This is the first book in a promising new series. Even though it started out slow this book kept me on the edge of my seat. The characters are all a bit complex, Ellie in particular. I don't want to give anything away about Ellie so I'll just say she's tough and definitely has a penchant for rushing head first into a situation not caring about the risks. There are plenty of twists and turns in the book along with an ending I didn't see coming.The only negatives for me were the amount of head injuries Ellie had and kept going and the use of the word femur instead of ulna.

I really enjoyed this book! From the very beginning i was hooked. I loved the characters. It was action-packed, fast paced, suspenseful, chilling, thrilling and so forth. Thank you for my copy netgalley!

I really can’t wait to read more about Ellie! Great start to a new series. So many great twists and turns.

This is the first book in the series featuring Detective Ellie Reeves and I can’t wait for book number two. Ellie is called to investigate the discovery of a 7 year old little girl who has vanished from the small town in Appalachia. The case for Ellie is difficult and complex as her father is the local sheriff and seems to put obstacles in her way. Ellie still suffers from flashbacks from the time when she was very young and got lost on the Appalachian Trail. So this case is even more distressing for her as it brings back all her memories. FBI Agent Derrick Fox joins the hunt with Ellie as his sister disappeared on the trail 25 years earlier but his research has revealed that there have been many more young girls who have disappeared over the years but they seem to have slipped through the net. As the investigation continues Fox begins to suspect Ellie’s father and a close friend as suspect. This was a tense and gripping book with an explosive ending. A highly recommended read.
Thanks to Netgalley and Bookouture for giving me the opportunity to read and review this book.

Definitely a great book to start off a new series! I was hooked the entire time, and I loved the way the author brought the characters and their stakes to life. I really felt the rush and the urgency behind everyone's motives. If you're looking for a well-paced thriller, this is definitely a book to pick up!

I volunteered to read this book, through netgalley in exchange, for an honest review. This book is well written and the characters are described well. This is the first book in this series. The pacing of this story is good. I enjoyed how this author's writing style makes me feel like I am the characters in the book. The main character Ellie is great along with Derrick's character. Wow what a twist in the end. This is my favorite thriller of the year. This ebook is in stores now for $1.99 (GBP).

I am always on the lookout for new crime thrillers. This one had so much promise that I couldn’t resist getting a copy. One thing that caught my attention is the mountain setting. It sounded like the perfect setting for a missing persons mystery.

Detective Ellie Reeves is the lead officer on this case. I am still not sure how I feel about her. I liked her background story and I love that she is outdoorsy. I admired her resolve to solve the case at all costs. However, a few things about her style of working didn’t really win me over. For instance, it felt like she was working alone. Maybe it’s a small town and the police department is small but we had two police stations working the case and it still felt like the Ellie show. When talking to the media, she even uses ‘I’ to indicate that she will look into the evidence, tie loose ends etc. This was a bit off to me. An FBI agent showed up but he was more of her sidekick. Another little niggle in her portrayal is her ‘romantic’ link to various characters. Our Detective also passed/blacked quite a lot. I lost count after the fifth time. This could be because she was working alone a lot and putting herself at risk but man, she sure did get knocked out quite a few times.

The Appalachian Mountains are treacherous. I loved the sound of the setting and the mysteries around it. The expansiveness really did provide the perfect hideout for the baddie and I was curious to see how the police would solve the case. I liked the idea of the shadow people living in the mountains. With the looming snow storm, the dangers posed by the setting heightened the tension in the story. I still struggled a bit with some aspects of the description of the setting though. We had a snowstorm and a terrain that was described as being so tough but this wasn’t always reflected in the actions of the characters. It was easy to forget where the mystery was set at times.

The Silent Dolls is the first book in what promises to be a good crime thriller series. The fast-pace and mystery had my attention to the last page. I look forward to the next installment especially given how this book ended. Hopefully, Ellie’s character development will resolve some of the issues that I initially had with her portrayal.

I was halfway with this book when I went to check when the next one is coming out. I can not believe just how good this book was. It starts innocently with the disappearance of a little girl and Ellie's investigation thereof, but the personal toll it takes on Ellie is unbelievable. Then Ellie's life and family secrets take the reader on a journey, and I had so many "really" moments, I can't even tell you. This was really a brilliant read, and I can't wait for number 2 in the series.
Highly, highly recommended.
TB

Great book!! Grabbed me from the first sentence and didn't let go. I felt so tense all the way through, and could feel the cold out there. A fantastic thriller and a great start to the series.

A great start to a series! I loved this book with all the twists and turns towards the end , it left you wanting to find out more and left you dying to read the next in the series! A great read and looking forward to the next one in the series

The Silent Dolls follows Detective Ellie Reeves as she rushes to the scene where 7-year-old Penny has gone missing. A desperate search begins, but with a raging snowstorm on the way, can they find her in time? 

The book was written well, but there was more telling me what happened rather than showing me, and it jolted me out of the story some. 

I loved the characters, and they felt real to me. The protagonist Ellie had a complex life outside of her work and it only made her feel even more relatable and easy to connect to. 

The plot was intense and interesting. I loved the significance to dolls; I thought it added a unique and intriguing twist. It was fast-paced and I couldn’t take my eyes off the words because I was desperate to find out what happened next. The young girl missing in the mountains, along with the mounting snow storm about to hit at any moment, made for some tense reading. 

The setting added to the story - and I loved being surrounded by mountains. It felt like I was there and like I was being dragged into the story even more. 

I loved how the FBI agent realised Ellie’s case could relate to the mysterious disappearance of his sister 25 years ago on the same trail. It felt like the two cases blended into one another - a cold case and the recent one, giving two satisfying conclusions! 

