I have loved Paula McLain's previous works which are all historical fiction so I was surprised to see that her latest book was a thriller. I wasn't disappointed, McLain is a great storyteller and a compelling writer. This book had my attention from the beginning to the end.

I've never read anything by Paula McLain, but the description of the plot enticed me. The first part was a little slow for my liking, but the book definitely picks up the pace, so I'm glad I stuck with it. I really liked the character of Anna, she was flawed, but real and relatable. I would recommend this book to anyone who likes true crime TV shows/books/podcasts, etc.

Watching a simple sunset, I saw what love might still to do to save me, if I had the courage to let it in.

A complex character in Anna Hart, a missing person with time running out, a past that still haunts everything she holds dear. Anna Hart is back in the hometown that drove her to be a missing persons detective. Her town now is in reliving the terror of another young girl missing. She partners with an old friend and together, they relive the past to change the present.

Anna Hart's character makes a different kind of thriller. She was given up by her parents and raised by her foster parents that put wisdom into her. They rebuilt a broken emotional young girl to a confident purposeful woman. Her character is also unfolding. You discover her brokenness and vulnerability in many different ways as she is looking for Cameron the young girl that is missing and is considered in terrible danger.

More character driven than plot, I enjoyed this book. It was slow but meaningful. Redemption plays a big part as it comes in different ways. It makes you look at redemption differently. Good read.

A Special thank you to Random House Publishing and Netgalley for the ARC and the opportunity to post an honest review.

Thank you to NetGalley for a free ARC in exchange for an honest review.  

Great police procedural with a flawed female detective and strong supporting cast.  Reminiscent of Ann Rule and Tana French.  Highly recommended.  

"The world needs an army of Wandas—strong, sarcastic, unafraid women who say what they think and act straightforwardly, without apology or permission. Women who roar instead of flinch."

I'd only read Circling the Sun by Paula McLain but have The Paris Wife and Love and Ruin on my TBR.  They will be moving higher on the list after this book.

This book was well written and had me in its thrall from the first chapters. It was disturbing and very frankly written. Anna, a detective, works for an organization that tries to find missing kids. This book centers around kidnappings that happened in Mendocino County in 1993. It also deals with molestation by family members and sexual exploitation of minors. As she works through the investigation, Anna’s past and present traumas are revealed. This book is well-written and I give it 5 stars. I will warn any reader of the potential triggers: death of a child, kidnapping, sexual exploitation, kidnapping, torture. I was given this book free by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Compulsively readable with a flawed but admirable protagonist, this one kept me up way past my bedtime! I was pleasantly surprised to realize this novel was set in one of my favorite places: Mendocino, California. The storyline was just twisty enough to keep me guessing without veering into the absurd. While often disturbing, the author’s decision to weave true events into her narrative made it even more believable. This book definitely doesn’t flinch when it focuses in on the dark side of humanity, but it also manages to retain a sense of hope. 

Anna is in the midst of dealing with her own recent tragedy when she finds herself drawn back to the town where she came of age. Her background as a detective who works some of the toughest cases involving children leads her to become wrapped up in a local investigation that mirrors one from her youth. 
While I guessed the identity of the villain it was still an enjoyable process watching the story unfold. I would absolutely read another book based on these characters if the author chose to follow this up with a sequel. 

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC and thanks to Paula McLain for writing a compelling story that kept me turning (digital) pages as fast as I could read them!

Paula McLain switches gears from her usual historical fiction to a mystery/thriller.  Anna finds herself back in a town she once called home.  She just needs a break from life.  However, she finds herself sucked into several missing girl cases in the area.  They are eerily familiar with one that happened many years ago when one of her friends went missing and was later found dead.  Are all the cases connected?  She needs to find out before any more girls go missing.

Having read several of Paula McLain's books, I was so excited to receive When the Stars Go Dark from #NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.  I didn't even bother to see what the book was about, I just knew I liked her writing style.  Then I begin to read about missing girls and detectives with more baggage than they know what to do with.  #WhentheStarsGoDark is different than any book of McLain's I have read before, but I loved it.  It handles delicate subjects, it deals with trauma of differing types, it's poignant, and inspirational.  I'm so grateful to have been able to spend time in this book.

When the Stars Go Dark is a mystery/thriller set in Northern California in the early ‘90s. Anna is a detective who has gone through some serious trauma (both far in her past and more recently). She finds herself heading back to her hometown of Mendocino. There she becomes involved in a missing persons investigation that leads her to confront both her past and her future. 

I enjoyed this book, as I enjoy most thrillers. It was suspenseful and interesting. I especially enjoyed the character development seen in Anna. The plotlines are neatly interwoven and McLain provides a real sense of place through her vivid descriptions.

I couldn’t give the book five stars because I solved the mystery before it came out in the book, so I wasn’t surprised. However, the mystery of Anna’s recent past was more surprising.

Overall, I enjoyed this book because of the characters and the relationships. Sensitive readers should be aware that this book involves serious issues such as sexual assault, child abuse, and murder.

4.5 stars

Wow. This book was terrifying and enthralling at the same time. Although I do not often seek out thrillers, I could not put this one down. The story unfolded at the perfect pace, slowly giving out pieces of information while also keeping me at the edge of my seat.

"When the Stars Go Dark" is so different from Paula McLain's other books but just as captivating. The sleepless nights that came as a result of this book (both from being unable to put the book down and the nightmares that story left) are definitely worth it.

This was a DNF for me. I got half way through and the story just didn’t grab me so I had to put it down. I will definitely try it again in the future, but for now I have to give it a 2 star....

