For many years, I didn’t read Lisa Jewell books because I had in my head she wrote romance novels. I am not sure where I got that from but, thankfully, a review on one of her books finally showed me the light and I have been working my way through her back catalogue ever since, loving each one. Seeing a new release on Netgalley then I couldn’t resist requesting a copy.

On the surface, Then She Was Gone sounds like a story I have read more than once over the last few years. A young girl goes missing, her family falls apart in the aftermath, whilst all the while there are questions to answer – where did she go, why did she go, will she ever come back? The difference here is how well Lisa Jewell writes, how she builds up the story piece by piece, revealing just enough to keep you interested but not quite enough for you guess what is coming next…each time I thought I had the answer, I was wrong (until the end, when I have a feeling Jewell wanted me to figure it out!).

Here, the book is told in parts, with the reader getting to hear different voices at different times and the story moving between the past to the present. Central to each part is Laurel, the mother of the missing Ellie as she embarks on a new relationship with Floyd, whose daughter looks remarkably like Ellie. It’s hard to know where her interest in Floyd is in the man himself or his daughter as Laurel works through her feelings at the same time you do.

I really liked Laurel, she was kind, caring and human. She was damaged by losing Ellie and it had definitely impacted her life since she had gone missing, including her relationship with her other children, but she seems able of understanding this. She isn’t completely tunnel visioned, which made her behaviour feel real. She, along with the other characters, I found really well drawn, something Jewell always does well.

In fact, I’m not sure there isn’t much, if anything, she doesn’t do well. This book is well written and well plotted and there is nothing in it I would change. Loved it!

This story begins ten years ago with Ellie, a fifteen year old with a very bright future and quite simply her mother's golden girl, one day Ellie tells her mother, Laurel that she is going to the library to study but doesn't come home. When the police start to investigate they discover she never made it to the library but, with no sightings of her, they quickly decide that she must have run away.

Fast forward 10 years to the present and Laurel has never accepted that Ellie just upped and left and won't settle till she gets closure. She meets Flynn in a cafe one day and they become close, when she is introduced to Poppy, Flynn's 9 year old daughter, she is shocked at her resemblance to Ellie at that age, but considers it's just a coincidence. Unfortunately, it reopens a myriad of questions that Laurel wants answered.

This is the first book I've read by Lisa Jewell and I ask myself why has it taken me so long to discover this exceptional author. I read this book in less than a day, Lisa has a way of drawing in her audience and captivating them completely till the very last page. I was totally hooked and have since discovered I have five other books by this author on my tbr pile which I will definitely be reading very soon!

I would like to thank Random House UK Cornerstone for approving me to read this book and I will post my review on Amazon and Goodreads.

Okay, my overwhelming reaction when I finished this book was, 'wow, I have just read book of the year'. I kind of know my contenders when I read them and this kind of slipped right in there. It's a novel that grabbed me straight away and I couldn't leave the book alone.

Laurel Mack's seemingly happy 15 year old daughter leaves the house one morning to go to the library and doesn't return....

As one can imagine from that premise this isn't always an easy book to read. It is heartbreaking to imagine a parent's love for their child and that child's love in return being ripped away, never knowing what happened, feeling powerless that they couldn't stop it. Jewell really tugs at the heartstrings and yet it doesn't feel sentimental, or as a reader did I feel I was being manipulated into evoking emotion. It's the amazing characterisation that makes this work.

The author had another barrier to overcome with me. I have a pet hate of 'nice middle class family with perfect children' in novels. This sounds a bit sick but I often WANT bad things to happen to this perfect model family and struggle to sympathise. However, what Jewell does is make each and every character human. They are not perfect, they seem real.

On one level the story is of Laurel and her inability for her to recover from her daughter's disappearance. It captures her life as it turns into an existence and shows us how dysfunctional her life has become of work, eat and sleep. Her relationships with her other children are at arm's length and cold in spite of everyone. Her marriage has broken down and we have an image of a sad, person whose life has gone.

And yet, joy tries to enter her life when she meets a new man. I love the transformation of Laurel. It isn't easy and it doesn't come overnight but I really enjoyed how my feelings changed over her. At the start of the novel I had the image of a beaten down, dowdy woman whose life was shattered by grief. As the novel unfolds it is clear she is a beautiful middle aged woman who is likeable and importantly lovable. I really liked her and truly felt for her as her bringing her life back together unfolded.

This however, isn't just a novel of recovery from grief, it isn't a 'coming of middle-age' novel (I'm going to trade mark that!). It's also a thriller as we learn what really happened to her daughter Ellie and how Laurel discovers the truth. The book often flits back and forth from the present to the time of Ellie's disappearance and it works well as the story unfolds. We hear Ellie's voice and at times it is really horrible to read the thoughts of a girl who disappeared. About half way through I worked out some of the plot and actually felt a bit sick (in a good way!) as I thought I'd pieced together some of what was going on (thankfully I was only half right). Some scenes in the book are quite horrific, particularly since there is nothing the reader can do about it and we 'know' the truth. At other times there is real suspense as we feel Laurel is walking into danger.

