Then She Was Gone: From the number one bestselling author of The Family Upstairs

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I can do it,’ she said. ‘I can go home and I can tell my parents that I ran away and that I’ve been living in a squat. Or a commune. Living rough. Hand to mouth. Moving from place to place. I’ll tell them that I lost my mind. That the stress of my exams made me go mad for a while. I’ll tell them that I’ve been lost and that now I’m found. And I won’t, I swear, I won’t tell them about you or about Poppy. I swear. And I promise.’ Laurel takes Poppy to meet Joshua and see her old house. Poppy is hesitant, but then eager to meet her relatives. However, she refuses to enter the basement, saying she was told never to go down there. Her mom had told her there was a monster there.

I read a Lisa Jewell novel last year and connected immediately with her writing style, tone, and voice. When Then She Was Gone showed up on NetGalley last month, I immediately requested it and added it to my reading queue for April. I really find myself enamored with Jewell's characters, plots, and settings, so much that I've added ten of her other books to my TBR and hope to read a few more later this year. Thank you to NetGalley, Atria Books and Lisa Jewell for an ARC to read in exchange for an honest review. Gripping and heartbreaking, I shed more than a few tears as the book came to an end with a gut-wrenching epilogue. Once again, I am impressed with Lisa Jewell’s storytelling. I thought this was a terrific story. Told from multiple points of view, alternating between ‘then’ and ‘now’, I was enthralled as everything was revealed. Is it not more believable than a regular person saying she didn't like Floyd because he gave her the heebie-jeebies?A jewel. A treasure. And even though I had an inkling about where this was going, it didn't diminish my pleasure in this read at all. Laurel is immediately taken with Floyd's youngest daughter, Poppy, who is beautiful and wise beyond her years, truly an old soul. But Laurel cannot shake just how similar Poppy looks to Ellie, and how at times, when Poppy speaks, it is like she's in the same room with her daughter. As questions start to form in her mind about Floyd and what secrets he might be hiding, more and more her questions about Ellie's disappearance begin surfacing again. Did Ellie run away, or did she run into danger somehow? And why do Poppy and Ellie seem so similar? This is something most parents do, and most of their children dislike. Laurel, in this novel, decided in the earlier part of her life to never do it to her children. A guilt trip is a type of emotional manipulation to make others think or do certain things in a particular way. Many of us might have involuntarily done this in our life. Lisa Jewell points it out very clearly in this book.

If you loved “Girls in the Garden” and “I Found You” you will definitely love this book. For me this one was a little difficult to read because the behavior of this probable psychopath was just so twisted and ugly. After starting this novel I couldn’t quit, her writing is just so compelling, those of the words I would use to describe it! I found a loose green muslin skirt of Kate’s in a bag she’d clearly been intending for the charity shop. It had an elasticated waist. She paired it with another jumper of mine, a soft grey cashmere one. She looked almost pretty. Like a quirky student coming home after her first term at university. Blue tells a critical statement related to men and their concept of love in this book. This shows the importance of mutual love. Love is about putting equal effort into relationships. If a person who beholds the concept of unconditional love falls in love with a Narcissist, then the first person's life will be totally destroyed. Even though unconditional love is one of the ideal forms of love, it will be practical only with ideal individuals. Otherwise, we will be able to love unconditionally while others are only ready to accept that love and not to give anything in return. It will turn into a toxic parasitic relationship in no time. I’m on board with her editor on this one. I think the ending that’s in the book is more realistic than the alternative ending. I can see why she’d want to write it that way to give it a happier ending, but I think the ending that her editor steered her towards makes more sense. Read it or Skip it? And within this stranger was the essence of everything that mattered to me and the potential to take a can of petrol to it, to blow it all to ash and rubble.From Laurel's perspective, in the present) Laurel calls Noelle's parents who report that they haven't seen her in decades. She was supposed to move and go live with them along with Poppy at one point, but it looks like she dropped off the baby with Floyd and disappeared instead. I love strongly character driven novels, including thrillers and that is what Ms. Jewell does so so well. I became invested in the feelings of Eliie’s mother, and as a mother of four daughters, I wanted so badly for things to somehow turn out that this poor woman didn’t have to continue without knowing what happened to her missing beautiful, intelligent, golden girl! A woman goes to the police. She's found a note hidden in a book she got from a used bookstore. The author of the note is Ellie. She writes about Noelle keeping her captive. She says she loves her family and for someone to find Poppy and tell her she loves her. From Laurel's perspective, in the present) Laurel talks to Paul about Hanna and Theo, and he says he's known for months. Paul says Hanna is cold to Laurel because she knows Laurel always wished Ellie was the one who'd survived. Laurel calls Hanna to says she loves her. wow. okay. maybe i wont be playing the whole ‘predict what happens based on the synopsis only’ game because it turns out i only got 1 out of 4 guesses right and its not a good look for my ego. lol.