I was really looking forward to this one, and although the characters were interesting and relatable; I found the plot a little too slow for my taste. I have read nothing else by the author, so I have nothing to compare it to, but I don’t think I’ll be remembering this book. That being said, I’d still pick up another book by this author as I loved the characters and the writing style and that was enough to keep me reading. Thank you to the publisher, author, and Netgalley for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This is the first novel by Barbara Copperthwaite that I’ve read and I can absolutely say that it won’t be my last. I loved this novel, it had my hooked from the very start and is one of those books that I was picking up every spare few minutes that I had. It follows Stella whose twin sister Leila disappeared after a family party and has never been found. Stella still looks for her sister and is always hiding from herself because she sees her sister every time she looks in the mirror. She agrees to take part in a Netflix documentary about Leila’s disappearance and I loved how transcripts of this programme are interspersed throughout the novel. I was intrigued from the start about this book and I loved that as we get to see viewers’ thoughts on the documentary people had theories that were the same as mine. I didn’t spot whodunnit or why and I loved that the ending when it came was so shocking to me. I’m not often surprised in a thriller so I love it when one gets me. I keep thinking about this novel and am quite envious of people who have yet to read it for the first time. I recommend this one!

This book tells a story from two timelines, present day and 25 years prior, as Stella tries to find out what happened to her twin sister when she disappeared all those years ago. I thought I had it figured out a few times, only to be proven wrong and truly surprised by the ending. This is a good one.

In June 1994 Leila & Stella are at the party of their father when Leila rushes out and is never seen again.
Stella has never given up finding out what happened to her twin sister.
On the anniversary of her disappearance Stella puts posters up over town hoping that someone will remember something.
Stella is approached by a production company to do a documentary about Leila’s disappearance..
There are quite a few people keeping secrets including Stella.
This is told in two story lines Now and back in 1994.
This story will have you gripped and there are plenty of twists to keep you guessing.
This is a great read
Thanks NetGalley

Loved this book. Really kept me guessing til the end. Another fantastic read from Barbara who wrote my all-time favourite book flowers for the dead.

This story was so different from others I've read with the script included from the documentary that's being shot about her sister's disappearance. This really helped to give an edge to solving the mystery and laying out the facts while the narrative helped with back story and fleshed out the main characters. The end was certainly not expected either. What a surprise! A great read.

Thanks to Netgalley for a copy of this book for an honest review.

A book full of twists and turns. I think I suspected everyone at one stage during this book.

Would recommend to anyone who likes thrillers that keep you guessing.

This book was a quick read about Stellas hunt for her missing twin sister. Leila has been missing for 25 years and Stella agrees to a documentary about her sister, hoping for new information.

This book was ok. It was super slow for me and took forever to get going. Once we got going it was good. The writing is nice and easy to read.

I received this book in exchange for my honest review.

An interesting read!

It started off very slowly but as the plot progressed, it got more intriguing and exciting. The twists were unexpected and the ending was shocking!

Overall, a good and enjoyable read.

Thank You NetGalley and Bookouture for this ARC!

Stella Hawkins has never given up hope that her missing twin sister will be found, either dead or alive. Every year she puts up posters and flyers to encourage the search but this year, the 25th anniversary, she takes part in a documentary to get national coverage.
The Girl in the Missing Poster is an intriguing psychological thriller. Stella's whole life has been dominated by her twin's existence and then disappearance. She is desperate for closure and the truth.
The book is mostly written from Stella's first person perspective. We can see her emotions and her determination to find the truth about her sister. I really liked the use of the documentary transcript to show evidence and attitiudes of witnesses and peripheral characters. The descriptions of the body language is an effective way to convey the characters' behaviour without drawn out descriptions.
The mystery led me to have lots of theories about how and why Leila disappeared but author Barbara Copperthwaite keeps the secrets until the end. I didn't particularly enjoy the email exchanges between Stella and someone claiming to have information. This narrative device stretched my credulity a little too far although it did allow Stella's emotions to be fully explored.
In a subplot, Stella is a dog behaviourist but also stands up for abused animals. This makes her enemies and this leads to a blurring of the plot threads as we are unsure which events are due to her actions in the present and which link to Leila's disappearance.
Overall, I found The Girl in the Missing Poster hugely enjoyable and it maintained my interest from the first page to the last.