The end just melted me.

So, it's a family drama, it's a thriller with crime and horror elements. It's a story of love and grief, of coming to terms with loss and of recovery. At times the tone is light and humorous, at others it is bleak. You'll feel sadness but also root for Laurel and wish her a happy future.

It all hangs together because nothing feels forced, everything feels natural, the pacing is perfect, the reader is simply told a story and given the time and space to reflect and empathise. Powerful stuff and much better than what I was expecting.

Laurel is a mother of three, but her favourite child, as she often repeats throughout the novel, is the youngest, 15-year-old Ellie so when Ellie suddenly disappears Laurel’s world is shattered. Ten years later, the police still think that Ellie ran away, Laurel and her husband are divorced, and she barely has a relationship with her two other children. When Ellie’s body is found, Laurel can have the closure she has been waiting for and life is on the up when she meets charming Floyd in a coffee shop and is quickly smitten. But when Laurel meets Floyd’s daughter, Poppy, her world turns upside down because Poppy looks exactly like Ellie. As she spends more time with Poppy and investigates what happened to her mother who suddenly disappeared years before, Laurel finally finds out what really happened to her own daughter.

I really loved this novel - the characters are well-developed and the author perfectly portrays their psychology and emotions, especially the grief of a mother over losing her child. I enjoyed the dark, suspenseful and at times emotional plot and the complex characters that make for a brilliant and absorbing thriller.

This is a roller coaster of a book told from lots of different points of view and I like that approach it keeps everything fresh and ticking along nicely.this was quite an emotional story as you would expect given the subject matter and it was a book you could believe in .its the sort of book where you think I'll just read another chapter then you think I want to know what is going on here so you read another one and before you know it its halfway through the night and you are shattered,but its worth it.Very good book and so worth a read.Thanks to the publishers for an ARC and to Netgalley.

Then She Was Gone is a clever psychological suspense about a mother who has never given up hope of finding her missing daughter.

Ellie Mack disappeared ten years ago and the rest of her family, particularly her mother Laurel, have never recovered from the shock. Laurel's marriage crumbled and her relationship with her other children deteriorated until it was non-existent. Now Laurel finally has the strength to move on. She meets a handsome, funny, clever man and begins to fall in love. And then meets his young daughter, Poppy, who is the spitting image of Ellie ...

I usually avoid books about missing children, but the premise of this one intrigued me. As I read the story I thought I had the end all worked out - and I did, to a point. There were some twists that surprised even me. I got about a third of the way through the book, thought I'd just read another chapter before bedtime - and didn't put it down until I'd finished the story at 1.00 am. And then lay awake for another hour thinking about it! It really is that gripping.

I can't say much more because I don't want to spoil it for you. I can't even say it's like a cross between 'x' and 'y', because then you'll work out where the author is going with the story and it will be more fun for you going in without a clue. So I'll just say that if you love well-written psychological suspense you are in for a treat! Recommended!

This was my first Lisa Jewell book and it won't be my last. Loved everything about this book. Written from several view points with a strong sense of family running through the book which added an emotional layer to this psych thriller, I raced through this book. Would highly recommend.

Ellie disappeared 10 years ago. Her siblings have since moved away and her parents divorced. Lauren her mother has always wished it was Hanna who went not Ellie and feels that she is a bad mother for thinking such a thing. The story for the most part is about Lauren, what happened and her life thereafter. Lisa has a talent for getting the reader into the story quickly and keeping you engrossed. This is an intriguing dark tale and one to make you think. An emotional plot that almost had me in tears at the end. I saw part of the ending coming but not all. Fast paced and one you have to keep reading. A very well written , highly entertaining recommended read.I voluntarily chose to read this ARC and all opinions in this review are my own and completely unbiased.

This novel from Jewell is exquisitely written and very atmospheric. This is a masterclass in showing you do not need massive shocks to make a novel exciting. Jewell proves that a chilling, atmospheric read is just as powerful as a thrilling one.
The strong character voices are my favourite aspect of 'Then She Was Gone'. Jewell evokes sympathy for everyone, even the ones who do not necessarily deserve it. Due to the plot this is a very emotional read but it is one full of hope. We see Laurel broken and follow her as she tries to put her life back together, making very powerful reading.
https://mjletstalkbooks.wordpress.com/2017/07/27/then-she-was-gone-lisa-jewell/

