Ultimately, this is the story of the power and devastation of unrequited guilt.

The lives of Tom, Linda, Esme, Phoebe and Bea are permanently scarred and shattered by the circumstances of the tragic death of Phoebe at age 3. Because of circumstances each takes on guilt for the death and each then retreats into his/her own cocoon, not knowing how to reconcile the guilt nor how to bond together to grieve and then live. And of course, the most tragic of all is poor Bea who was not even born until after Phoebe’s death and never knew her mother.

From time to time while reading, I wanted to shake various characters and say, “Talk to each other! Express your feelings! Grieve together – Heal together! You’ve got a precious new family member who shouldn’t bear the brunt of your guilt – she shouldn’t be dragged into the quagmire of your despair.”

But in all honesty, I truly do understand that that’s very difficult to do when being burdened with such terrible guilt.

This book was very deep and probed the emotions in a family. It was quite thought provoking.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Ipso Books for an ARC. All opinions are my own.

Wow! Missing Pieces is gripping, heartbreaking and I did not want to put it down. Laura Pearson's writing is phenominal. Losing a child (of any age) has to be the worst thing parents can go through. Learning to move forward without that child is just so hard. This book grabbed me from page 1. It is gripping throughout and the ending had me crying! I've only cried TWICE reading books! This is one of my favorite books of 2018 so far!! I received this book from the publisher and NetGalley for an honest review. I loved it and highly recommend it to all!!

Missing Pieces is one of the most moving books of the year. Laura Pearson's writing in this debut novel is beautiful and a complex story is well told.

A family is torn apart by the death of a young child, Phoebe, and the reader is kept guessing as to the manner of her death until the end. Each member of Phoebe's family: her mother, father and older sister all feel responsible for Phoebe's death. When a new baby, Bea, is born the loss of Phoebe is magnified for them all.

The story is told in timelines twenty five years apart. In 1985 we follow Linda, wife of Tom and mother of 7 year old Esme and 3 year old Phoebe as she tries to come to terms with the loss of her younger daughter. The birth of Bea only serves to exacerbate Linda's pain. In 2011 Bea is about to become a mother herself and wants to know more about the sister who died before she was born. Esme finds the only way she can give the information Bea so desperately craves is to write letters detailingPhoebe's short life. Through this device the family's story is revealed.

I particularly felt for Linda and the pain she suffered; I liked Tom in his role as father especially through the stories he told Esme, but not as a husband. However, Laura Pearson excels in illustrating human frailties so Tom was most realistic. What struck me strongly was the lack of support given to postnatal mothers in the 1980s and the lack of communication within families that continues to this day.

I especially liked that the book is written in the third person and manages to remain close to each character's inner feelings. The one irritant for me was the number of days listed at the beginning of each chapter which I found a distraction.

I'm sure Missing Pieces will be a great success and I look forward to reading more from Laura Pearson. Many thanks to NetGalley and Ipso Books for the opportunity to read and review Missing Pieces.

Have you ever experienced something and felt such regret? What if that regret was trusting somebody you thought was trustworthy? Missing Pieces is layered with feelings of loss, regret, sadness, hopelessness. It is also layered with hope, happiness and strength. The Sadler family experienced an ultimate tragedy and cannot move past it. Each character has to live with a regret of their own and instead of them growing closer through this hard time, they grow even further apart. My heart broke during Missing Pieces but my heart was also repaired by the hope that Missing Pieces instilled. Once you begin Missing Pieces, you will not be able to put it down until you find the missing pieces in the Sadler family.

Great read. Very emotional. Different to my usual reads. But very enjoyable even in the circumstances of the plot of the book

I would like to thank NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read this advanced Kindle copy of "Missing Pieces" in exchange for an honest review. "Missing Pieces" describes life for a family after the death of a child. Phoebe's mother, father and sister all feel responsible for her death for different reasons. The story covers the events that took place the night Phoebe died and the fallout from that time until almost 30 years later. Laura Pearson's writing is sharp, breathtakingly sad and poignant. She takes the reader through a journey of one family's pain and heartache and chance for recovery. The story seems so realistic that its difficult to believe that its not based on true events. I highly recommend this debut novel from Ms. Pearson.