Paula McClain has taken her extreme talent for research and historical fiction and turned to a much darker historical reality: the abduction and murder of young women in an area of northern California.  This time her strong female protagonist is not an historical figure, but a burnt out detective who has dedicated her life to finding missing children.  Traumatized by her own sketchy childhood, the children she hasn't been able to save and a horrific accident that has affected her family life, Anna Hart arrives in Mendocino looking to put some distance from it all.  She has come back to the one place she knew happiness as a young girl hoping to heal but instead arrives in the middle of a summer where young girls are once again going missing.  This novel is just a perfect blend of historical fiction and crime thrillers, with such beautiful writing I was glued to my seat for an entire day while I read it.

When the Stars Go Dark is my first book by this author.  I have on my TBR list The Paris Wife and after seeing some of the reviews I am excited to read it.  
I enjoyed the writing style of Paula McClain, it was a thought provoking book.  I normally don't take this long to read a book and unfortunately, I downloaded it before the holidays so there were many times it took a backseat to other things.  I like thriller and mystery as well as historical fiction so this book met 2 of my likes.  I felt that the subject matter is a an overplayed song nowadays especially with tv series  and other authors touching on this subject.  I feel Paula McClain did a good job on writing on this subject and brought a new twist to it by adding the main character as a victim as well.

Thank you to NetGalley for allowing me an early release copy.

It's very rare that I give a book above a 3 star rating, but I enjoyed this book much more that I thought I would. It was about so much more than the story of the missing girls. The end teases that this might become part of a series. I'm not sure how I feel about that, as it seems everything is a trilogy or series these days, but I'd definitely pick it up and give it a go.

When I requested this book I already knew that this author was phenomenal, and she definitely did not let me down. 
The book follows the investigation of the disappearance of multiple teenage girls during the early 1990's, including Polly Klaas. The case of Polly Klaas was before DNA was used, and before the time of cellphones and the internet.  The Klaas case is what brought about the beginning of the Amber Alert system for missing children. In this story the Klaas case is going on at the same time as our story, although it turns out to be unrelated to our "girls."
The book is told through the perspective of Anna, who is a well-known detective/investigator, who has returned to the area that she grew up to escape her life with her husband and children, where she recently suffered a horrendous tragedy.  She unknowingly walks into town at the same time that they are investigating the disappearance of a teenage girl. It turns out Anna's good friend Will has decided to follow in his father's footsteps, and is leading the investigation.  Together they continue to move forward with the investigation and end up solving it, but they also come to the realization that they have had the perpetrator right under their nose the whole time.
After reading the author's note at the end of the book I was really able to understand where she was coming from  with this book, and where she got a lot of her insight from. She did a fantastic job with this book. Definitely worth the read!

Beautifully written mystery featuring an empowered but flawed female detective who advocates for the missing and murdered, especially women. The story flowed well and logically—one of those mysteries that can still surprise you in many ways, but because it's well-plotted. I enjoyed the merging of fact and fiction when it came to the crimes presented; it added a nice historical element to the story.

I became a fan of Paula McLain after reading The Paris Wife and Circling the Sun, so I was excited to read her latest book, When the Stars Go Dark.  For overall,  I would recommend this book for anyone looking for a good historical fiction mystery with psychological and metaphysical aspects.  It took me a while to get into this book; although the writing is exceptional in many places, there are a lot of characters to keep track of and the story did not seem novel enough to grab my attention at first.  However, I did get into it eventually, and the end of the mystery was as surprising and compelling as I believe it was meant to be.  I was between 3 and 4 stars, but the author’s note at the end of the book, boosted it up to a solid 4; I was not aware prior to reading it that the setting and parts of the story were historically accurate, and the explanation of what drove the author to write the book was both meaningfully poignant and well-written. 

Thank you very much to NetGalley and Ballantine Books/Random House Publishing Company for the advanced reader’s copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.
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I believe this is McLain’s first foray into the mystery genre, and I really hope she writes more in this vein! This is based on an actual kidnapping case, although it’s not at the center of this story. It’s a well crafted small town mystery with a large cast of characters. It reminded me a lot of one of my favorites from last year, Long Bright River.

4.5/5 
The cover of this book is absolutely stunning, and yes, I requested this book purely on the cover. Not quite sure the cover matches the tone of the story, but When The Stars Go Dark was a very good read for me.

Detective Anna Hart specializes in finding missing children ( totally pictured Olivia Benson from Law and Order SVU the whole time). Anyways, Anna is going through her own terrible tragedy, and ends up back in the small town of Mendocino where she spent years as a foster child. A young girl, Cameron, has just been reported missing and Anna decides to help her old friend and currently police detective, Will, solve the case. 

The storyline is not simple, and soon there are two other girls in the area that have been reported missing. Can Anna and Will find any connections between the missing girls? Will they be able to find them in time? Anna is really a great detective, and her own past comes up many times throughout the book. Her own pain and heartache allows her to sympathize with the missing girls and the kidnapper to really get into their psyche and understand how they may have all gotten into this situation.

This book was very emotional. It definitely has some major rape and abuse triggers. I think it is an important read to understanding how the past can really affect a persons personality and what and how they are able to deal with events around them. 

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine Books for granting me a free copy of the audiobook in exchange for my honest review!

Paula McLain's When the Stars Go Dark is exquisitely written.  Anna, a missing person detective, returns home to Mendocino struggling to figure out if she can heal after a personal tragedy. She meets an old childhood friend, Will who is now a sheriff working on a missing person case. Anna soon becomes involved in helping WIll. This is what she is good at. This is work that she is addicted to.  As the mystery unfolds, we get front seats to Anna's way of thinking. We understand why she is drawn to her work, why she is in constant conflict between her mind and her heart.  The imagery interlaced throughout deepens the emotional intensity of this story.