This is a , thrilling, unputdownable, and suspenseful psychological thriller novel that had me from page one.While I picked up early on what had happened to Ellie Mack, I had no idea why and this was the hook that kept me reading. I bought into the characters and the family dynamics and I struggled to put this down as it had it all, plot twists, intersting characcters, suspense and more plot twists! A great read.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. Then She Was Gone has lots of secrets in it and I feel that it begins to reveal them just at the right time making you want to read on. I look forward to reading more of Lisa Jewell’s books.
Thanks to Netgalley and Penguin Books for the ARC.

Much as I enjoyed this one, my apologies but I've decided to "pass" on a full review. I'm a massive fan of Lisa Jewell's writing, but the storyline was just a little too bizarre for me to love it.

I am currently working on expanding our school library's senior section after years of a dismal and uninspiring selection of books that our older readers never checked out. My job has been to seek out much more diverse, gripping and modern books that will get them into reading by appealing to as broad a range of readers as possible. This really appealed to me because of its fantastic narrative and sense of atmosphere, combined with believable characterisation and its page-turning nature. It's hard to get young people into reading and if the library is not stocking the kind of book that they might grow up to buy as adult readers then we are not really meeting their needs. I can imagine this provoking lots of discussion after finishing it and a long queue of people trying to reserve it as they've heard so much about it. Will definitely be buying a copy and know that it's going to be a very popular choice. An engrossing read that kept me up far too late to finish reading it. It certainly stood out from the other books that I was considering and I look forward to converting more Lisa Jewell fans in future!

Plot: Ellie, her family’s golden girl, disappeared over 10 years ago aged fifteen, leaving behind a grieving family. In the present, Laurel, Ellie’s mother, starts up a new relationship with sensible single dad, Floyd, who has a young daughter, Poppy. Laurel and Floyd are immediately smitten with one another, but when Laurel finally meets Poppy, something is off – she reminds her of Ellie, and it’s more than a slight resemblance.

My thoughts: This was a very well done psychological thriller. Some might say the genre is overdone right now, but I think there's always space for one more, and this was an excellent one. I found the story twisty and creepy enough to hold my interest, with dark undertones lurking throughout but something you can't quite put your finger on. The suspense is brilliant and holds the reveals at arm's length until the right moments. Honestly, a very good book that I would highly recommend.

Never read a LIsa Jewell before. Not convinced I will again. I do wonder what her first novel was like. By a third of the way through, I was wondering why I was reading this book, and was close to giving up. Shortly after, it became quite enthralling and I had to know what next, since it took such a sinister turn. From here, it was heard to put it down for a while. Except it became entirely predictable, and I only read to the end to confirm what I had deduced half way of the way through. There were no surprises, no suspense nor psychological intrigue that was detailed or explored in any way. By the end, I was simply bored. I don't understand the rave reviews so this novel was pedestrian, not cleverly scribed and really felt like it was churned out to a formula.

Loved this book. Engaging writing from the offset and lots of twists and turns to keep you guessing. Well worth a read.

15 year old Ellie Mack goes missing on her way home from the library . No one has any clues where she has gone and the police are treating it as a missing person case . Most people apart from her mother feel that she has runaway . Ellie’s mother Laurel just can’t get on with life and feels there is more to it than Ellie simply running away . 10 years after Ellie’s disappearance Laurel bumps into Floyd in a coffee shop and they embark on a relationship. When Floyd introduces Laurel to his 9 year old daughter Poppy the resemblance to her missing daughter is uncanny . Seeing Poppy dregs back up all the memories of Ellie and the still unanswered questions that haunt Laurel since Ellie disappeared. What has happened to Ellie ?

When I finished this book I just said WOW ! I was dumbstruck by this story and has to sit in a quiet room for a while to get my thoughts together. For me this was an absolutely superb psychological thriller. Often a book can drag a bit in places but with this one it certainly didn’t happen . A absolute must read for fans of psychological thrillers . A massive 5 star read for me .

Absolutely brilliant book! I'm a huge fan of Lisa Jewell's and have read all her books and I think she just gets better and better. This book was so well written and so sad in parts. I read it a while ago now and still think of it. Just brilliant!

My heart has been battered, uplifted, and bashed about by this book. I can't deny that the plot feels over dramatic at the end, but my heart is doing the rating. And with every beat, it demands I click all the stars.

Highly recommend Then She Was Gone by Lisa Jewell. Absolutely loved it, even though at times it had me sobbing and snivelling all over the place. Thought it was really well written and worthy of five stars

A psychological thriller that builds the tension slowly, ‘Then She Was Gone’ takes you on a journey full of twists and turns that entices you to keep on reading long into the night. Laurel’s grief at the loss of her daughter, Ellie, is palpable and you feel every emotion right along with her.

The differing character points of view throughout the book help to build up the tension, and you can’t help but find yourself caught up in the individual stories, even as you try to weave the threads of the story together to solve the mystery of what happened to Ellie.

Beautifully written as always by Lisa Jewell, with characters you quickly come to care about, ‘Then She Was Gone’ is a heartachingly brilliant psychological thriller. A 5 star read that I highly recommend.