Gripping, tragic and thrilling. Three words to describe this book. The book follows a family after a tragic loss and tells about how this tragedy has shaped their lives. The mother is having a difficult time coping and it shows in her daily life, the father is struggling to keep his wife's spirits up and keep the family together. To find out what tragic I am talking about, you'll have to check out the book and find out :)

I was hooked on this book from the very first page. This book had me up reading into the late hours of the night, often until 2am or later to find out what was going to happen next. Be prepared for a lot of "wow" and "oh no" moments and even a tear or two as you read about the family dynamics and tragedy in this book. So much sadness and grief and it pulls on your heart strings.

I liked how this book was written in two parts. In the first part of the book you follow the lives of the mother, father and their daughter Esme leading up to the tragedy and the time that follows. In the second part of the book you follow their lives and how the tragedy has affected their lives 25 years later.

Thank you to Net Galley and Ipso Books for an ARC copy of this book. It was a pleasure to read and give my honest review.

This novel is heartbreaking yet hopeful. It takes the reader on a journey from the depiction of visceral, absolute grief, to the possibility of redemption. It’s a hard read (especially if you’re a parent), but it’s worth the heartache and tears to share the lives of Sadlers as they try to repair their broken lives. This is a beautifully written debut novel, and I look forward to reading more from this author.

Missing Pieces is a beautifully writing but heartbreaking read. It needs to come with a box of tissues. Covering big issues of bereavement, infidelity, motherhood and what it means to be family, Laura Pearson's writing is exquisite and lyrical. From the very start, the images she creates will stay in your mind for days.. I loved how the story was told in two ways with the past and the present and how each family member's truth is revealed.

A beautiful story and I look forward to reading more by this author.. Thank you to ipso and netgalley for this advance reading copy.

Just finished Missing Pieces by @LauraPAuthor What a read! Cried lots but loved it & it's brilliantly written. Highly recommended.

A really good debut novel, I look forward to her next book!
This book is well written, the characters are relatable and I really enjoyed the unravelling of the story. It’s heartbreakingly sad though.

A story of a hearbreaking loss and the dysfunction that follows. The first half was excellent and I flew through it and the second half fell a bit. The writing is beautiful and the characters are very easy to connect with. I will be looking for more from this author in the future!

'And Linda felt like getting inside it, curling up with her daughter and going to sleep.

But the coffin was too small.'

This is one of the saddest stories I’ve read this year. A family torn apart by one tragic moment, each person shouldering blame that severs each relationship and demands love and support that is no longer possible to give. It begins with a countdown, 21 days after the nightmare that has Linda longing for nothing more than eternal sleep, but with a baby inside her womb she can’t cave in to darkness. All she wants is make the child go away, there is nothing left inside of her for the newborn on the way, and certainly no comfort to give her eldest daughter, Esme.

Esme’s grief and shame is burying her, she needs her mother now more than ever. But Linda can’t stomach even looking at her little girl without wanting to hurt her. Still, in the beginning she tries, she attempts to rally enough energy, some remnant of ‘life’ to at least be present. She knows it isn’t fair to her husband Tom and daughter, nor to their unborn child but fair is no longer reality, not for any of them. There is no such thing as fair, she knows this now, it is a brutal truth the universe has taught them all. After losing Phoebe, everything isn’t just a challenge, it’s an impossibility. She is sinking in depression that is feeding her rage, and Esme is trapped between her parents, protective of the mother that seems to hate her so much. Her childhood is over, she is only 7 years old when her mother decides to erase all reminders of Phoebe, so that maybe she can go on, so that maybe she can breathe and get through just one day. When Linda isn’t feeling judged by other mothers for collapsing under her grief and being a terrible mother to Esme, resentful of husband Tom, then she is hearing her dead daughter’s voice. She needs help! When the new baby arrives, it should be a moment of rebirth for the entire family, a chance to heal, but Linda cannot escape her sorrow. Esme becomes Bea’s second mother of sorts, a stand in for the love and care her mother can’t bear to give. That care verges on suffocating, because she will do everything to keep Bea safe.

