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Actual rating of 2.5

Maggie O'Farrell is at a loss. Her only daughter, Emma, has gone off to college, and since her husband passed away in the line of duty, Emma is all that Maggie has left. So when a detective walks into Maggie's hair salon to inform her that her daughter is missing, her world crumbles. She begins to think how a cop would think, trying to stay one step ahead because she NEEDS to find her daughter and the police force just aren't doing enough. She knows how they work, her husband was a police officer, so she knows the drill. What she didn't count on was the possibility that Emma's disappearance has to do with a ground shaking story that she was chasing for the University Newspaper. What has happened to her little girl? Will this story end in heart ache or a reunion?

I love a good psychological thriller, but I feel like this doesn't really fall into that category. I honestly don't really know WHAT category this falls into....maybe women's fiction with a hint of mystery? So I felt a little let down because I figured this would fall into the psychological thriller category, that however, is on me, not on the book or the author, of course. Never assume!

ANYWAY! So the story is told through alternating points of view between Maggie and Emma. Maggie's POV is seemingly told from the the present, while Emma's is told from the recent past. I liked Emma more than Maggie, I'll say that straight off the bat, though, towards the end, maybe for the last thirty odd percent of the book, I realised that I didn't really like either of them. Their characters were both so incredibly judgmental, and apparently both neurotic as well.

Maggie is an incredibly unlikable character pretty much from the get go and it honestly doesn't change. She is a stark raving lunatic by all accounts, and she doesn't really have any redeeming qualities. Yes, I understand that her only daughter has gone missing and she can't contact her or find anyone who seems to know what has happened to her, but for crying out loud woman! CALM DOWN AND LET THE POLICE DO THEIR JOB!!!! She undermines the police at all times, she yells and screams, and does the most insane stuff like talking a teenage girl into swapping shoes with her so that she can sneak into a party to try and find her daughters roommates so she can question them on her daughters whereabouts. This is not something that a well adjusted adult does. And because she is a salon owner, she is constantly judging people by their hair, and on a few instances had compared something totally unrelated to hairdressing, it just came across as bizarre. Emma for the majority of the book, seemed like a nice enough person, until, as mentioned above, the last 30% odd of the book. She became just as judgmental as her mother and had such a strong dislike for people who may or may not have been sex workers that it kind of put me off. You cannot judge a person by the job that they have, whether that job is out of necessity, or preference. It really gets my goat when people do this, as I'm judged on the daily for my current job (FYI I work at a supermarket).

The story was fast paced enough, but not much really happens. The intrigue of what happened to Emma kept me going because I was interested to see which route the story would take, as there were a few possibilities of how things could have ended up. I'm annoyed that we didn't get closure. We never find out what became of this ground breaking story that Emma was working on, we never get any closure at all on the things she found out and whether any of the supposed things that were going on were actually true or just figments in her head. So this bugged me quite a bit. When the revelation came about and we found out what happened to Emma, I was kind of hoping it was going to go a certain way, but it didn't, I feel like the story would have been way better if it had have gone the way I thought it was going to (I'm being extra vague here because I don't want to spoil anything).

There's honestly not a whole lot more I can say about this story. It had a really great premise and a great idea behind it, but the execution just wasn't that great and I feel like this could have been an absolutely AMAZING story, but just fell short on a lot of things. The characters were unlikable and judgy and we didn't get any closure of anything else other than what happened to Emma. I felt like I was invested in so much but got nothing out of it.

Thank you for the opportunity to read and review this title.

I was intially drawn to this book by the amazing cover. Unfortunately in the end I was never hooked into the mystery and found myself quickly skimming small pieces of the chapters just to finish.

Fast paced and a quick read, I found myself swept along on this mystery. I read with a keen eye, hoping for any clues to solve the puzzle along with the characters. I enjoyed the read overall, but confess I was a bit let down by the ending. I suppose it was a bit of a slow burn, as my mind made connections and parallels after I finished reading and I slightly overcame the initial disappointment at the ending. In the end, I see lots of truth in the relationships and lifestyle presented. I am not a fan of stories being tied up in neat little bows, but I would have liked a few more loops in the bow of this ending.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a copy of this book, in exchange for an honest review.