The Girl in The Missing Poster by Barbara Copperthwaite is a very exciting and intense read in which we follow Leila Hawkins as she tries to find her twin sister, Stella. We meet Leila when the anniversary of her sister’s disappearance is approaching and she runs into a very cruel dog owner at the worst time, but also at the best time because she can get out a little steam and frustration.

I love Leila's characteristics as she is fierce, very family-oriented but also likes her dogs' company which I think resonates well with most of the readers.

Thank you for the copy to Netgalley, Bookouture and the author.

Wow, I’ve enjoyed this author in the past, and definitely have to admit she also did an amazing job on this one! So well written, fast paced, unique, and riveting! The story was definitely original and the characters were nailed, making it impossible to put down and me glued to the pages! So many thrilling thrills, chilling chills, twisty turns, and gasp worthy shocks! Highly, highly recommend this unputdownable book! An author to one click and watch!

Twenty-five years ago, Stella’s identical twin Leila disappeared, never to be seen again. But Stella sees Leila every time she looks in the mirror. Unable to move on, Stella would give anything to just get closure. To know what happened.

When she’s approached by a true crime documentary crew, Stella agrees in hopes that new information might possibly come to light. She really doesn’t expect the killer to reach out, expressing guilt and offering answers… in exchange for Stella sharing her innermost agonies with him.

This is a slow build psychological thriller. Stella’s trauma is obvious from early on, but is revealed over the course of the book to be more extensive, her internal guilt greater. As she’s forced to confront the past, however, we also start to see her move past it, moving on from the stasis she’s been in ever since Leila disappeared.

There’s a really huge twist at the final confrontation, and I admit I absolutely did not see the identity of the killer coming at all, even though they had been present from early in the story. It wasn’t a deus ex machina ending, but neither was it a mystery the reader could solve before the truth was revealed to Stella; the clues just weren’t there.

I admit I am of the opinion that the cleverest mysteries are those that have me kicking myself at the reveal for not having put the clues together earlier. This one didn’t do that; I kind of thought ‘huh, okay, I’ll buy that’ but there was no real foreshadowing, with clues I might have picked up on. Overall a good read and an intriguing story, with some fascinating insights into the emotions of twins who have lost their pair, which the author has obviously extensively researched, but didn’t really tick all the boxes for a great mystery for me. I’ll give it four stars.

Loss of life, for all its painful finality, is an ending. It marks a transition that, hopefully over time, can be processed, whereas a disappearance is a ceaseless torment of the unknown, the unresolved. A lack of closure goes against everything we stand for. Barbara Copperthwaite explores this brilliantly in The Girl in The Missing Poster.

Twenty five years later, Stella’s obsessive quest to find the truth behind her sister’s disappearance is taken to unprecedented mania. Taunted by emails from a man claiming to be her sister’s killer, the cat-and-mouse game between the two, with knowledge as bait and ultimate prize, ratchets up unbearable tensions. What lengths would you go to, to learn the truth?

The Girl in the Missing Poster will test your resolve to have all questions answered: it’s gravely shocking climax is one you might well beg, in vain, to vanish from your thoughts.

A brilliantly, captivating psychological thriller, that keeps you guessing throughout – I couldn’t turn the pages fast enough.

Stella's twin sister went missing twenty five years ago. She has never got over Leila's disappearance & every year she puts up 'Missing' posters in the hope that it might jog someone's memory & she finds out the truth. This year a documentary maker gets in touch with her, hoping that this might help find the truth (as well as be a successful TV show!) Reluctantly she agrees. When she starts getting strange emails she wonders if her search for answers might finally be over. The story is told through two timelines. The present & when Leila disappeared as well as extracts from the documentary.

I loved this book. I really likes Stella (her being such a dog person probably helped!) I enjoyed the pace & trying to work out what had happened. Thanks to Netgalley & the publisher for letting me read & review this book- my top read so far this year!

BOOKWORMS REVIEW :
25 Years ago leaving their Fathers 50th birthday party Layla,one half of twins,went missing never to be seen again. Her sister Stella is still looking for her and every year on the Anniversary she showers their village with posters hoping someone will come forward with any clue of what happened Layla.