I have been a fan of Lisa Jewell’s writing for many, many years and through those years her writing has gone from light-hearted rom-coms via a very good historical fiction book through the shades of grey to Then She Was Gone which is very dark indeed.
Laurel Mack’s daughter Ellie was on her way to the library ten years ago when she went missing. The police believed she’d run away, but there were no sightings and Laurel and her husband Paul disintegrated under the weight of not knowing what had happened to their precious youngest daughter,  a girl who was just fifteen and about to sit her GCSE’s. With Ellie predicted high grades and no known problems at home she is remembered forever as a pretty teen by her parents and her older siblings Hanna and Jake, and if truth be told, she was her mother’s favourite.
What had Laurel’s life been like, ten years ago, when she’d had three children and not two? Had she woken up every morning suffused with existential joy? No, she had not. Laurel had always been a glass-half-empty type of person. She could find much to complain about in even the most pleasant of scenarios and could condense the joy of good news into a short-lived moment, quickly curtailed by some new bothersome concern...
 ...That was how she’d once viewed her perfect life: as a series of bad smells and unfulfilled duties, petty worries and late bills.
And then one morning, her girl, her golden girl, her lastborn, her baby, her soulmate, her pride and her joy, had left the house and not come back.
So ten years down the line when Laurel meets a friendly single father in the local café she has got used to her own company, unlike Paul who has a new wife Bonny, Laurel has not been interested in meeting someone new. And then Laurel’s introduced to Paul’s daughter Poppy who bears an uncanny resemblance to Ellie.
This is a book where the author gives enough pointers for what you assume is the answer to the main mystery fairly early on in the book and in doing so lets the characters walk off the pages and into your life where you will be hard pushed to forget them easily. But beware, not everything is quite as it seems and this novel turns out to be simultaneously a fantastic tale and yet on the other one that is entirely believable probably because the characters we meet are ones that are so realistic.
The narration is mainly done by Laurel, a woman who you can’t but help to sympathise with for her loss but also we here from Ellie, Lloyd and Noelle a strange but still realistic woman who has links to both families all of which reveal to us aspects of the tale that Laurel is blind to. The change in narrator and time periods are expertly handled and this is a psychological thriller which brilliantly hinges on the characters rather than high-octane action, making for a satisfying read because despite changes genres Lisa Jewell still writes with a sharp eye for details and emotions that we all experience while we are hopefully living slightly less dramatic lives than the characters in this book.
I highly recommend  Then You Were Gone  the perfect book to slip into the suitcase for a holiday read; I will now I sit and wait for Lisa Jewell to write her next book.
I'd like to say a huge thank you to the publishers Random House UK for allowing me to read a copy of Then She Was Gone before publication today, 27 July 2017.

Read this book over 2 days, (in-between having to go to work) it was compelling from the start and held my interest to the very end. Loved the characters and the unique storyline and would recommend this book to everyone. A joy from beginning to end.

I loved this book ,the characters were engaging I especially felt for Laurel who had lost her daughter and was struggling to come to terms with it and in the process lost her husband and remaining children a little as they didn't understand her pain .The story twisted and turned into ways I didn't expect .It was compelling read very gripping and hard to put down .The ending was excellent and had me in tears .

I am not entirely sure what to make of this book as basis of the plot seemed to be given away only about 20% in. I'm not a reader who spends time wondering what's going to happen and comes up with theories. But quite near the start of this book it seemed very clear about the way the plot was going.

The book is mostly told through the eyes of Laurel, mother of Jake, Hanna and Ellie. Ten years ago her youngest child, Ellie aged 14, suddenly disappeared with no trace. The police suggest that maybe Ellie ran away but no evidence to corroborate that and she didn’t take her phone, money or other things you would expect if that was the case. Her mother is convinced she did not run away. Four years later there is a burglary at the house but strange things are taken such as a newly baked cake and an ancient laptop. Laurel is given hope as she senses that the 'burglar' was Ellie. There's no sign of forced entry and Ellie had her house keys on her when she disappeared. Laurel and her husband Paul struggle on for a few years after Ellie's disappearance but their conflicting ways of dealing with the trauma play a toll on their relationship and their marriage disintegrates. Paul finds a new partner, Bonny, but Laurel is not ready for another relationship until Floyd comes across her path. She falls for him and shortly after meets his nine year old daughter who looks like Ellie. And so the story unfolds.

It was a good read and did keep me gripped but there were no great surprises as I'd figured a lot of it out by the early clues. I'd have preferred them to come as more of a twist but there were a few twists I hadn't figured out so it was still an enjoyable read.

Laurel Mack's youngest daughter, 15 year old Ellie disappeared ten years ago. Laurel knows her daughter was happy at home and school and would not have run away but can't give up hope of finding her alive. Laurel's marriage since has fallen apart and she is not close to her other two adult children. When police call to say that Ellie's remains and backpack have been found after all this time, Laurel feels that now she can move on. When she meets a nice man called Floyd in a cafe she agrees to start dating again and having fun. Floyd has a young daughter called Poppy who reminds Laurel so much of what Ellie was like at that age and they soon form a bond. But there are some disquieting coincidences in Floyd's background that disturb Laurel and make her wonder whether she can trust him.

