Where the Missing Go by Emma Rowley @orionbooks @BenWillisUK @emma_rowley

About this book…

MY NAME IS KATE.

I volunteer at a missing persons helpline – young people who have run away from home call me and I pass on messages to their loved ones, no questions asked.

I don’t get many phone calls, and those I do are usually short and vague, or pranks.

But today a girl named Sophie called.

I’m supposed to contact her parents to let them know their child is safe.

The problem is, Sophie isn’t safe.

AND SOPHIE IS MY DAUGHTER

My review…

WOW! and yet another WOW! I finished Where The Missing Go about 2 hours ago and I’m still saying……WOW! I was so blown away by this fictional debut by Emma Rowley that I went straight onto Amazon after I had read it to see if she had written another book yet! Which was probably a bit too enthusiastically optimistic as this one isn’t even out yet! If you enjoy psychological thrillers by writers such as Jenny Blackhurst and Clare Mackintosh then you are going to love this book. And if you’re a regular reader of my reviews then you’ll know that I have a particular passion for a certain type of twisty thriller and this one is 100% what I look for in my psychological thrillers. If you like similar books to me then I guarantee you will love this one too.

I actually started this in the very early hours one morning when I couldn’t sleep and very quickly became gripped by the storyline of a mother in pieces following the disappearance of her teenage daughter, Sophie. And by the time I had to get up, I was so addicted that I couldn’t wait to get back to bed that night to finish this fascinating storyline. I had immediately felt Kate’s devastation at the loss of her only child, refusing to give up hope, her entire life revolving around looking for clues to Sophies whereabouts. Everyone says she should move on with her life, others close to Sophie have, and accept that Sophie has gone away and doesn’t want to be found. But Kate isn’t giving up and when she takes a call at the missing person hotline she volunteers at, her worst fears seem to be realised.

Everything about this book worked for me! I loved the Cheshire setting which felt authentic with its slower pace of life compared to its biggest neighbour Manchester and also to London which was where the family had been living previously. And Cheshire born Kate was an immensely relatable character, one struggling with her own personal demons, but her maternal instincts that something wasn’t quite right about her daughters disappearance overtook those worries to show the raw emotion of a mother’s love for her child. I thought she was just so wonderfully brave, determined never to give up hope of finding Sophie even though it meant pulling away from every other relationship in her life. But most of all I loved all the red herrings floating around the periphery, never quite in the line of sight but throwing suspicious glances throughout the narrative. This book is twistier than my curls after I’ve been caught in a rainstorm and every twist was a jaw dropping, flick the pages back, “what the **** just happened there?” moment for me! Just how I like them!

Emma Rowley is a name everyone should remember as I think she is going to be HUGE! I pre-ordered my own copy of Where The Missing Go as soon as I finished it and on the strength of this debut, I would also preorder her next book without even reading the blurb-that’s how much I want to read more from this very talented writer. This is a very clever, breathtakingly brilliant read that you won’t be able to put down. Highly recommended by me!

Where the Missing Go: A mega-twisty, gripping psychological thriller that will leave you breathless is available to pre-order now (Amazon affiliates link) and is published on 8th March 2018 by Orion. My review copy came from the publisher via netgalley.

Meet the author…

 

Emma Rowley is a writer, ghostwriter and editor with a background in newspaper journalism. A graduate in Classics and English at Oxford University, she trained as a journalist at City University. Emma has spent considerable time in the courts and covering major crime stories. She lives in London

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