial away! So I’ll try and write this review without doing so, so be warned – it might be a little vague!
I felt that the characters are really well developed, with some of them leaving you with conflicting emotions – some people you know you should feel a certain way about, but you don’t, and I really liked that Claire Douglas manages to avoid characters being too black and white.
The story itself is really fun to read and full of twists and turns. I did feel like as the novel went on there was more and more that wasn’t so believable; this is definitely one to suspend your disbelief when reading! I know this could be said about a lot of books in the same genre (it seems to be mainly categorised in the thriller / pyschological thriller genres) but I felt it was more so when I got to the last third of the book.
Saying that, I still really enjoyed reading Local Girl Missing and slowly piecing together what had happened.  I love a novel which leaves you confused about who’s good and who’s bad, and this novel had that and some! The ending was a surprise but I really liked it personally; throughout the story there were a few clichés along the way but I ended the book thinking “I’ve got to admit, that was a great read” – what more could you want?

[Rating: 4/5]

* Many thanks to Penguin UK – Michael Joseph and Netgalley for providing a copy of this novel in return for an honest review *