This is my first book by Elizabeth Carpenter, the bio really drew me in so to say I wasn’t disappointed is an understatement. The book is told in three POVs, Debbie (the mother) in the 80s and Annie (the daughter) in the present day, the third POV I am not quite sure who that was!

What happened the night Debbie disappeared, did she run away, did she die? What if everything you had been told turned out to be a lie, who do you trust?

A great story of love, family, betrayal, secrets, heartache, depression, some people tend to shy away from mental health/depression so I was happy with how this was handled. Plenty of twists of turns to keep you guessing. Not my typical read, but overall I enjoyed it.

Many thanks to Netgalley and Avon Books for an advanced copy in exchange for my honest opinion.

I am a bad audience for thrillers of this sort. I admit this at the beginning so you can read the rest of the review bearing this in mind. I have been on a hiatus because of having a very active social life with family. This meant that I read the book in parts. It was very fast-moving till the turning point where it understandably slows down.

This story has two unreliable narrators, a mother and daughter separated by time and by circumstances. Both never got a chance to know each other. Why that would be the case is what the book is all about. Debbie is suffering from mental pressure, something is not right and she can't seem to put her finger on the reason why.She is struggling to care for her daughter Anna. In the present, we meet Anna who has always dealt with her mother's absence by having her present in her thoughts and which sometimes borders on the crazy. There is chaos in terms of what events are being described to us. There is a lot of analysis on the balance of relationships amongst the various characters, some of which I felt could be further developed. Overall it was a good book, with enough elements to make its place in the thriller category.

I have mixed feelings about this book. I really loved it until I got to the end. I couldn't wait to find out what happened to Debbie. I kept going through the group of people in her life- her husband, her best friend and her best friend's husband. Then it's revealed and I felt so disappointed. I guess I was expecting something different. While reading the book I didn't want to put it down. It was full of twists and turns. I kept blaming Monica and she was such a horrible best friend.

The book alternates between Annie and her mom Debbie. Did I like the characters? I'm not sure. Annie had no back bone. It felt like her family kept stuff from her regarding her mom. Her husband Jack seemed like he hated her and turned everything around on her. Annie desperately wanted to find Debbie. She never got to know her mom, because she disappeared when Annie was a baby. I got the feeling that Annie's parents (Monica and her dad) and her brother Robert really didn't want her to find her mom. There were so many secrets and every so often one was revealed.

Then there was Debbie. After having Annie she didn't feel like herself. She heard voices in her head and felt like everyone was conspiring against her. She started getting these strange anonymous letters in the mail. They were creepy and should have been shown to the police. I got the feeling her husband and Monica were more than just friends. Monica and Debbie were supposed to be best friends, but seemed more like frenemies when Debbie talked about her. Then there was Monica's husband Nathan. There was something about him from the very beginning. He was creepy and always showed up when least expected. The two families decide to go on vacation in Tenerife and that's where everything changes.

I had different feelings when Annie would talk about Monica and her dad, compared to Debbie's thoughts. Through Annie, Monica and her dad seemed like loving, kind people who made the best of a horrible situation. Debbie made them seem like they were scheming behind her back.

I do recommend the book. I did love it up until the ending. I look forward to reading more by the author.

Thanks to NetGalley, Avon Books UK and the author, Elisabeth Carpenter, for a free electronic ARC of this novel.

I found this book to be really odd,I liked the sound of it but I found it too slow and not much seemed to happen.Also I usually like the story being told from different points of view but didn't connect with it being told in this way with this book.I guess I just didn't like the style or the content and I'm sorry because I hate giving bad reviews but this just wasn't the book for me.Thanks to the publishers and netgalley for the ARC.

Didn't like it, didn't dislike it - on balance was pretty bored by it. There are two points of view and two timelines, I really enjoyed Debbie the mum who's life after the 2nd baby turns into everything she ever hated. The details of her life are mundane and so very accurately described that you could almost be back in 1986. The new microwave, the landline telephones, Teletex holidays and the C registration cars all excellent in depicting a very different era from modern day Britain.

Anna is less enjoyable to read, she's obsessed with the mother she never had to the cost of her own family. There’s is not much that goes on in her life that is of any consequence other than the fact that her mother went missing presumed dead when she was a new born.. The impact of this loss is however profound as all these years later it is still the centre of her character, she certainly has not moved on.

The character who is the most likeable is poor Monica - raised Debbie’s kids and gets token thanks for it.

There is one other voice in the book which pops in and out - we are not told who it is - is it Debbie ? maybe yes, maybe no. I found this a little odd and slightly annoying as it didn't really help the book along much. I finished it and wish I hadn’t really because the ending is just too bizarre.

