The Night She Disappeared by Lisa Jewell

Hello everyone.  I hope you are having a great day.

Last year I kept looking for all the new books to crowd the Christmas market.  There were very few.  Boy, publishers are making up for it now!  I have a ton of books that I've read and haven't had a chance to review and, even better, a huge stack of just released books to read.  It's thriller heaven!

I recently read The Night She Disappeared by Lisa Jewell.  This is a story that moves toward a common ending on two different timelines.  A few years ago, two young people go missing. Kim, the mother of the missing young woman, has never believed that her daughter would leave her family behind, as many suppose.  Kim is certain that something evil has happened to her teenager.  In the more current time, Sophie, moves into a cottage provided to her boyfriend as he heads a local college.  At the garden gate of their new home, Sophie finds a sign that says "dig here".  What she finds is significant in so many ways and, of course, links the two stories.  As Sophie works to discover the mystery of the "dig" sign, we see the past of the two teenagers going forward.  At the end, we discover how they are linked and solve the mystery of the odd happenings in this college town.  

If stories being told in dual timelines bother you, this may not since the times are so close together. If you are a fan of Lisa Jewell, I don't think you'll be disappointed by this book.  While perhaps the beginning could have been a smidge shorter, it really works to explain the relationships in the story and in true Jewell fashion, to direct us to one "who done it" theory only to change the readers view repeatedly.

This book grabs your attention and after establishing the characters, moves very quickly to the shocking end.  As always, very enjoyable.  One warning, if you just sent junior or junior-ette to college maybe put this off for a few months.