This book started with such an intriguing lead! Unfortunately, the overall story fell flat for me. The writing was convaluted and confusing at times, and it was tough to get into the plot. I was hoping for more!

I had such high hopes for this book. The premise is so intriguing about a woman whose daughter seems to have returned twenty years after disappearing when she was eight years old. There is evidence that seems to point at Elizabeth Lark really being Myra’s long lost daughter Charlotte finally returning home to the town of Rocky Shores on the Oregon coast. However, it soon seems that Elizabeth is not who she appears to be, but is thankful for a place to stay to keep her and her son safe from her abusive husband.

The story is told from multiple points of view and there are some interesting twists. However, the narrative seems a bit flat, and it doesn’t have the level of suspense I would expect from a story like this. It isn’t really a thriller and is more of a family drama with some unexpected plot turns. Some of those turns are more successful than others with things getting very far-fetched and involving a lot of coincidences. Some of the connections between unexpected characters can be explained by the fact the story takes place in a small town, but others are really unbelievable. I was rooting for things to work out for all of the main characters, but the story wasn’t as exciting as I had hoped.

I received this ebook from NetGalley through the courtesy of Crooked Lane Books. An advance copy was provided to me at no cost, but my review is voluntary and unbiased.

Myra's daughter disappeared 20 years ago and Myra has never given up hope of her return. Elizabeth and her son have escaped her abusive husband. When she is mistaken for Elizabeth she takes the opportunity. As their relationship becomes stronger and more comfortable Elizabeth has a hard time admitting the truth to Myra. The fall out from this deception is the rest of this story. Danger, deception, twists and turns. Thanks to Net Galley and the publisher for the opportunity to read an advance copy.

I love the premise of the book, but I had trouble really getting into it. To me, I felt like there was a secret everyone was in on but me. It's almost like the reader should know a lot more information but it just was left out. I also had trouble connecting to any if the characters.

On the other side, I did love how unique the writing style is as well as the transition between points of view.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for my review copy. All opinions are my own.

Myra Barkley’s daughter disappeared twenty years ago and she’s always been hopeful she’ll return. Now, she’s convinced that Elizabeth Lark, a stranger escaping her own terrible situation is Charlotte, and Elizabeth has no choice but to go along. But someone knows the truth…

I know this is an uncorrected ARC but surely that means there will be page numbers, titles and the author’s name appearing at random intervals, or maybe misplaced apostrophes (there were all these things) but not plot details being revealed ahead of time and confusing a character’s name. These things seriously affected the reading experience for me, and I was really confused. There’s a point early on where a painting is slashed but before that happens, one character is thinking about it, so for a good deal of the book I thought that character was actually the culprit!

Is it a good book anyway? It’s OK. There’s a twist that was only slightly different to what I was expecting but and it’s set up from the beginning, but I suppose will provide a surprise for some readers. As for the big reveal about what really happened to Charlotte, I wasn’t really interested – especially because we know all along that Elizabeth is not Charlotte. The mystery part was too far in the background for me and the focus was more on Elizabeth’s interactions with the Barkley family and how long she was going to pull off the charade.

The ending of the book also suffers from that thing when the reader starts asking constantly: What is going on?! The plot becomes too convoluted and implausible. Not to mention the five-year-old who creeped me out because he just didn’t talk or act like a five-year-old.

There are a lot of thriller readers not yet suffering from thriller fatigue who will probably enjoy this one, but it was quite average for me. Also, I feel it was undecided whether it wanted to be a true thriller or a family drama; commitment to one of those could have improved the book.

Thank you NetGalley and Crooked Lane Books.

Thank you NetGalley for my arc.
What if somebody you loved went missing and then they all of a sudden turned up? Plenty of twists and turns with this thriller!

The daughter of Myra Barkley disappeared twenty years ago, from the rocky beach across from the family inn on the coast of Oregon. Myra has been waiting since then for her daughter to return home. Then out of no were one rainy afternoon it happens her missing daughter returns and she has a child of her own with her.

What the Barkley family doesn't know is that the person isn't really their daughter. Her name is Elizabeth Lark and she ran away with her son after killing her abusive husband. She came to the Inn for a place to hide. When given the opportunity to impersonate Myra's daughter she takes the chance for a new life and safety for both her and her son.

The thing is that the Berkley girl didn't just disappear on her own. Elizabeth comes into an interest in a dangerous situation. The person that took care of the Berkley girl the first time is back to finish the job.

My review:
This book was just okay to me. It took a lot for me to get into it. I can't really say I got into it that much. The starting was good but it went downhill from there. It was pretty obvious what was to come in the second half of the book. I really like the writing tho and the 3 narrators' point of view. it was interesting to see all the sides and backstories. The cover is amazingly beautiful. So this book was good but not great.