This book is of its type in the family genre, it’s not the best you can read. As to why it is called 11 missed calls ? no idea !

I received this book from the publishers via NetGalley in return for an honest review.

I loved it. The book is told from two viewpoints, Debbie in the 1980's and Anna/Annie in the present day. I personally like this type of book so this was perfect for me. I especially enjoyed the eighties, that was my era and it was nostalgic reading.

Debbie disappeared when Anna was a baby and as Anna grew up she had a collection of items relating to her mum. A memory box without having any actual memories of her own and

Years after her disappearance Annas stepmum who was also Debbies best friend receives an email from someone proclaiming to be Debbie.

While this wasn't a thriller there was some suspense there as we find out who sent the email and what really happened to Debbie.

A couple of times I thought I had it all worked out but was wrong and the ending left me wanting more in the next chapter of this family's life.

The book does focus on depression and mental illness and I felt it was handled well.

I really liked the authors previous book, this one was perfectly readable but just not as good! It had a plot where something good could have happened but didn’t quite! I was pleased to finish this one! Thanks for the read

Thanks Netgalley and the Publisher. A good mystery book full of love lost, secrets and heartache. I would not say that this was one of the best I have read but not bad

"Here are two things I know about my mother : 1. She had dark hair, like mine. 2. She wasn't very happy at the end."

The first line of the book's summary pulled me in. I was prepared for a psychological thriller with deep family issues and twists and turns around every corner. That is not what this is.

I really wanted to like this book, I love the crime fiction genre, but it was too confusing. There are three POVs : the mother (when she was younger in 1986) and the daughter in present day and the third is an unknown character. The mother and daughter POVs were so similar that I would get confused on who's POV I was reading from.

There was not much suspense, as you already know from the first chapter of the story what happened to the mom and what is going on now. It kind of read like a contemporary, a lot of family drama. I don't understand the purpose of "11 Missed Calls" as the title, it wasn't really incorporated into the book.

There was a lot of rambling and internal dialogue. I didn't connect with any of the characters. Overall, this book needed a lot more structure and plotting because it really fell flat and failed to deliver a great story.

Thank you for letting me review this book. I couldn’t put it down. I loved the style of writing that took you back to the past events, and brought you back to the present. It had so many twists, it certainly kept me guessing, even though I was wrong every time!

This took quite a bit of reading and concentration, so not a 'light' read but thoroughly enjoyable and with an underlying story to the bottom of which you really want to get. An unusual premise and relatable characters, good narrative and satisfying resolution.

Thank you Netgalley and Avon Books an ARC in return for an honest review.
11 Missed Calls. Anna was one month old, when her mother Debbie disappeared, feared dead on a holiday in Tenerife. Thirty years later, her father tells her that Monica (his wife now and Debbie’s best friend) has been sent an email allegedly from Debbie. Anna then realises that she has not been told the honest truth about her mother.
Anna then starts looking for her mother. Even hiring a Private investigator to find out the truth. The story continues back to the 1980’s when the incident happened and forth in time to the present in two points of view.
What can I say about this book? I liked the premise of this story and the references of the 1980’s. It made me quite nostalgic. But I am afraid that’s it. I found this slow and flat. I like a book to excite me and draw me in. But this did not do that. The more I read, the more I wanted it to finish it quickly. I was so happy when It finished. 2 stars from me.

What did I just read — I don’t know

Where were the 11 missed calls — I don’t know

How did I manage to finish — I don’t know

Why did I read this — I don’t know

Whew… A lot of ‘don’t knows’ in this book. The story had a beautiful premise Anna/Annie’s mother has been missing for 30 years cloaked under a lot of mystery while on a holiday at Tenerife, and this fact has obsessed Anna for three decades – to find her mother Debbie. Till an email comes to step-mother Monica and that steamrolls the entire story….

The book which sounded so good at the synopsis failed to deliver due to the following points

Two timelines 1986 and 2017
Two POV Debbie and Anna
An unknown voice making a sudden narration
Everything is in first person, if I forgot to see the title heading, I wouldn’t have known if it is the daughter or mother’s POV as both are weird
Horribly characterized characters
Reasons at the end made no sense, it was anti-climatic
11 missed calls as title sounded so exciting but there were no calls, only the stepmother received 11 missed calls in one scene in the book from an unknown caller (I was not told who that was)
Stepmother was mother’s best friend who became father’s best friend and married him after the mother’s disappearance.
Lack of intrigue and suspense
Too many ramblings of the mind with no clear solution
The twist was people who appeared negative became saints at the end, all reasons justified
Bridges of relationship built overnight
Private investigator hired found two dead bodies but that was a different story (again not told to me, and the investigator discovers nothing, and she was the only good character in the book)
Infidelity as a running theme in the story, but in the end everyone was goody-two-shoes. Everybody cried and made up. Yayyyy
Why am I sounding so happy