EXCERPT: She had no one to call, no one to ask 'Have you seen Hanna? Do you know where she is?' Her life simply didn't work like that. There were no connections anywhere. Just little islands of life dotted here and there.

It was possible, she thought, that Hanna had met a man, but unlikely. Hannah hadn't had a boyfriend, not one, ever. Someone once mooted the theory that Hanna felt too guilty to have a boyfriend because her little sister would never have one. The same theory could also be applied to her miserable flat and her nonexistent social life.

Laurel knew simultaneously that she was overreacting and also that she was not overreacting. When you are the parent of a child who walked out of the house one morning with a rucksack full of books to study at a library a fifteen minute walk away and then never came home again, then there is no such thing as overreacting. The fact that she was standing in her adult daughter’s kitchen picturing her dead in a ditch because she hadn't left a cereal bowl in the sink was perfectly sane and reasonable in the context of her own experience.

ABOUT THIS BOOK: THEN
She was fifteen, her mother's
golden girl. She had her whole life ahead of her.
And then, in the blink of an eye, Ellie was gone.

NOW
It’s been ten years since Ellie
disappeared, but Laurel has never given up
hope of finding her daughter.
And then one day a charming and charismatic stranger called Floyd walks into a café and sweeps Laurel off her feet.
Before too long she’s staying the night at this house and being introduced to his nine year old daughter.
Poppy is precocious and pretty - and meeting her completely takes Laurel's breath away.

Because Poppy is the spitting image of Ellie when she was that age.
And now all those unanswered questions that have haunted Laurel come flooding back.

What happened to Ellie? Where did she go?
Who still has secrets to hide?

MY THOUGHTS: I loved this book. I love Lisa Jewell's writing. I love her characters. I wanted, so badly, to know what happened, but I wanted the book never to end. I think I am addicted. I have started another of this author's books straight away. And I seldom, if ever, do that.

The characters are very ordinary people. They are not rich, nor particularly successful. They don't marry millionaires and live happily ever after. They are ordinary people with ordinary worries who have ordinary awful things happen, and who react like I imagine that I, or any of my friends, would react should a child of mine go missing. And in this very 'ordinaryness' Jewell creates compelling characters that we come to love and empathise with, and addictive reads.

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.

Thank you to Random House UK, Cornerstone Arrow for providing a digital ARC of Then She Was Gone by Lisa Jewell for review. All opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own personal opinions.

Please refer to my Goodreads.com profile page or the 'about' page on sandysbookaday.wordpress.com for an explanation of my rating system.

This review and others are also published on my blog sandysbookaday.wordpress.com.

Different in the best possible way. Highly original plot with some great characters, especially Laurel. Emotionally charged, beautifuly written and altogether spellbinding

Lisa Jewell is probably my favourite author at the moment. She hasn’t written anything I haven’t been addicted to, thrilled by or desperate to reach the killer ending. I really enjoyed this one. Highly recommend!

I am split regarding this book. On one side is the story. I enjoyed the story, some predictable parts, some surprising twists. Overall, the story was really good and gripping. On the other side is the author. I’m very on the fence with Lisa Jewell. I am a big fan of her chick lit books but I have not really got on well with any of her thriller books. However saying that this is definitely my favourite of hers for a long time.

A very rare thing occured with this book, I read it twice. I read a lot, and often forget the plot ( as well as losing it :)). I found it on my kindle, for some reason it didn't show I had read it , and I recognised it from the first chapter but couldn't recall how it ended, I started reading a bit to jog my memory,and although I remembered the ending, I couldn't recall all the bits of the story and ended up reading the whole thing. I think that shows how good it was. A really unusual plot, great characters, all flawed but all very human and relatable. The way the truth started unfolding was clever, you could see the links, but not how they were going to fit, so when it was all revealed, it was happily as good an outcome as there could have been, Well written and easy to lose yourself entirely, a great novel.

A brilliant twisty, keep you guessing book. One of those you have to lose sleep over ‘cos you NEED to know what’s going on! Yes I sussed a little of it out but this didn’t spoil my enjoyment. I've not read any of Lisa's books before but I will deffo read more. For the people who don't like 'unrealistic, far fetched' plots. I suggest you stick to nonfiction books & documentaries on telly :)). Highly recommended.

then she was gone by lisa Jewell.
She was fifteen, her mother's golden girl. 
She had her whole life ahead of her. 
And then, in the blink of an eye, Ellie was gone. Ten years on, Laurel has never given up hope of finding Ellie. And then she meets a charming and charismatic stranger who sweeps her off her feet. But what really takes her breath away is when she meets his nine-year-old daughter. Because his daughter is the image of Ellie. Now all those unanswered questions that have haunted Laurel come flooding back.
wow. this was a fantastic read. couldn't put it down. loved the story and the characters. I love lisa last book I read i Found you. Will definitely be reading more from her. 5*.

Ellie Mack went missing at the age of 15, There didn't appear to be any explanation for her disappearance and eventually it was decided that she had simply run away. Skip forward 10 years and Eillie's mother Laurel meets a mysterious stranger who she starts to fall in love with. Is Floyd really all he appears to be? Floyd has a 9 year old daughter, Poppy, who is the spitting image of Ellie. How is this possible. What is the story?