Thank you to Crooked Lane Books and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

An interesting story told from multiple point of reviews. It had me hooked from the first chapter with the question about the necklace.
Then the book continued with its twists and turns, a lot I didn’t see coming!

Thank you for the ARC!

Elizabeth must escape her awful husband who keeps her and their son captive. Once she does she goes back to her hometown. Charlotte Barkley has been missing for 20 years from this town. Her mother, Myra, quickly accepts that Elizabeth is long lost Charlotte. Gwen & Jimi, Charlottes siblings, aren’t as sure. We quickly learn Elizabeth isn't Charlotte and is going along with things to hide from her captor. But more strange things continue to happen. What really happened to Charlotte? Who is Elizabeth? What does she know? What do the family members know?

This story had so much to it. So many twists and turns and things I never saw coming. It almost became hard to keep up. Everyone seemed to be a suspect. There was a disconnect with the way the characters all spoke to one another. I first thought it was due to Elizabeth being held captive and not being used to society. But it was unclear really how long she was away from the world.

The story got even crazier when the DNA test showed who Elizabeth really was. That part is where the book kind of lost me. I will say it completely held my attention and I had to know what happened. But there was so much going on yet not enough clarity thoroughout this book. And some of the twists were too far fetched to me.

Twenty years ago Myra and Herb’s eight year old daughter, Charlotte, went missing. Myra has never given up hope that Charlotte was alive. When a woman and her young son walked into their inn one night seeking shelter, Myra’s hopes are about to be answered, Charlotte is finally home. Her siblings are not convinced and when Myra waives a DNA test, they have no clear answer. Is Charlotte really home after all these years or is Elizabeth Lark running an elaborate scam? This book had a good premise, but it was quite convoluted by the end and never flowed the way it should have. Just an OK read.

I really wanted to like Call Me Elizabeth Lark, but I couldn't get into this novel at all. I did not relate to the characters and found the plot faulty.

So thrilling!! A definite up all night, edge of your seat, nail biter!! A definite must read for thriller fans!! I can't wait to see what this Author writes next!!

I found this so disappointing it didn't hold my attention at all. Predictable and boring characters. Sorry! Just wasn't for me

Thanks NetGalley for the free copy in exchange for an honest review.
I feel bad DNFing an review copy, but I got to that stage where I had to force myself to read this. Why didn't I enjoy it? Was it that the premise was strangely executed? The premise is that an eight year old, Charlotte goes missing and then "returns" twenty years later, calling herself Elizabeth. The mother decides Elizabeth is Charlotte and she she never denies it, and everybody presumes that Elizabeth is the returned Charlotte, and at 50% no one has actually checked? Is it the numerous coincidences and illogical things that have to happen to make the plot keep moving? Is it that cops don't just wander across state borders - with the victim and a five year old in the car - and do policing outside their jurisdiction. Or, for that matter, let the victim, unsupervised, ransack a crime scene.
No, it was none of these that stopped me finishing this book. After all, some of my issues could have been resolved, if I'd read past the 50 percent mark. No, I DNFd it because I just didn't care how, or whether, any of this was resolved.

Melissa Colasanti is my new go-to author for domestic suspense. Her lyrical style of writing and the riveting plot pulled me in from the first page. The premise of Charlotte/Elizabeth returning home after being missing for decades captivated me. I really loved how Colasanti wrote this story from the point of views of three different women who held three different stakes in this story.

The first point of view was from Myra, Charlotte's mother, who suffered the trauma of losing her daughter Charlotte (who she believes is Elizabeth Lark). I deeply empathized with Myra's dilemma and I could understand how, as a mother, she wanted Elizabeth to be Charlotte.

The second point of view was from Gwen, Charlotte's sister. Gwen bears the burden of losing her sister Charlotte while she was supposed to be babysitting them.

Elizabeth (the third point of view) wants to tell Myra that she isn't Charlotte, but doing so would put her and her son Theo, at risk, since they're on the run from her physically abusive partner.

I loved the twists and turns that the plot took, and the story of flawed, broken women on a search for their agency and power kept me turning the pages. The outcome was thoroughly satisfying, and I am looking forward to more thrillers from Melissa Colasanti.

Wow, what a fun, unputdownable read! So many twists and turns, you might end up dizzy! Chilling to the bone, thrilling as a roller coaster, and gasp worthy shocking! I highly, highly recommend this one! Well written with amazing character development, makes this a great thriller! I think my fellow thriller lovers will definitely stay up way past bedtime to finish this one! Can’t recommend enough! Will definitely buzz around platforms and use low Amazon reviewer number on release date!

CALL ME ELIZABETH LARK has a strong hook and it pulled me in quickly, but I had a tough time relating to the protagonist Elizabeth.

I felt for her plight and her peril, but she didn’t reach through the pages for me. I was a bit surprised at how little she comforted or even spoke of her child after they both survived such a hellish experience.

