This book is very well written but a little darker than I thought it was going to be from the synopsis. I didn’t like a lot of the characters, but that’s to be expected and doesn’t detract from the book, or my need to find out how the story will play out. I enjoyed the writing style so will be looking out for more from this author. Thank you #netgalley.

Two teenage friends go to a party in the woods but only Emma makes it home. At first, 17-year-old Abi's disappearance is treated as a runaway but when a gun casing is found suspicions start to fly around the small town of Whistling Ridge and hidden secrets start to rise to the surface. The sense of tension in the atmosphere was so well drawn, along with the feelings of anger, despair and devastation that move through the main characters. I really liked the character of Emma who begins her own search for the truth when the police fail to turn up any leads, who faces a sort of coming of age when she realises that her best friend didn't tell her everything like she'd thought. There are many hard-hitting themes in this novel including domestic violence, drug and alcohol abuse, homophobia, xenophobia and the presumed abduction and murder of a teenage girl (although a body is never found). Having recently read Beartown by Frederick Backman I felt there were some similarities between these novels, particularly around an incident involving a teenage girl and the community's reaction to it. My heart broke for Jude, the 12-year-old brother of Abi who so desperately wants her to come home and struggles to find an ally in his older brother Noah, who is dealing with his own problems, not least a violent father and a closeted sexuality. The format of telling the story in 'then' and 'now' format worked really well for me and I liked that Abi was given a voice through the scenes told in the past, because so often in this genre of novel the missing woman simply doesn't get heard, she is a blank silent character that the others get to fill in. I thought this was a good debut and I think it would work well if it was made into a TV drama along the lines of Little Fires Everywhere.

This book has a wonderful sense of suffocating small town life and its dark underbelly as we follow the disappearance of a young woman Abigail. I found it very atmospheric with a lovely slow burn quality that allows the secrets to unfold little by little. The tragic damaged characters and the families are beautifully drawn and as a reader you feel that sense of their inability to escape the hand they have been dealt. A very good read and I would recommend.

For a first novel, this book is nothing short of incredible. It is the equivalent of lighting fireworks in a box and watching it burn & explode. The plot simmers and begins to burn straight away and it just captivates you from that moment and never really lets you go. I'm not going to give anything away from the story, but the way the author tells the story and lets glimpses of the truth come out, is just done with such breath taking skill and aplomb that you just can't read it quickly enough and try to understand more. The characters are each individual creations of brilliance, each wonderfully unique and realised with care. As the story progresses, you learn more about these core characters as they become more intertwined & more important to the clever and very satisfying conclusion. I just cannot recommend this book highly enough, so clever, so skilled and so readable.

This was a book like no other, it’s a thriller and family drama rolled into one. When Emma leaves her friend Abi at a party in the woods she doesn’t think there’s any risk but Abi never returns. What follows is a small town investigation which reveals far more secrets than the town ever wanted. Abi tries to investigate what happened to Abi but this ends up possibly involving her own family who also have secrets. Didn’t have a clue where the story was going but I loved finding out. Thanks to Random House and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.