Narrated mainly by Laurel, but sometimes by Ellie and others, the story of Ellie's disappearance and fate is gradually told. It is very chilling and creepy in places as the horrific events unfold and kept me hooked to the end, even as a picture of what happened to Ellie started to emerge. With an original plot and a mix of interesting characters (most of them not all that nice), this is not just another thriller about a missing girl.

Darkly disturbing, this is a slow burning psychological thriller that twists and turns through a wonderful series of plot reveals. Narrative changes throughout give a really well rounded feel to the characters, and there is just the right amount of gruesome detail. The whole thing jumped off of the page.
Compelling reading and definitely one of Lisa Jewell's best novels to date. I shall definitely be recommending this.

Laurel Mack's daughter, Ellie was only 15 when she went missing. Ten years later, her family has evaporated – Ellie’s disappearance and the subsequent stress caused the breakdown Laurel’s marriage and her relationship with her other two children is remote and difficult.
Laurel has never been able to get over Ellie’s disappearance and as the rest of her family have moved on, Laurel has drifted through the last ten years.
Then one day, seemingly by chance, she meets a man called Floyd, with whom she gets on very well and for the first time in a very long time she feels an attraction to another man. Floyd has a daughter called Poppy and Poppy stirs memories in Laurel that remind her of Ellie.
Told primarily from Laurel’s viewpoint, there are also other perspectives – that of Noelle the somewhat unattractive maths tutor who was helping Ellie with her maths exams – and we also get some of Ellie’s viewpoint.
Lisa Jewell does characterisation well. She creates vivid, well-drawn characters with emotional resonance and realistic relationships. I think the family relationships are really what make this book work for me; I was less convinced by the psychological thriller element of the book. That’s partly because it was pretty easy to see what was coming, but also the plot seemed to me at least, a little far- fetched.
Yet it is undoubtedly a good and easy read with well written prose and a dark centre. All in all, I’d say a perfect summer read.

I have read previous books by Lisa Jewell and have thoroughly enjoyed them, so I was very pleased to get an ARC of her new book.
Basically the book is about the mystery surrounding the disappearance of Laurel's daughter
Ellie who has been missing for ten years, and it explores the affect the disappearance has had
On the family, including the relationships between Laurel and her other two children, especially her Other daughter Hanna.
Then she meets Floyd, and his precocious daughter Poppy who reminds her of Ellie. This book also explores how Laurel's new relationship with Floyd, and Poppy's presence, are introduced into, and affect the existing family dynamic.
Ellie's traumatic disappearance is explored from the point of view of the present day and flashbacks from ten years previously, I particularly liked the epilogue and thought it was a very gripping, but touching way to end the story.
Overall this is a much darker plot than I have read previously from Lisa Jewell, but it draws you in and it certainly made me keep reading to find out what had happened.
Thanks to Netgalley and Random House UK, Cornerstone for allowing me to read a pre publication copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Then She Was Gone is the first book I've read by Lisa Jewell and I'm so annoyed I've only just found this author.

I'd seen a lot of recommendations for this book on social media and wondered if it would live up to the hype, and my goodness it did!

Laurel Mack's daughter went missing at the age of fifteen. She's never been found but Laurel has refused to give up hope. Ten years later Laurel meets Floyd who sweeps her off her feet and introduces her to his nine year old daughter Poppy. The only problem is, Poppy is the spitting image of her missing daughter.

From the very first page I was hooked into the story. It's so well written and the chapters flowed together seamlessly. This was, by far, one of my favourite books of this year.

Thank you to NetGalley, Random House UK Cornerstone Century and the author for the chance to review.

I was given a free ecopy of this book in exchange for an honest review. Many thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the opportunity.

I hadn't read any Lisa Jewel books before so I approached this book with an open mind. I quickly found the main character, Laurel Mack, to be engaging. Her continued sadness for her lost daughter and the way this family had disintegrated since the disappearance caught me and held my rapt Laurel’s daughter, Ellie, disappeared ten years ago, and now Mum, Laurel, has met a man with a nine year old who looks just like her. I liked that the story was told from different perspectives at different times, including the missing girl, Ellie, so that I got a full picture by the end. The existence of Poppy means there is little mystery in the ending. The story is in the journey. It begins with a mother’s anguish, and how it has destroyed the family unit. I loved how this woman, Laurel, slowly came back to life and how when she finally found the answers she'd been waiting for, she was ready for them and able to go on with her life and stitch the pieces of her family back together. We have all heard real life unsolved missing person cases so there was something very satisfying about a fictional explanation for one. This book will move you to look at missing person reports and wonder!

Really enjoyed this book, in fact I have recommended it to my book club.