Where She Went was a twisted mystery! I enjoyed how the story was told in a sort of round about way to keep the truth well hidden until the very end. Maggie finds out that her daughter Emma is missing from the college campus. When she arrives at the college she finds out the strange circumstances about her daughter’s life and what happened to her. She is determined to find out what happened to her and to get the authorities to listen to her. At the same time we are seeing what Maggie is investigating, we learn about what happened to Emma before Maggie found out she was missing. While investigating a controversial story for the newspaper, Emma finds out exactly how far reaching it is and how many people are involved. After losing her husband, Maggie has struggled with her daughter being gone at college and trusting that Emma is strong enough to take care of herself. So after she finds out that Emma is missing, she is determined to find out the truth before she falls apart.

Thank you for the opportunity to read this book. A full review will be posted on Amazon and Goodreads

I'm not going to spend the time writing a formal review on this book. Honestly, I didn't even want to finish the book.

This book is billed as a thriller about a mother in search of her missing daughter, and it's super deceiving. This book was so dramatic, and not thrilling at all. The mother was annoying, the daughter was ignorant, and the story wasn't good. 8 hours of reading this book, all to have the ending hanging on the mental illness of the daughter? It was a waste of time.

I was so incredibly disappointed. I wanted to love this book, but everything about it made it impossible for me to do so.

This book was just not very good. It most certainly should not have been classified as suspense or a thriller. It read more like women’s fiction. Even the mystery part wasn’t very interesting. So many other author’s have done the missing child story so much better.

I thought that this book was going to be more of a mystery, thriller even maybe suspense. I did not get any of that. I did get that an overprotective, concerned mother maybe we all are at times. She was a little more being widowed or I think that was the way the author wanted you to feel. So what I thought was going to be one story was actually something different. That is at least my take on it when it could have been a really good book.

Right off the bat, I'm just going to say it...this book was classified incorrectly. It is not a suspense, thriller, or mystery...and it MOST DEFINITELY isn't a psychological thriller. This is women's fiction. And not overly interesting women's fiction at that.

This was a first book by this author and I really like it!! The way everything unfolded in the end was great!! Highly recommend

Maggie feels something imminently dangerous coming to her daughter Emma, who just headed off on her first year of college. When police come to her door one evening, she knows her premonition has come to fruition. The widow of a police detective, Maggie conducts her own investigation into her daughter’s disappearance, with all new information obscuring who she believed her daughter to be. Simmons writes a good mystery, replete with complex family dynamics, secrets spilling out all over, and a storyline that builds until it bursts and everything makes sense. Fans of Liane Moriarty, Diane Chamberlain, and Kerry Anne King will appreciate Simmons’ writing style and storytelling brilliance. I was fortunate to receive a digital copy of the book by one of my favorite authors from the publisher Sourcebook Landmark through NetGalley.

Very suspenseful. Enjoyable read will keep you to want to keep reading just to see what happens. the characters were great.

A daughter goes away to college and her mother has a hard time letting go. This is a very thrilling story of how a mother deals with letting go and then when she almost relaxes the inevitable happens. Her daughter is missing. Things are not what they seem either. Maggie, the mother, was the type that tended to hover a bit but now she’s frantic. She lost her husband and does not want to loose her daughter too.

This book is a thriller that will keep you guessing. Some of it I did kind of figure out but for the most part it had me guessing. It’s a page turner and very enjoyable. The only thing I was a bit disappointed in was the ending. It seemed like something more should have been added.

Well developed characters and plot. A page turner for sure. I truly enjoyed this book.

Thank you to #NetGalley for this copy. This is my own true review.

I give it 3.5 stars. Would be 4 but I was a tad disappointed in the ending. I do recommend it though and love this author’s work.

I received a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. Thank you NetGalley.