I didn’t guess the ending. Although, I had a small theory about what happened and who the killer was, I was so wrong. The real ending completely came out of the blue, but also it felt like all the pieces of the puzzles were slotting into place, and that plot twist at the end was so unexpected. 

I’m so glad this will have at least one more book. I can’t wait to dive back into the world of Detective Ellie Reeves and find out more about her and her past and hopefully learn more about Special Agent Derrick Fox!

FBI agent Derrick Fox knows that a serial killer has been active along the Appalachian Trail for decades but until he meets detective Ellie Reeves no one takes him seriously. The two investigators team up to try to apprehend this killer of little girls before he can add 7 year old Penny Matthews to his tally.
This is an exciting race against both the killer and the elements which I was unable to put down. The massive plot twist left me breathless and the potential for a romance as well as a working partnership between the two main characters means I will be looking out for the next book in this series.

I loved this book! I can’t wait to read others my this author! It had me on the edge of my seat and I could not put it down. I highly recommend this book! A must read.

It’s been a long time since I read this author and holy moly was I hooked. I’m so excited for the next book in this series. This genre has me hooked.

This is the first book in a new detective/thriller series by Rita Herron and located along the Appalachian Trail, which I found very interesting. Basically little girls are going missing while they are hiking or camping with their parents, and soon it is apparent that there is a serial killer out there taking little girls. Our detective Ellie is running against time to find his latest victim, in the hope she is still alive, before the storm of the century hits. So throughout the story the lead character is battling against, sharp gusts of wind, snow, blizzards which made for such a gripping atmosphere.
Now this was heading for a 4 stars review for me before I reached 68% of the story. Then suddenly I had a WTF moment when the author didn’t know where the femur bone was located (in the book she places it in the child’s arm) and just like that the magic died and I was plagued with this error for the rest of the book. I mean seriously how hard is it to look this up on google? And what about the editor? How didn’t anyone notice this mistake before it reached publishing?
If you can overlook that, the story is fast paced and full of shocking revelations. I wouldn’t mind reading the second book in the series, because the ending was rather abrupt and left some issues pending.
Thank you to #Netgalley and #bookouture for the this ARC!

I wasn’t expecting this when I requested this ARC from NetGalley. I requested it because I’m getting very interested in thrillers when nature/weather plays a role in the solving or the hindering of the mystery. And, in that regard, this book really lived up to my expectations.

This book is from the points of view of Ellie, a police officer who works up in the mountains and is hoping to make Sheriff one day, and Derrick Fox, whose sister was kidnapped up in the same mountains where Ellie works. A little girl has just gone missing and as they continue to try and find her, a storm starts up on the mountain. We get Ellie’s POV, Derrick’s POV, the kidnapper’s POV and several other POVs of background or one-off characters.

I really enjoyed this book. I found the story really intriguing, I loved the pacing and I loved how the clues started coming together. Ellie was an interesting character because her personal life is falling apart for most of this book, thanks to her parents, but she wants to focus on the case and Penny Matthews above all else. You could really tell she cared about Penny above all and when the parents started to get involved, you wanted to flinch with her. And then it turned out her personal life and the case were more than a little entwined, which was hinted at to the reader from the beginning but took Ellie a little while longer.

I loved how the story was wrapped up. Not just the case and what happened to Penny Matthews but also who certain characters were, how they all fit together. Everyone was interconnected and I really enjoyed the slow unfolding of the mystery. It was so fun to read and I think that, more than the characters, was really made this book. It was very well-paced and I just enjoyed it so much.

There were a couple of things which niggled at me however. Ellie’s insistence that she didn’t need to take the medication because it made her thoughts slow made me grimace – I don’t like this whole anti-meds thing because I see it so much and it is always portrayed as the right thing to do. Ellie was so anxious about everything that she was barely sleeping, I was waiting for her to make a big mistake and I really wanted her to take the medication that was supposed to help her, especially when she wasn’t going to do anything apart from sleep at home.

Another thing which got me were the medical inaccuracies. I could handle someone having a head injury knocking them out for a good few minutes and they’re fine, it’s a common trope (any head injury that results in a loss of consciousness should be checked out by a doctor and the person should be monitored for 24 hours at least). But the femur is the thigh bone. It is not the arm bone. It’s not even the fact that this could have been checked by two seconds of googling, it was how if you are going to name the actual bone (rather than arm/leg), then please make sure the bone is right. However, this could just be an ARC copy problem. I’m hoping it was picked up before publishing.

4 stars! I’m definitely interested in checking out the series.

Past meets present; where a trail of missing and presumed murdered children comes home. Sherriff vs Detective, father vs daughter or is someone trying to make a point? The memories of the past are not always what they seem. Maybe those who love us most know things that will cause the most pain. But whoever is taking the girls, is closer to the prize than anyone realizes.

Wow. An amazing fast paced thriller that gripped me instantly. Detective Ellie Reeves is on the hunt for a killer and a missing child but uncovers so much more. Can't wait for the next Ellie Reeves installment.

This book was well written with some great characters. It had a great plot and was full of suspense. A little girl goes missing, is it connected to a dozen other missing girls along the Appalachian Trail? And what is Ellie’s connection to this predator? She has vague memories of a little girl named Mae who seems to be connected to this whole thing.
Fast paced page turned with some wicked twists and turns all the way till the very last page

Loved this book.

Ellie Reeves is just cool and complex and I can't wait to read the remainder in the series.

Thank you to Netgally, publisher and author for a fab read!