Paula McLain

Oh my gosh, this book is now on my list of highly recommended reading for anyone who has gone through trauma in their life (and for those who haven't, it's still a fabulous book!)
The author does a great job of fleshing out each character, her words descriptive, emotional, haunting. And the story doesn't take the easy way out in "solving" plot situations.
I felt like I was there alongside Anna (a missing person's detective) as she walks through the woods, along the beach cliffs, into a home where she isn't welcomed. The story digs deep into what molds us, how our childhood and past coat layers of how we will view life, what decisions we will make, who we will trust, and how we view ourselves. I highly recommend this story and thank NetGalley and the publisher for providing me a copy of this well-told story.… (mer)

Annie’s a detective who find missing kids. This has cut into her family time and she has left (at least for now) and headed back to where she grew up with her adoptive parents. When she was younger, a teenager – a couple of years older than Annie – went missing. Now, another teen girl is missing. One of Annie’s childhood friends is heading the investigation and Annie can’t help but get involved to try to help. The girl missing now, Cameron, is the (adopted) daughter of a famous actress, and so far, they’ve been looking without too much fanfare, as Cameron’s parents didn’t want to go to the media with it.

The book goes back and forth in time between the current-day search for Cameron and Annie’s childhood (both her childhood in general (pre- and post-adoption), and the search for the missing girl, Jenny). I listened to the audio book.

I really liked this. I will admit that there were multiple times where I missed who someone was, so it took me a bit of time to figure it out (and I even backed up to the start of the book to catch things I thought I might have missed – I almost never do that, but I was interested enough in what was going on, I wanted to find out). One thing I did like with the audio is that the narrator made it easy to tell which time frame we were in, just by the voice she used for a younger Annie, so I thought that was done well.

There was a short author’s note at the end, so it was interesting to find out one of the missing girls in the book (not either of the two mentioned in my summary) was a real person! And I liked that she decided to set the book pre-internet, pre-cell phone, as well (also talked about in the author’s note).… (mer)