Thank you to Netgalley and the Publisher for allowing me to read an ARC of The Lucky One.

This was a nice slow burn mystery.  The story had enough twist to keep me reading and wanting to find out how it ended.  I felt it just needed more.

A great mystery...Alice was kidnapped when she was younger and later when she's grown up she sees her kidnapper's face on a website devoted to missing people. Researching her kidnapper brings her close to his daughter Merrily and two other volunteers for the missing people website. What Alice thinks happened to younger self is not all correct though.

This book sounded amazing but sadly it wasn’t for me. The beginning was really slow and I was just hoping it was a slow build but sadly when the book finally took off for me it was like the last 10%.

What a book! The twists, turns, and outcome of everything had my jaw on the floor! I devoured this book in one sitting and sat thinking about it long after I finished. This is an important book, one that should be one everyone's radar! I can't wait to discover more from the author!

Alice and Merrily are discontent, with their jobs and their personal lives. 

Alice is going through the motions at her father’s construction company, and only finds purpose in the online group Doe Pages, whose volunteers search for clues in missing persons cases. She remembers little about her own brief kidnapping long ago and wants to help others find closure.

When police arrive at Merrily’s office, they question her about the disappearance of Rick, her mother’s old boyfriend and the closest thing she had to a father figure. She’s determined to find out what happened to him, even though her mother would rather never talk about him again.

A startling recollection of Alice’s intertwines their separate investigations. Despite their mutual distrust, and with the assistance of enthusiastic Doe Pages volunteers Juby and Lillian, they try to fill the many holes in their separate memories of childhood.

Tension intensifies throughout the book, with twists and turns along the way. Everyone seems to be hiding the truth from Alice and Merrily, and nothing is what it seems to be. As with the rest of her books, Rader Day keeps the reader guessing until the end. A thoroughly satisfying read! I am grateful to NetGalley and HarperCollins to an advanced copy of this book.

Lori Rader-Day has written a slow-to-build mystery that offers a few non-traditional characters and that compulsory suspicious undertone. Readers apt to the genre may find the conspicuous foreshadowing and slower plot pace to be anticlimactic. While all of the characters seemed to have something to offer, at some point the development stalled,  leaving readers to feel detached.  Perhaps this was done on purpose by the author given the dark undertone of the book itself. Whichever the case, the novel still felt a bit rudimentary, however, would be a good starter book for those new to the genre. 3 stars.


Thank you to #NetGalley for this complimentary ARC of #TheLuckyOne. It was read & reviewed voluntarily.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for allowing me to review this book.

I wanted to like this book. The premise was great. However, it just didn't all fit together. Alice was kidnapped at a young age, and as a result, her father does everything he can to protect her, even as an adult. She gets sucked into a website called The Doe Pages, where missing people are listed. One day as she scrolls, she sees a face that upends her life: her kidnapper's.

First off, I didn't like the characters. Alice annoyed me the whole book. She didn't like being coddled, she didn't like her job, the list goes on. Yet, even though she feels smothered, she doesn't DO anything to change it. She just comes across as bitter and self righteous the entire book. I felt like she looked down on Merrily, on Jimmy, on everyone. Merrily was okay, and I think probably the strongest character. Juby and Lil were just really odd, especially LIl. 

The plot plot also seemed to drag on and on at points. It was pretty obvious to me very early on how things were going to turn out, yet the book dragged on. By the end, I didn't even really care anymore who was telling the truth and who was lying. I was over it.

WOW! This book was an unexpected gem. I thought it sounded good from the synopsis, but wasn't expecting the wild ride it turned out to be. 

I will warn readers that it is kind of a slow burn and doesn't really pick up until 30-35%, But if you stick with it, you won't be disappointed!

Lori Rader-Day books can be hit or miss for me but this one is mainly a hit. It seemed very topical and current. I also liked the premise of a woman happening across the person who apparently kidnapped her years ago. I haven't seen that storyline before! A gripping, quick read.

Interesting premise for a novel. I didn’t really like the characters, nor did I find them very sympathetic. I’m not sure I would recommend this title, although I did find it well written.

I really enjoyed THE LUCKY ONE. It delves deeply in the secrets two families have kept for many years and the resulting damage done.  It is also a fascinating look at how the internet helps identify anonymous courses.    There are places where the book was confusing as it changed narrators, but that was a minor problem.  Interesting characters, interesting plot.