The real surprise was my closer connection with Gwen. I wanted to dislike and dismiss her, but she like many characters in the story are flawed, human and imperfect.

Secrets abounded. For such a small town, it seemed everyone had something they had skipped over and “forgot” to share with their family, the police, etc.

Gwen’s façade of control and her “Instagrammable life” made me pay attention. The feelings of guilt made sense. The pain or bad choices from our formative years don’t always heal. She embodied the person we all know who hides behind their true feelings.

She made me want to stick around and see what the heck happened all those years before. The drama is always the part where I pour another glass of wine and savor it. Yes!

I enjoyed the plot twists. There was one about 75% in I didn’t see coming at all. Even though some of the connections or circumstances felt a bit contrived to wrap up the end, all in all I enjoyed it, but hoped for deeper character development.

If you enjoy domestic thrillers or edgy women’s fiction, this book is for you.

Many thanks to Crooked Lane Books and Net Galley for the opportunity to review an ARC of this novel.

Well done and congratulations to the author for her debut!

4.5⭐
Woooooow!!! 😲 This book has been a surprise. The premise points out to a good story, but I never thought it would have all those twists! It keeps you wondering and so intrigued that it's hard to put it down.

The story is divided into Myra's and Elizabeth's lives. Myra and her husband lost a child, Charlotte, twenty years ago. Elizabeth and her little son have finally run away from her abusive husband. She is supposed to go away from the place, but she can't help herself returning to her hometown. Once she enters the inn owned by Myra, a rollercoaster of events will change their lives.

What happened to Charlotte? Who is Elizabeth's husband? And who else is trying to hurt Myra and Elizabeth? These are some of the many questions one starts asking oneself meanwhile reading this. The story will make you start guessing non-stop,

This book will be published on: 9 March 2021

Thanks to Crooked Lane Books and NetGalley for providing me with this e-arc in exchange for my honest review.

Call Me Elizabeth Lark starts off perfectly. The first chapter is very intriguing and vague. It's well written and just the perfect start for a thriller. The book keeps being intriguing the entire way through. As a reader you want to know how all these characters and events are connected and why certain characters do certain things. That should be a given for a thriller, but there are quite a few thrillers out there who can't keep on being intriguing the entire way through, but Call Me Elizabeth Lark is not one of those.

However, where the book does a great job at giving you the feeling there is so much more to the story than you expect, it doesn't do a very well job of giving you information. It's not that it doesn't give you the information you need, it just feels like the author is not certain which information she should give at what time and how she should present it to you. Some very important information is just thrown in the storyline without much elaboration, even though you as a reader need that. And then there are other reveals that are being elaborated too much and those reveals don't need that.

On top of that it felt like the author sometimes didn't know which information she had already given. Some scenes felt odly repetitive, a bit like a déjà vu. Certain scenes appeared to be in the book twice, but just a tat different so you weren't 100% certain whether or not you had already read that scene. However that could be because I read the ARC (advanced reader's copy), so I'm hoping those double scenes won't end up in the final copy of the book.

Another weakness of this book are the time jumps. In between chapters, or sometimes in the middle of chapters, there are time jumps. However, those were often times not very clear. So sometimes when you started reading another chapter or paragraph you as reader thought the characters were still at the same place and time, but then it was a week later all of a sudden and you only discovered that a few pages in to the chapter or a halfway through the paragraph. That brought a lot of confusion about the time and it also makes for a constant questioning feeling of whether or not there was a time jump between chapters and paragraphs.

The last thing that can bother quite a few readers is that characters sometimes really acted out of character. The best example, without spoilers, is Elizabeth's child Theo. The child is five years old but sometimes really sounds like an adult. More than once you have Theo comforting his mother as if she's his child, instead of the other way around. And that just felt really awkward. Five year olds can be smart, but they don't sound like adults when they're smart, they still sound like children.

Overall Call Me Elizabeth Lark is quite the enjoyable read and a true page turner because of how intriguing it is. You'll especially enjoy this book if you love bingewatching true crime about unsolved missing (children's) cases.

My rating is 3 to 3.5 , should be better than a 3 but not a 4 for me.

Call Me Elizabeth Lark does come with unlikeable characters (which I love) and twists and turns and red herrings.

Elizabeth escapes her abusive husband with her young son, ( had she killed him she wasn't sure) and arrives at an inn where Myra thinks she is her long lost daughter. Elizabeth knows she is not.\

So many secrets, so many lies.

Follow the author's trail and you will come to a surprise ending that I did not see coming

I enjoyed the story though at times it seemed a bit disjointed but that could have just been me.

It is certainly worth picking up and spending a few hours with. I will certainly read more by this author

Thanks to NetGalley and Crooked Lane Books for the opportunity to read and review Call Me Elizabeth Lark.