Layla never even made it home that night having worn the wrong coat home and finding herself with no house key(she and Stella had bought the same coat accidentally).

A documentary crew have come to town to do a reconstructed programme for the 25th anniversary and it dredges up lots of suspicions of that night. Stella even finds herself receiving emails from the killer...is for real or is it one of the many fanatics looking to immerse themselves in the case?
A dramatic and twistful psychological thriller!

MY RATING: 📘📘📘📘📘

With Speial thanks to Barbra Copperthwaite,the team at Bookouture and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for my review.

Can you imagine what it must feel like to lose a twin – and even worse, an identical twin? There’s really no escape – every time you look in the mirror, the one you’ve lost is looking back at you. And when you have no idea what actually happened, or who was to blame – Stella’s obsession to uncover the truth becomes entirely understandable, and entirely compelling. She’s not a wholly sympathetic character – a bit tetchy and abrasive, antisocial with sharp edges, resistant to trusting others and forming new relationships. But I have to say I absolutely loved her – she’s also brave and fierce, with a strong sense of right and wrong, quick to action without considering the consequences, but entirely driven by the need to understand what happened on that stormy night twenty-five years ago with such devastating impact.

I very much liked the story’s construction – the filming of a Netflix documentary about her twin Leila’s disappearance, extracts from the transcript interspersed introducing the various characters involved in the night’s events, along with the opportunity to encounter some of those same individuals in the present day with that constant questioning of the truth of their accounts, and the way memories might have been distorted by time. The documentary also serves to widen the cast list, bringing new human contact and relationships into play, along with significant changes to Stella’s life.

She’s astute at reading people – while her speciality is understanding animal behaviour (and I particularly loved her relationship with her own dogs – so much more reliable than people), it gives her insights into the way humans behave too, whether they can be trusted, whether they’re telling the truth, and whether they’re a source of danger. The story builds quite slowly and steadily, establishing the key characters, sometimes diverting into side threads that illuminate them further – but focuses, turns, and the pace escalates when Stella is contacted by someone who claims to know everything about the night that changed everything and, ignoring the danger (as she often does), she pursues it to its uncertain conclusion.

The storytelling is quite excellent, and the author’s writing has never been better – an intriguing and well drawn cast of complex characters, a compelling narrative drive, a satisfying number of red herrings and diversions, unexpected twists and turns, even some nice touches of humour. It’s difficult to tear your attention away from Stella herself, but there were a number of other characters I really enjoyed – particularly Mary, her mother’s friend with a rich fund of showbiz stories and a few long-held secrets of her own, the source of much of the humour and moments of lightness, and a particular tour-de-force. Euan, the documentary maker who becomes increasingly central in her life, is a complex and intriguing character too – Stella is understandably reluctant to trust him, and there are times when you become equally unsettled.

The tension is palpable throughout the book, the pacing perfect, keeping you on edge as Stella explores the possible leads and likely perpetrators, her emotional response keeping you entirely involved and invested. The story’s climax is quite superb, tense and gripping, with more than a few moments that have your heart racing – and the resolution, when it finally comes, is satisfying and entirely believable. Highly recommended by me – I loved every moment.

Twin sisters, 25 years, and an unsolved mystery. Barbara Copperthwaite has crafted another dark and twisted thriller. 25 years ago Stella‘s twin sister Leila left their father‘s birthday party in the pouring rain never to be seen again. Stella was never the same... faithfully spending every anniversary of her sisters disappearance papering the town with missing person posters. Now they are filming a documentary about Leila‘s disappearance and Stella is hopeful that this will bring her much needed answers. What Stella was not expecting was the killer to contact her directly. Coercing personal information from Stella in order for her to find out the truth about what happened 25 years ago. As Stella gets closer and closer to the killer an evil game of cat and mouse evolves.

This was a truly addictive read. The build up in the first half was a bit of a slow burn, but once things got going.... BAM! The story is told from the perspective of Stella, with snippets of the documentary and a peppering of flashbacks. There were plenty of twists and misdirections to keep me on my toes. The characters were all well drawn and the dogs were a nice added bonus. Another wonderful thriller from this stellar author.