Fast forward to the future, Part 2 and Bea is about to have a child of her own. There is a strain between she and Esme. This novel beautifully exposes how children, with an age gap, can live a completely different upbringing within the same family. All Esme ever wanted to do is protect Bea from the heavy weight of the grief she has lived and breathed since before Bea was born. To keep Bea safe becomes a second chance for the unforgivable mistake made with Phoebe. Esme hasn’t had much of a life of her own, hasn’t felt she deserved one, not after her mother Linda fell apart, and what about Tom, her father? If there are secrets that have been kept from Bea, there too are things Tom and Linda had kept from Esme, that changes everything she believed about that ill-fated day when she lost her beloved little sister. Just who is to blame?

It is about regret, how making one poor judgement can cost you everything. How many moments have we ourselves dodged, simply through fate? One may never know. It is not having the full story, and how Bea’s relationship with her family is damaged by fear, by the unspeakable truths we keep close thinking it’s the only way to salvage the remains of happiness, the only chance to keep someone safe. It’s how much of our future we give away to guilt, to pain. This is a heavy read, and as a mother one can understand Linda’s struggle with shame, rage, hopelessness and bottomless grief. Tom has his own burden to bear, he too made a mistake, as did Esme (though of all of them, surely Esme is the least to blame)? What a position for so young a child to be in. It seems like an impossible scenario, but such things have happened, and I always wonder ‘my god, how does a child move on from such a terrible accident.’ A heavy read. Maybe there is hope for healing, but tragedy is an unwanted guest that refuses to leave. Will they ever be a family again, will Bea ever have all the Missing Pieces and finally know what happened? What about her pregnancy? What does it mean for her future? This is a weeper.

Publication Date: June 21, 2018

Ipso Books

This novel is an emotionally charged story - a debut from a natural born writer. An ordinary family are thrust into a tragedy when their three-year-old daughter Phoebe dies. There is a snowball effect, and a series of further tragedies as the family fail to cope with the fall-out. Suffering the loss of a child must be a devastating ordeal. To cope with it during pregnancy when the hormones are crazy must be far worse. All the characters seem to close off believing they are responsible for the death and indeed they are a lot of "if only....." situations and serious issues to work through. Each member of the family has their individual way of recovery. None of them wise or workable. Strangely I found myself perpetually changing my opinions of the family members as the story progressed. There is love in the family, but it sours and stagnates as they blame themselves, each other or believe others are blaming them. These secrets emotionally separate the family. Will they find peace and forgiveness? Thank you to NetGalley and Ipso.

I loved this book!
This is a beautifully written story of sadness, heartache...and hope!
The story flowed perfectly, I enjoyed the format....each chapter a different perspective from the Mum, dad...and Bea!
This is an author to watch....I would put Laura Pearson in the Jodi Picoult category....she’s just that good!,,,

The first half of this book was about the aftermath of a child's death on her family. Linda can barely function in her grief over the loss of her 3-year-old daughter, while Tom struggles to hold the family together. The second half of the book deals with the family's other two daughters and how the loss has shaped their lives. I enjoyed it a lot. It was sad and hard to read at times, the parents' grief and everyone's guilt and self-blame, but I liked it. Four stars.