This book Was interesting for sure. But I feel like there wa room for more. I can put my finger on what was missing, but just a little improvement was needed.
It’s definitely a thriller. Good development and storyline.

I enjoyed this book but there was room for improvement. Yes, it is a thriller, but it's more about a daughter coming of age, and a mother realizing she doesn't know her child as well as she thinks, but refusing to let go. Maggie was a fiercely protective mother, taken to extremes by the loss of her husband and the life she thought she had. Emma is struggling to find herself at college and stumbles on to something much bigger than she is prepared for. It all works well together, but the ending was a bit lackluster from what I expected, and left me with a few questions. Overall, it was a an enjoyable read.

Where She Went by Kelly Simmons was a good read! I enjoyed it a lot. The story follows Emma and her mother Maggie and you hear from both women’s perspectives throughout. Emma is a freshman college student who is chasing a story for the school newspaper. When Emma goes missing, Maggie does everything she can to help find her. Switching between present time with Maggie looking for Emma and what Emma was doing as she looked for information for the news piece, it does a good job of keeping you wondering, right until the end. If you like stories with suspense and drama, you’ll enjoy this one! I received a free copy of this story from NetGalley for my honest review. All opinions are my own.

I waited to read this book, because when I got the ARC, my daughter had just gone off to London for a semester abroad for her masters program. I was not sure how ready I was as a mother to read about a daughter who goes missing in college. I had nothing to fear, because the book was not as thriller-esque as I thought it might be. It was just a good, compulsive read, highlighting true mother/daughter relationship issues. This was my first by Kelly Simmons and I will likely go back to read others. Her writing was well done.

I received a free e-copy of Where She Went by Kelly Simmons from NetGalley for my honest review.

This is a story of a mother (Maggie) and a daughter (Emma). I loved that the story was told from dual points of view but felt like the story fell a little flat for me. Maggie's daughter, Emma, goes missing from college and there is nothing she won't do to find out what happened.

My struggle with this book was with the characters. I just c0uldn't connect with them at all and I got tired and even irritated with the mother.

*thank you to Netgalley, Kelly Simmons and SOURCEBOOKS for an arc of this book in exchange for an honest review*


3 stars.

This story was, overall, pretty good. But the downside for me was that at times it was a bit slow and hard to not be distracted while reading it. The ending was....meh and yes I know this is not a mystery/thriller story and it is woman's fiction so there was never ment to be a huge burst of tension but I guess I wish for a bit more. But that's just me. I did still enjoy it for the most part but I wouldn't re-read it.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ / 5

I finally read a book by Kelly Simmons!! Where She Went was a fairly short book at under 300 pages, and they really flew by for me as I waited to find out how all the things would come together.

Maggie's daughter Emma has just started college and is living in the dorms, and Maggie has been missing her a lot but trying not to be a helicopter mom. But when she gets a visit from a police officer saying Emma seems to have disappeared she intermediately demands they take her to the college. What she finds is a room empty of all her daughter’s things and the police saying she should go home and let them do their job. Clearly Maggie does not do that, and she starts to do a little digging on her own. I really loved both Maggie and Emma, and they had just the right amount of depth for me. I also really liked the fact that Maggie was no nonsense and such a strong woman.

I also very much enjoyed the setup of the novel. It switches back and forth between Maggie and Emma with Emma's viewpoint being everything leading up to her disappearance. Emma was sassy and smart, and clearly had great morals which was nice to see in a teenage character. I found Where She Went to have just enough suspense to keep me reading, and I had a hard time putting it down.

Song/s the book brought to mind: Whatever It Takes by Imagine Dragons

Final Thought: I'm not entirely sure how believable everything that happens in Where She Went actually is, but I don't care about that and I really enjoyed the plot. If you only like books where you could picture it happening in real life, you may not like this one, but if you are like me and use books as an escape you should really enjoy it! I thought the ending was a tad anticlimactic, but overall I really enjoyed it and I can't wait to read more by Simmons!

Thank you to the publisher for my advanced review copy via NetGalley. All opinions and thoughts are my own.