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

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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. As a couple of friends said - (Diane & Esil) - they were pretty sure ‘what’ happened to Ellie who had gone missing early in their reading — me too - but I didn’t know ‘why’. Hanna pays Laurel to clean her apartment, so Laurel knows that Hanna has not been sleeping at home. Hanna claims she's out partying, but that's not really her personality. Laurel finds some flowers given to Hanna by someone named "T". Laurel also visits her elderly mom who had a stroke many years ago. Her mother Ruby is old, but seems to be holding on hoping for Ellie to be found.

I believe in bad vibes and listening to your instincts but why include a stereotypical hippie dippy character to warn Laurel? In the original version of this book, the one I delivered to my editor in December 2016, Floyd discovers Ellie in Noelle’s basement when he goes to her house to collect Poppy’s things after killing Noelle in his kitchen. Ellie is close to death but instead of calling an ambulance, Floyd takes her home. He has a dead body in his house. He cannot afford to get the emergency services involved. For a few days he keeps her in his study. He feeds her good food and runs her hot baths and introduces her to Poppy as a niece of his. All the while Floyd is planning to return Ellie to her family. But he needs to be sure first that the police are not looking for Noelle and that no one suspects that he had anything to do with her disappearance. Then finally, after a few days, he agrees to take Ellie home. This is what Floyd (talking to Noelle) describes happening next:The book opens from Ellie’s point of view ten years earlier. Life is going great for Ellie. She’s doing well in school and the boy she’s had her eye on seems to like her too. Her future is bright. The reasons behind Ellie’s disappearance come to light through Ellie’s POV. Her mother, Laurel, also has a main voice in the story. In the alternate ending, Ellie doesn't die, instead Floyd finds Ellie in the basement after he kills Noelle. He's scared of losing Poppy, so he keeps her alive in his basement. After he kills himself, Laurel and Ellie are reunited.

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! As Laurel slowly finds closure, she begins to rebuild her life. She starts dating and it seems as if she has found love again with a single father named Floyd. But something isn’t quite right about Floyd, especially his relationship with his nine-year-old daughter, Polly. The more and more Laurel spends time with Floyd and Polly, she comes to realize that what happened to Ellie was not at all what it seemed. A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.

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He makes mention about what a schlub he is and how incredible Laurel is just for giving him the time of day. 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. As soon as their relationship become serious and she forms true bounding with Poppy, she surprisingly finds out the birth mother Noelle of Poppy who left her is the same woman who has tutored her daughter Ellie. And Ellie wrote at her diary that woman gave her creeps and she didn’t want her tutoring anymore. 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. Is it not more believable than a regular person saying she didn't like Floyd because he gave her the heebie-jeebies?

From Noelle's perspective, in the past) Noelle grew up with two older brothers, two younger brothers and a younger sister who died when she was eight. Noelle comes upon Floyd's book, and goes to a signing. It turns out they both live in the same neighborhood (Stroud Green), a few roads apart. They run into each other later, and eventually go to dinner at a Eritrean restaurant. They see each other for over a year. Noelle does not get along well with SJ. I have now read the last few books by this author and look forward to reading many more. To prove a point of mine, it is possible to write a good and suspenseful story without blood, excess gore and constant action. This is the kind of psychological thriller I actually enjoy. Laurel is doing her best to move on with her life. Her teenage daughter went missing years ago, triggering an avalanche of misfortune. The family splintered. Laurel and Paul divorcing. And now, their two remaining children are leaving home at the first chance they get - anxious to live their own lives, away from the oppressive tension within their home. The interesting fact is the way of disappearance of Noelle reminds of her the way of disappearance of her own daughter.As Laurel continued to dig more, she will reach to a dangerous point of no return and she’ll wish to stop before taking more steps.