When your child disappears, the world collapses around you. Sometimes you can only guess who has taken them and you fear the worst. What will they go through? Will they get hurt? Or even worse? I really cannot imagine what I would do. I don’t know whether I would be able to cope and move on.

In this book the kidnapper is your child’s father. Maybe it’s different because you know your baby will be loved. He is with is dad after all. Unfortunately not every daddy is loving and caring. Not every daddy is even capable of loving and caring. If they would be, they would not have acted like this, would they?

You know your ex-husband does not love you and maybe never has, but you hope and pray he will treat his son better.

Every day you keep hoping for good news, a lead, but six long, painful years go by with not the slightest clue about where they could be. Until, finally one day, the call you have been waiting for comes through. Your boy is safe and sound. You cannot wait to take him in your arms and smother him with love. The love that has been accumulated for all those years and cannot wait to come to the surface.

Dreams do come true, but dreams can be shattered as quickly. Daniel is back, but where is Daniel? Megan does not recognise her son at all. What has happened to him?

Although they are reunited, they are not a family just yet. Time will tell and little by little Megan will uncover the truth.

You feel Daniel is hiding something, but I did not know what it was. There were different scenarios going through my mind, but not the correct one. 😉 I did see through something, but a lot did not click in to place at all.

How can someone treat the people they say they adore this way? Control is the key word here.

I loved this book. I could not put it away and read it in one sitting. The author created the perfect characters for this book. There is only one thing left to do and that’s rating the story. I don’t have to think long nor hard about that. 5 stars is the only correct one in my opinion.

Thank you

I received a complimentary copy of this book and all opinions expressed are my own. This book held my attention and I really was interested in the outcome.

The Boy in the Photo by Nicole Trope is a thriller I could not put down.
Megan's six year old son Daniel is abducted from school by his dad, Megan's ex husband. The police try to find him and Megan never gives up hope of him being found.
Six years later Megan is married again and has a baby daughter. She gets a phone call to say that her son Daniel has been found.
Daniel is very different from the son she lost and blames her for everything.

Omg......... this book was amazing I flew threw the pages with Olympic speed I was hooked from the very first page. I found it full of twists and turns threw out and it kept me on the edge of my seat all the way threw  I would defiantly recommend this book if you like a good book to keep you reading threw the night hopefully you enjoy it as much as I did

*received for free from netgalley for honest review* 3.5, not horrible story but also not super hard to figure out, but worth the read

An emotional page turner you are likely to finish in one sitting. Megan life is turned upside down when her ex husband snatches their six year old son from school one day. Years go by and she fears she will never see him again until one day six years later he turns up and his father is dead Megan must break through his tough exterior and begin to know her son again. Brilliant read

A very well written and sad story about Daniel, a six year old boy who has been kidnapped by Greg, his mentally unstable father and who returns at the age of twelve as a mentally unstable young man telling the authorities that his father has died in a fire. I felt so horrible for the mother, Megan who has spent the last six years searching and praying for her son to come home and when he finally does come home she has to be witness to the awful brainwashing her husband has done while he had him and then they discover that the fire her ex-husband perished in was arson. Was Daniel involved?

Six years ago, Megan's ex-husband took their young son out of school and disappeared. Daniel was 6 years old. She has since remarried and has an infant daughter.

Today she received a phone call ... her son had walked into a police station, gave his name and said his father was dead.

Megan has dreamed about this moment every day for 6 years. But the reunion isn't going as well as expected. Daniel seems cold and distant ... and angry. He is grieving the loss of his father and doesn't seem to connect with his family. Daniel is not the same little boy who has spent six years with a cruel father who has filled his head with lies.

But Daniel has a terrible secret that he can't share .....

It's an emotional journey, from the day he left with his father, through every anniversary date, up to and including the events of today. The story is told by Daniel and by Megan. There are some heart-breaking moments with a few surprises along the way. Watch out for the major twist at the conclusion.

Many thanks to the author / Bookouture / Netgalley for the digital copy of this psychological drama. Read and reviewed voluntarily, opinions expressed here are unbiased and entirely my own.

Megan's son, Daniel is kidnapped by his father during a bitter divorce.

Year's later, Daniel is returned, but he isn't the same and happy boy that he once was.

The story is told over two times, when he was on the run with his father and once he has been returned to Megan.

This was a highly emotive read, massive twist at the end that i really wasn't expecting at all.

Such a good read. Emotional, shocking, playing on every parent’s worst fears. I read this in one sitting.