Missing Pieces is the first book I've read by Laura Pearson and I am happy to find a new author to follow and read. I loved this book and I hated this book! You'll have to decide what you think after you have read it. I read it in two sittings as I had to find out how it happened! How did sweet, bouncy, happy Phoebe, a child of only three, die? How can they all move on from the pain. Seven year old Esme's little sister is gone forever. Esme just knows it's all her fault Phoebe's mom, very pregnant with her third child, is devastated beyond words and knows she is the reason her baby girl is gone. How can she bring this other baby into the world? Could she even love another child? The father, kind, helpful and loving has a secret. A secret that in his mind made him the guilty party. The damage it does to a family far into the future is what this book is about. It's not revealed until the end how Phoebe actually died, who is really to blame. The new sister Bea feels left out of what once was a happy, loving, and complete family. No one talks about the past at all. Bea only knows she had a sister and she died. The pain each one carries with them swirls around every relationship. Bea, struggles with the feeling of not being a complete part of this family. The fight for survival and the ability to move on are an everyday challenge. It is a book you won't soon forget. I thank NetGalley for allowing me to read the digital copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinion.. You'll have to read it to decide if you will love it or hate it. I'm glad I read it.

As this is the debut novel of Laura Pearson, I am elated to note the wonderful skill of storytelling that she possesses and acknowledge her beautiful way with words as she paints a picture of a family shrouded under the cover of grief and the pains of a happier life prior to the moment an unthinkable tragedy struck. As I maneuvered my way through the story, I instantly knew that this would become one of my favorite books and no matter how much time had passed while I was reading it, I simply did not want to put the book down or the story to finish. The mystery surrounding the middle daughter's death hung forbiddingly throughout the story, yet it kept me engaged, desiring to know how the precious 3 year old Phoebe had died. With each page that I turned, I longed to know her cause of death and the moments leading up to the collective despair that each of the family members she left behind endured. I empathized deeply with the mother's lost of her daughter and I felt every bit of the emptiness and heartache she encountered as she desperately tried to come to terms with Phoebe's sudden death. My heart ached with every tear that the mother shed as she downed yet another drink of vodka as she tried to escape her the pain of her reality while chasing away the memory of losing her daughter away in the warming, yet numbing, comfort of alcohol. Midway through the story, there was a heart wrenching shock that left me with my mouth agape, wishing that things had taken another turn. This change in the family's lives set the pace for the remainder of the book and shook me to my core.

As part two of the story began, I was pleasantly pleased to learn more about the family prior to Phoebe's death as the elder sister, Esme, thoughtfully, yet finally, explained to her younger sister, Bea, the circumstances surrounding their sister's death through a series of letters. Esme's jealously, envy, and love-hate relationship towards Phoebe was one that I knew all too well from a personal viewpoint. As Esme finally revealed her truths to her sister and more secrets from the past before there ever was a Bea were revealed, I lavished in the revelations as if I were personally being told the story by Esme herself. This book was emotionally raw, breathtakingly beautiful as it intricately wove a tale of grief, depression, and a searing devoted love for another human being. The character's deep devotion and longing to fill an unfillable void in their lives that once held the departed Phoebe demonstrated the raw emotions one experiences after the death of a loved one. I read this book within 24 hours and I must honestly say that it stole a piece of my heart when I read the last word on the last page. I look forward to reading more works from this brilliant author in the future.

I loved this book, I think it was written by someone who has experienced or researched this topic greatly. The characters were exactly the way they should be, in midst of a tragedy, or after, and this is certainly always the case in these types of book. Heart wrenching to read, but beautiful!

Elegant, honest and breathtakingly beautiful, Laura Pearson’s debut novel is an impressive and raw portrayal of how one tragedy affects an entire family. In this captivating story Pearson explores the fragility of childhood and how trauma inherently changes our future, focusing on themes of love, honesty and forgiveness.

The story is split in two: the first half about the death of three-year old Phoebe and how it affects Tom and Linda Sadler; the second half takes place 25-years later, focusing on Phoebe’s older and younger sisters, Esme and Bea, and how her death has affected them. Torn apart by grief and a terrible secret, the Sadler family slowly unravels, but can anything bring them back together?

I was completely swept away by this book. It is utterly mesmerising and emotional, an intricately woven exploration of family and grief that had me reaching for a tissue more than once. Pearson deals with numerous contemporary issues with depth and sensitivity. If you’re a fan of Fiona Neil, you’ll love Laura Pearson’s new novel Missing Pieces.

Thank you so much to Netgalley for letting me read Missing Pieces by Laura Pearson in exchange for my honest review.