– Be Ready For This To Grab Your Interest Immediately –
- Author: Heidi Perks
- Publisher: Gallery Books (January 8, 2019)
- Listen To Except
- Reading Group Guide
- Hardcover: 320 pages
Publisher’s Synopsis
What should have been a fun-filled, carefree day takes a tragic turn for the worse for one mother when her best friend’s child goes missing in this “seriously page-turning” (Lisa Jewell, New York Times bestselling author), suspenseful, and darkly twisted psychological thriller.
Charlotte was supposed to be looking after the children, and she swears she was. But while her three kids are all safe and sound at the school fair, Alice, her best friend Harriet’s daughter, is nowhere to be found. Frantically searching everywhere, Charlotte knows she must find the courage to tell Harriet that her beloved only child is missing—and admit that she’s solely to blame.
Harriet, devastated by this unbearable loss, can no longer bring herself to speak to Charlotte again, much less trust her. Now, more isolated than ever and struggling to keep her marriage afloat, Harriet believes nothing and no one. But as the police bear down on both women, trying to piece together the puzzle of what happened to this little girl, dark secrets begin to surface—and Harriet discovers that trusting Charlotte again may be the only thing that will reunite her with her daughter….
This breathless and fast-paced novel—perfect for fans of Big Little Lies and The Couple Next Door—takes you on a chilling journey that will keep you guessing until the very last page.
My Thoughts:
If you read the publisher’s synopsis above, then there’s not a whole lot I can add to it. That should have easily convinced you to read this book. But since I have this heading and feel obligated to write something, her goes.
If you, like me, find thrillers/psychological thrillers/suspense and stories that keep you guessing, read on.
Harriet hovers over Alice, her only child, most would agree, to a fault. The child is smothered with love by a mother who is extremely over-protective, to say the least. But when Harriet finally entrusts her best friend Charlotte to take Alice to a school fair, the worst happens. Alice disappears!
Charlotte, the best friend, of course, panics. How could something so devastating have happened to 4-year-old Alice? Wasn’t she watching them most of the time? Of course, it’s impossible to watch every minute. Don’t we all check our phones occasionally?
And why are Charlotte’s kids perfectly fine. Only Alice has disappeared.
Emotions are through the roof as the police interrogate everyone. Relationships are seemingly stained beyond repair. Did Alice run away? Was she kidnapped?
Who, What, When, Where, Why?
I vacillated back and forth as the story caused me to flip pages at an increasing speed. It’s a whodunit that kept me guessing to the very end. Be prepared to drop and read once you start this book.
What Concerned Me:
Absolutely nothing.
What I Liked Best:
If you’ve read many of my posts, you know that I like a book to hook me from the get-go. This story certainly met that criteria. I was hooked early and guessing up until the end.
Also, if you’ve been following me, you might have noticed I don’t rate a book 5 stars unless it is really good. I’m more apt to rate a book down a bit so that 5-star ratings truly mean something. I hope you like it as much as I did.
About The Author:
After fifteen years of marketing and thrown into the new world of motherhood I decided to make some changes to my life. I left my job in 2012 to look after my family and finally took pen to paper to start writing a novel I’d been thinking about since a holiday six months earlier.
The following year I was accepted onto the inaugural Curtis Brown Creative online Novel Writing Course, which fuelled my desire to become an author even more, and I began writing Beneath The Surface. This was published by Red Door in March 2016.
By then I was already deep in the throes of Now You See Her. I met the amazing Nelle Andrew from PFD who offered me representation and after a year we had two incredible pre-empts for the book from Emily Griffin at Century and Marla Daniels at Simon and Schuster in the US.
I am now writing my next book, which will be released in the UK in July 2019.
If you’re like me, you can’t wait to read her new book Come Back For Me. It became available July 11.