*** Big thank you to Bookouture for my gifted copy of this book. All opinions are my own. ***

I chose to read and review a free eARC of The Girl in the Missing Poster but that has in no way influenced my review. My grateful thanks to Bookouture for an early copy of the book.

I was giddy with excitement to have a brand new Barbara Copperthwaite novel in my mitts. I'm a huge fan of this author's books and I highly recommend them all (although - ashamed as I am to admit it - I haven't read Invisible yet...but it's on the terrifying TBR!). Copperthwaite is one of my 'go to' authors and this latest novel - The Girl in the Missing Poster - marks her triumphant return!

Twenty-five years ago, on the night of her father's 50th birthday party, Leila Hawkins grabbed what she thought was her new red coat and ran into the night. She was never seen again leaving her family, and in particular her nineteen-year-old twin Stella, lost and devastated. Every year, on the anniversary of Leila's disappearance, Stella covers the town of Mereford in MISSING posters, all in the hope that someone will have a shred of new information to help Stella understand what happened that fateful night. Her plight brings her to the attention of a true crime documentary filmmaker and despite her reluctance, Stella agrees to take part and help raise awareness of her search. But the documentary does more than raise awareness. When Stella receives an email from someone claiming to be Leila's killer, she knows she has to play the situation carefully and find out everything she can. But to get the information she craves, Stella has to share personal details with the killer. The more she learns, the more fearful she becomes. How far will Stella go to find the truth...?

Absolutely blimmin' marvellous! I thoroughly enjoyed The Girl in the Missing Poster with its true crime focus and its immersive plot. The reader is drawn into Stella's tale of - dare I say it - obsession and grief and is taken for one heck of a ride. Stella is all kinds of reckless and I adored her. I loved that the author hasn't sugar coated Stella's need for answers at all. This is what she needs and she'll do whatever it takes to get the answers - BOOM! Brilliantly done.

Throughout the book there are transcripts from the documentary which help shed some light on what happened that fateful night twenty-five years ago. There are also emails from the person claiming to be Leila's killer and it was these emails which had me on the edge of my seat. As the story progresses the level of wickedness coming from this person was palpable and I loved it.

My heart really went out to Stella who is unable to move on or live her own life because she feels half of her is missing. Her struggle to let someone new into her life added an interesting extra dimension to the book which - and I'm not a reader who enjoys any kind of romantic relationship in my novels - I enjoyed. Should Stella trust him though? I certainly didn't. I didn't trust any of the characters and that included Stella (psychological thriller 101, surely?! ).

Would I recommend this book? I would, yes. The Girl in the Missing Poster is a thrilling, gripping read which I didn't want to put down. I lived this tale alongside the characters and savoured every moment of the story. Stella is a very memorable character and I loved her determination (obsession) and her fearlessness (recklessness). A joy to read and I highly recommend it.

I chose to read and review a free eARC of The Girl in the Missing Poster. The above review is my own unbiased opinion.

In The Girl in the Missing Poster Leila Hawkins hasn't been seen since 1994 when she was at her father's birthday party. Her twin sister Stella still grieves for her and Leila's whereabouts remains a mystery. Stella has decorated their seaside hometown of Mereford with flowers every year for the last twenty-five years. Stella knows that continuing to hope for news of Leila is futile, but this year, a documentary could spark peoples' memories, especially of the guests who were at the party. What she never expects to receive is a response from the individual who abducted Leila...

Written with finesse and flair, Barbara Copperthwaite delighted me with this classy psychological thriller. The plot execution was tip-top, as was the characterisation. Though I didn't particularly like Stella she was a good fit for the story. There were no disappointments and I was completely gripped from the first chapter, loving the shock factor and twists.

Told in flashbacks exclusively from Stella's perspective, I was fascinated by the relationship between Stella and Leila. As occurrences manifested, the author certainly kept me on my toes in this immensely absorbing and chilling read, playing her cards really close to her chest, and partway through the story really picked up the pace. The Girl in the Missing Poster was everything I wanted in what was a stellar psychological thriller, and I enjoyed how things panned out in the unexpected finale. This was my second read by Barbara Copperthwaite and I enjoyed it immensely.

I received a complimentary copy of this novel at my request from Bookouture via NetGalley. This review is my own unbiased opinion.