By: Kathryn Croft
ISBN: 9781910751701
Publisher: Bookouture
Publication Date: 2/2/2016
Format: Other
My Rating: 4 Stars
Eighteen years ago your baby daughter was snatched. Today, she came back. A sinister and darkly compelling psychological thriller from the No.1 bestselling author of The Girl With No Past. Eighteen years ago, Simone Porter’s six-month-old daughter, Helena, was abducted. Simone and husband, Matt, have slowly rebuilt their shattered lives, but the pain at losing their child has never left them. Then a young woman, Grace, appears out of the blue and tells Simone she has information about her stolen baby. But just who is Grace – and can Simone trust her? When Grace herself disappears, Simone becomes embroiled in a desperate search for her daughter and the woman who has vital clues about her whereabouts. Simone is inching closer to the truth but it’ll take her into dangerous and disturbing territory. Simone lost her baby. Will she lose her life trying to find her?
My Review
A special thank you to Bookouture and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review. Kathryn Croft returns following the sensational The Girl With No Past with her latest psychological suspense thriller THE GIRL YOU LOST –A mother’s desperate search for her daughter--Will she lose her own life trying to find her?Abduction. Murder. A twisted evil plot. Eighteen years ago, Simone Porter and husband Matt, a med student --had a beautiful daughter, Helena. She is nineteen and he is twenty-one, both too young to be calling themselves a family. One day Simone’s Mum calls and says she cannot find Helena. She took her to the park. Frantic, they cannot believe this is happening. Their beautiful baby girl has been abducted. She was only six months old. Flashing back and forth from the present to the time of the abduction, Simone is now a field producer for News 24, for the last twelve years and her husband a physician. Someone is following her. Thoughts of Helena crosses Simone’s mind—would she dress this way? She had gotten her hopes up so many times over the years, from psychics and palm readers, to clairvoyants—all had turned out to be false leads or lies. Grace Rhodes says she has information about her daughter. In her line of work, she has come across all kinds of disturbed people. She is cautious, yet intrigued. She says Helena is alive. Her blue velvet rabbit. She thinks she is her daughter. Shouldn’t she know her own daughter? A crazy story, she is overwhelmed with horror and a need to protect this girl. A man, a mystery. Who is Lucas? Simone wants to go to the police. Grace says no. Her entire life has been a lie. A complex murder. She lost her daughter eighteen years ago, and she is not about to lose her again. Grace runs in fear. She turns to her friend Abbot for help and tries desperately to follow her. A DNA test. Her husband does not believe this girl. No sign of Grace. The author cleverly crafts a dark twisted tale with a psycho’s voice in the midst of the mystery surrounding Grace, Simone, and Matt. Mysterious and intriguing. In the meantime, at work there is a big case. Missing women, and even if Grace isn’t Helena, Simone has begun to feel responsible for her. Are the cases related? What about Ginny Rhodes, the mum of Grace? Who is Nick, Lucas, Daniel? Girls, murder, rape, drugging, filming them--blackmail. Dark secrets of the past, come back to haunt. Prison. Sacrifice. Threats. Choices. Consequences. A Monster. Evil. Will it be too late to save her daughter and her own sanity? Two parallel stories keep readers frantically turning the pages to solve the multi-level absorbing mystery. Disturbing and compelling—the secret narrator will be revealed at the end, making you gasp. A shocking truth—a twisted web of deceit. Be careful who you trust. Similar to Joy Fielding’s She’s Not There (with a different twist); however, found THE GIRL YOU LOST, to be more engaging and intense.
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About the Author
Kathryn is always seeking new challenges and has had a wide and varied career before writing her first novel. After gaining a BA Honours Degree in Media Arts with English Literature, she worked in human resources and management training. But it wasn’t long before her passion for literature led her to train as a teacher and study for a Post Graduate Certificate in Education. She then spent six years teaching secondary school English; a job she believes was invaluable to her writing career.
Kathryn now devotes all her time to writing and is currently working on her fifth novel.
Having always been an avid reader, Kathryn believes in the power of words to entertain, teach and transform lives. Now that she has achieved the dream she has held onto since childhood – to write a full-length novel – her new goal is to be as successful as the bestselling authors she admires. She firmly believes anything is possible if you work hard enough and never give up!
Kathryn lives in Guildford, Surrey with her husband, their baby son and two cats. Website
