THEN SHE WAS GONE by LISA JEWELL

THEN SHE WAS GONE

BY LISA JEWELL

THE BLURB:-

She was fifteen, her mother's golden girl. She had her whole life ahead of her. And then, in the blink of an eye, Ellie was gone.

Ten years on, Laurel has never given up hope of finding Ellie. And then she meets a handsome and charismatic stranger who sweeps her off her feet.

But what really takes her breath away is when she meets his nine-year-old daughter.

Because his daughter is the image of Ellie.

Now all those unanswered questions that have haunted Ellie come rushing back.

THE REALITY:-

Well, this must have had something going for it, as I flattened it in two days. It was not the best Lisa Jewell book I've read, and not the worst either. It was an interesting page turner- but somehow it failed to touch me.

It didn't take me long to work out that (spoiler alert!) Poppy was actually Ellie's child, although I initially thought Floyd's part was going to be way more sinister, and that he had actually fathered a child with a fifteen-year-old girl. The tale of what happened to Ellie was really sad, and I wholeheartedly sympathised with her (more spoiler alerts!) locked up in that wretched basement, then being separated from her baby and left to die.

But the character I loved the most was nasty Noelle! She was brilliantly depicted- so much that I could actually smell her coming of the page. Her lack of maternal feeling (especially towards Sara-Jade, who she describes as having “horror-movie eyes”) made me laugh with the pleasure of schadenfreude! It is interesting that she had a totally different opinion to Floyd with regard to Poppy, and I like the fact that the way a child can be different things to different people is explored throughout this book. I did, at first, find Poppy a little too precocious to be real (really, would a nine-year-old speak the way she did?) I got the impression that the author was putting the words of an adult into her mouth way too much.

A cleverly worked thriller with a stream of sadness running through it and a mix of interesting characters. It's a good study of family life and the way various members relate to one another, with a bittersweet and poignant ending.

But maybe because I loved evil Noelle so much (she did have her share of misery, too) I found it hard to adore any of the other characters (except perhaps Ellie).