When Megan goes to pick up Daniel from school she finds that his father has snatched him and her nightmare begins. Six long years later she has finally moved on, has married Michael and has a baby girl and then she gets the phone call, Daniel has walked into a police station having escaped a fire that his father has died in. Megan rushes to pick him up but as the weeks go on she finds out how much his father has poisoned him but how deep will the damage be?

A great book working really well with the odd chapters told by Daniel at each age describing his life with his father. A good pace and a quick and easy read that I read in an afternoon not wanting to put it down.

I received a free electronic copy of this novel from Netgalley, Nicole Trope, and BookOuture, publisher. I have read this novel of my own volition, and this review reflects my honest opinion of this work. Thank you all for sharing your hard work with me. I was not able to find this ARC novel on my Kindle but was able to attain a published copy from Bookouture for $.99. This was a book I really wanted to read but lost track of. Sorry. Now I will have to find some of her other works. I enjoy horror only if it doesn't seem plausible - I guess that's what makes it true horror for me. I loved Stephen King until he wrote Cujo. Who could really be scared of a car named Christine? Now I have to be careful just how badly I scare myself...

Nicole Trope brings us - especially mothers, I think - a look into the nightmare that always exists somewhere in the back of our minds. We are alongside Megan as she suffers the non-custodial parent kidnapping of her six-year-old son Daniel and the six long years that she searches the world for him and his father Greg. Five of those years she spends in limbo waiting for Daniel to come home. During year six she marries Michael, the policeman who has been at the head of her local search team since the beginning. They are now the proud parents of daughter Evie, now several months old, but the search for her son is still paramount in Meghan's mind and life. When Michael calls and tells Megan that they have found him, she at first doesn't understand that he is referring to Daniel. Daniel was found right around the corner in Newcastle, only about two hours away from their home in Australia. Daniel made his way to the police station, barefoot and smoke-dusted, having nothing but the clothes on his back, and mourning the burning of their small isolated home, and the gruesome death of his dad.

Little does Megan understand that the horror for her family is just beginning...

This book was a compelling read, start to finish!
With excellent plot, characters and writing, The Boy in the Photo manages to enthrall the reader.

It's been six years since Megan went to pick up her son after school and learned that his father had picked him up earlier in the day. Her ex husband and son are gone and the authorities haven't been able to find a trace of either of them. For all that time, she's been hoping that Daniel will come back to her. Then one day the phone rings.



Daniel has walked into a police station, alone. There was a fire in the isolated shack where he was living with his father and now he's come back to her. The boy is Daniel. They'll do a DNA test to confirm that he's her missing son, but Megan doesn't question it for a moment. Her loving, happy six-year-old son had grown into a sullen, angry twelve-year-old who won't reveal much about the past six years.



This one kept me holding my breath. One of my hunches did turn out to be right, but there were still twists and revelations that I didn't see coming until the end.

Wow! This one really surprised me. Honestly I wasn’t sure at first what I was going to read but definitely a page turner.

I rarely give a 5 star review but I loved this book.

Megan's son Daniel is taken from her by her ex-husband. The book alternates between present day and flash backs to the anniversary of the day that he was taken.

Megan and her new husband Michael, have a new baby, Evie. Megan married the officer who was in charge of investigating Daniel's disappearance. Michael calls Megan and says that Daniel has walked into a police station and says who he is. He is returned home and the story develops from there. Trials and tribulations of them getting to know each other again against the backdrop of how Megan's ex kept telling Daniel that his mum didn't love him and no longer wanted him. This abuse of a 6 year old is heartbreaking. At times his old personality appears only to him going quiet and sullen. So sad to read. There is a great twist at the end and works really well with the plot up to that point.

So good.

A huge Thank You to The author, The publisher and Netgalley for providing the e-arc in exchange for a unbiased review of these works.

a father kidnapps his son, the mother fight to find him, heartbreaking, challenging and full of twists, a great read

A heart wrenching moment a six year old boy is kidnapped by his dad an abusive ex husband .His mom spends years searching for her child and when he finally returns their are twists and turns that kept me racing through the pages.#netgalley#bookoutture

This was a gripping page turner. A mother's worse nightmare, her son kidnapped by her abusive husband. Years pass & what you hope for the most isn't what you expected. A must read!!

This was a scary thought, because what if it happens to you? Your child goes missing, the father is too blame, and you never know what happened to him. Then the child comes back. Nothing is as it seems.... Recommended!