The book is over and done with, and I don’t ever have to read it again. It is deleted from my kindle. Vamoosh!!

from the title of the book it sounded like a mystery/thriller. A mystery it is, and a very good one. Not so much a thriller. Even though the story has the ending that thought was good, it felt like a beginning not an ending. I wanted to know how everyone got on. I guess that's the sign of a really good book. I would recommend this to anyone looking for a good book.

I didn't struggle to get into this, I just struggled to be intrigued. It felt kind of flat.
I'm left a little disappointed. I found myself not really caring. The synposis intrigued me, I expected a suspense novel but this lacked suspense.
I figured out the ending pretty much, just not Debbie's reason. I knew who was involved.
I also feel the "cheating" was just added to bring extra drama but it felt pointless. Especially because of what the truth was. I found it didn't add anything to the story.

Anna knows very little about her mother who left her when she was just a tiny baby. She had disappeared when they were on holiday with family friends in Tenerife and was never traced. Everything she knows about her mother is hearsay and supposition – what people have told her and what she has seen in photographs. After thirty years of wondering why her mother left her family, Anna is determined to find out what happened to her mother. Everyone seems sure that she is dead and her father is very happily remarried to her mother’s best friend. Then a series of anonymous threatening letters are posted through the letterbox, including some to her father via his second wife. Eventually, unable to get on with her life ‘not knowing’, Anna hires a female private investigator and soon after she hears that she is in Tenerife because she has discovered that there were unidentified bodies, albeit buried, from the time her mother was on the island. But there were unclaimed artefacts and belongings to examine that may lead to the answers Anna sought. At last she feels nearer to knowing the truth.
The story is told by two unreliable narrators, Anna and Debbie, with a few chapters by an unknown narrator. Both stories are told throughout different time scales bringing the story bang up to date, Debbie’s mostly from the past and Anna’s mostly from the present. It is when the two story threads meet that the truth is revealed in an exciting plot twist. I enjoyed the ending best of all but found the better part of the book very slow moving and sometimes confusing. I did not warm to any of the main characters but liked the idea for the story about depression, secrecy, love and loss. I felt empathy for both Anna and her mother and thought that their feelings could have been examined in more detail considering that is the very heart of the story. One thing that I found confusing is the title of the novel which I thought could have been linked to the story more effectively. I received a complimentary copy of this novel from publisher Avon through my membership of NetGalley. Thank you for my copy sent in return for an honest and unbiased review.

11 Missed Calls is not what I thought it would be I’m afraid ( I think I was hoping for something along the lines of The Ring or maybe that’s just me) There was no tension in the story for me and even the characters in the book didn’t seem to know what was going on so that confused me even more. I realise they were unreliable narrators but I hoped for more grit.

What I did enjoy however was the depiction of the 1980s which was nicely done. And there’s always room for a mother -daughter mystery novel!

There’s certainly skeletons in this family closet!

I really enjoyed 'Eleven Missed Calls' and cannot wait to read more from Elisabeth Carpenter. I do love a book that has me guessing right until the very end and I feel that this was the case with this book.

Told from the perspectives of mother and daughter, Debbie and Anna, we are taken on a journey that revolves around the disappearance of Debbie 30 years previously. Alternating between the past (Debbie's point of view) and the present (Anna's point of view) we see two sides of a very tense story. Anna and her family have moved on from her mother's disappearance but when an email arrives claiming that Debbie is still alive Anna finds that her whole world is flipped on it's side and finding out more about her mum is all that she wants to do. Debbie's point of view, on the other hand, gives us the background story leading up to her disappearance. I loved the style of writing because I had a clear vision of Debbie in my head and I did feel slightly sorry for her.

Obviously the book wouldn't work without a few twists and turns and I found that 'Eleven Missed Calls' did not disappoint. Again, I found myself in amateur detective mode and I was desperate to learn more to try and guess what had actually happened to Debbie. The twists were good and I was shocked by the ending; I definitely will never make a good detective.

I found the book easy to read and I was hooked until the very end. I can't wait for book number three.

Highly recommended story of twists and secrets, reading the book you unwind the story of lost, love and liars. Who can she turn to?

A mystery surrounds this tale with people keeping secrets. A good read with strong characters some likable and some not