Family Secrets

This book went hot and cold on me all the way through the book. It had some good storyline and some confusing story line and those annoying posts from the other members of the club exploring dead and missing persons.

I rather liked the characters that Alice met with those investigating the dead and missing persons site.  I didn't know how to figure them at times they did not seem to like Alice that much.  They did help her find out information when researching the missing Richard and in finding Merrily.  The story made Alice look weak, and gave Merrily some immoral behavior .

It did take me a while to read the book as it started slow and about midway through the book I wanted to finish it to find out how it ended. It was certainly an unexpected and twisted ending. 

Thanks to Lori Rader-Day, Harper-Collins Publishers and NetGalley for allowing me to read and review an advance copy of the book

I wanted to love the book. I wanted to even like it. It just seemed forced and too odd in a sense. I could not connect with anyone. Just not a win for me. Thanks, NetGalley for the advance copy to review.

Interesting and intricate premise belied an easy read. After a slow start, my interest heightened in this cat and mouse game of find the kidnapper. At around the 30% mark, I shook off a slow start and devoured the book, needing to discover how Merrily, Alice, Searcher, and Rick were all inter-connected. Admittedly, at times, the different story arcs and introduction of secondary characters became somewhat convoluted, but overall, it was a solid read. Matt's characterization needed to be fleshed out more. Poor fella felt all the pain and yet he was nothing more than a dispensable plot point. Tsk. Tsk. Poor Jimmy. I wasn't a fan of Juby, however.  Enjoyable read that held my interest.

Thank you to NetGalley,  HarperCollins Publishers, and Lori Rader-Day for an ARC of 'The Lucky One' in exchange for an honest and voluntary review.

I normally rave over this author's work.  But, this one was just, in my opinion, not up to par.  I had a hard time keeping up, and came to realize it was because I not only disliked the characters, I didn't really care what happened.   There were, however, some moments so well written that it reminded me that yes, Ms. Rader-Day is an excellent writer.  I'll look forward to her next.

I received an advanced reader's copy in exchange for an honest review 

Not my favorite from this author-  definitely not her best.  Hope the next one is up to snuff

Incredibly good! An intensely slow burning story, Told from the point of view of two women with very different perspectives, but the story brings them together in a really interesting way.

*2.5 stars. An odd and twisted thriller. I enjoyed the persistent sense that nothing and no one was quite who they seemed to be, that something just wasn't right. All of the characters seemed just a little bit off, but in a good way. But the story felt overly long, which I think was due to the fact that the pacing tended to slow down when it should have sped up. There were many different threads to this story that needed to come together, and I'm not sure they all did. I still had unanswered questions at the end, but I didn't feel invested enough in the story to go back and see if there was something that I'd missed. Overall, it was entertaining while it lasted, but it didn't have enough substance to warrant a higher rating from me. 

Thank you to Netgalley for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

I enjoyed Lori Rader-Day's novel "The Day I Died," so I was excited to see this available on NetGalley.  I like the structure of the narrative--alternating points of view/narration between Alice and Merrily, but the storyline fell flat for me.  I never felt invested in any of the characters, and that's one of the qualities that make books like the most enjoyable to me.  The links between characters that were slowly unveiled were pretty convoluted and stretched the limits of believably, and I didn't find myself caring much about the characters at the conclusion of the book--another sign to me that the character development just wasn't there.

Mystery and crime fiction readers are “the lucky ones” when it comes to Lori Rader-Day’s latest book, “The Lucky One” - out 2/18/2019. Alice devotes her time free time to a website that tries to uncover information that could reconnect missing persons with their loved ones. This cause is important to her because she had been the brief victim of a kidnapping at a very young age only to be recovered by her police office father. Alice is brought to obsession about her case when she recognizes the man who kidnapped her on the website. In the meantime, another woman, Merrily, is disturbed by a vague text she received from a father figure from her childhood before he seemingly disappears. Their separate searches cause the two women to cross paths. They each hold cards that could solve their mysteries, but do they really trust each other and what they really know about the past?

The story unfolds by alternating between Alice and Merrily’s perspectives. The mystery comes along as the characters and the reader gain new information about the mystery, but it’s the reader who has the advantage because they know what each woman is keeping to themselves. Nonetheless, each new clue takes the story in a different direction. Readers will most likely find themselves toward the end of the book with a pocketful of theories before all the characters’ motivations are revealed.