This was an atmospheric suspense with lots of intrigue and a mystical, gothic feel. I found the plot to be fresh and original. Though it had magical elements, it was believable. The characters were well-drawn and sympathetic. Great for fans of Jennifer McMahon and Chris Bohjalian.

Summary: The book is an amazing blend of a fantasy novel, psychopath murder mystery, and a story of the love of a mother and her child. Building on a myth about “selkies,” the author effectively links music, especially from a violin, to all these stories and to the sea. One feels oneself floating from one tale to another.

The story starts dramatically--a little girl abandoned on the street and then claimed by Ruby, a single woman with a penchant for playing the violin. Ruby and Constance, the biological mother, have planned this escape together, but why? The story alternates between NOW and THEN tales so learn bits and pieces about a man, Gregor, aka, the “yoga man.” that we learn that Constance and her daughter, Leonie, are being held by Gregor against their will. Ruby is drawn into the NOW story by her love of music and her violin playing as comforting to Constance and the little girl. When fear becomes overwhelming, they flee to the sea.

A story of good and evil, love and music, mothers and children. A rewarding, enchanting, and mysterious read.

In The Hidden by Melanie Golding you get to read from the point of view of three very different women. The story begins a few days before Christmas,at the beach where Constance has abandoned her daughter Leonie. Constance was supposed to wait for Ruby before going into the sea, but she had to choose her life over her daughter. Next we meet DS Joanna Harper when she arrives at the crime scene where a severely beaten man is left to die in a bathtub. The connecting link between Constance, the case and Joanna is Ruby, Joanna's estranged daughter and the woman left in charge of Leonie.
Steeped in local legend and exploring the depths of what it means to be a mother, The Hidden asks how far we'll go to save the ones we love.

I thought this book was so good and an amazing thriller read for autumn. The story was so gripping and kept you on the edge of your seat the entire time. The transition between the POVs is flawless and how the different storylines are woven together is magnificent. Even though the three women in the book commit a lot of transgressions I always felt it was the right thing. This is a book I highly recommend.

This book grabbed me from the first page. I didn't want to put the book down once I started... Definitely a must read.

[ BOOK IG: @clumsyciel ]

overall rating: 4.5/5⭐️
time taken to read: ~4 days
number of notes: 53

"Ionn da, ionn do ion da, od-ar, da."
[ 🎵 ー The Seal Woman's Joy ]

one solemn december night, a little girl is abandoned at a sleepy seaside town. her frantic mother appears a little while later, and the police releases the child to her mother, thinking it is a nothing more than a simple accident.
within the same timeframe, a man clinging to life is found in his apartment. his apartment raises questions within the investigative forces when they find his apartment containing a padlock and children's toys.

DS officer Joanna Harper begins to suspect that the person who retrieved the abandoned child was not her mother. upon further inspection, she realises the child was retrieved by her estranged daughter - Ruby Harper. desperate to save her daughter, it is up to Joanna to find Ruby and the child, as well as find out the the connection between them and the beaten man first, before the police does.

i LOVED this book! i adore how Melanie Golding blends mystery and thriller with Selkie folklore. if you know me, you know that i love mythology and folklore, especially norse and greek mythology <3
Selkie folklore (Celtic mythology) is in a sense similar to mermaids. to put it simply, they are seals in the water and humans on land.
+ i also loved the small excerpts/poems that were in the beginning of some chapters relating to Selkie folklore.

this book is full of twists and turns, making the reader question what they have learnt about the characters. who can we really trust?
The Hidden also shows us the strength of love between mothers and their children, the lengths they will go to ensure the safety of their children.
all in all, it is a wonderful book made with love.

thank you so much to Melanie Golding, NetGalley and Crooked Lane Books for the e-ARC!
this is certainly one of my favourite reads this year. now if you'll excuse me, i'll need maybe a few months to forget the entire plot so i can re-read this again 🤎

The Hidden comes out on 9th November 2021! 🦭🤍

Golding returns to familiar themes of love, motherhood and folklore with the Hidden - the much anticipated follow up to her excellent debut Little Darlings.
The character-driver thriller again reaches into the depths of folklore - this time centering a story around seal people (Selkies) and the bonds of motherhood across a number of generations.
Unfortunately, this one doesn't hit the same highs as her debut, suffering from pacing issues early and a myriad of interconnecting story lines that never seem to get in the road of each other rather than letting the story progress.

Melanie Golding’s The Hidden is a thriller that has a selkie legend woven thru it.

There are multiple voices in the story, one belonging to Ruby the estranged daughter of Detective Joanna Harper, the second one to Joanna herself, then the voice of the injured man, and an occasional voice of the mother Constance. Then the author also works out ways to screw our minds by introducing the THEN and NOW technique and it all boils down to an engrossing read.

The opening chapter of a toddler abandoned in the harshest winter outside a shop followed up with blood water dripping out of the ceiling, YIKES, that was one hell of a way to hook the reader in, but the pacing becomes a tad slower as the THEN comes into the picture of Ruby’s history with her neighbor and his mentally incompetent wife and their 2 yr old daughter.

As Joanna’s investigation zooms into a crunch when she realizes the presence of her daughter in the unconscious victim’s life, objectivity becomes lost as Joanna struggles to remain as a copper rather than a mother. By weaving the Selkie fairy tale, there’s a sense of unreality to the whole story of Constance and even though excellently done by the author, that knuckle-worthy tension did seem to lose steam at the end. The description of the islands was so beautiful, and the music of the seals played thru the violin, now that is something I wouldn’t mind hearing every day!

But by the end of it all, it was not the thriller that had me thinking about the story but the question raised by the author in her acknowledgment about the choice of a woman in captivity to return to her roots leaving her children to fend for themselves. It is a question that will never have a completely indisputable answer, isn’t it?

Compelling 4 stars☂️☂️☂️☂️


Many thanks to Net Galley, Crooked Lane Books, and the author for a chance to read and review this book. All opinions are expressed voluntarily.

This review is published in my blog https://rainnbooks.com/, Goodreads, Amazon India, Book Bub, Medium.com, Facebook, and Twitter.

I love the way Melanie Golding weaves folklore into her novels creating a rich urban fantasy. This one was a little more difficult for me to get into than her first book Little Darlings was. It took until almost halfway before I was truly invested in the characters and was glued to the pages. I love the folklore used in this story, the Roane have always interested me. This story is about a man, the selkie he imprisons by stealing her coat, their daughter, and a musician. Also involved is the musicians complicated relationship with her biological mother/adoptive sister. I did think this book took some interesting turns which were fun. The writing is fabulous and the story is tragically beautiful. I gave this one 3.5 stars but rounded up.

Though there were a lot of interesting things in this story, I had a lukewarm reaction to it. I want a suspense novel to build the tension so much I don’t want to put the book down, and that just wasn’t the case with The Hidden.

In one part of a seaside village, police and social services are called when a two-year-old is found wandering alone in the cold. The mother shows up, chastened and frantic. Authorities assume it’s a simple case of a toddler darting away without her mother seeing where she went and let the pair go.

In another part of town, Detective Sergeant Joanna Harper is investigating a man known as Gregor who is close to death after suffering a head injury. When she sees the surveillance tape, she recognizes the woman as her estranged daughter Ruby. Except their relationship is more complicated than it seems, as is their relationship with their parents.

Ruby befriended a woman who believes she’s a selkie, or a part of a group known as “seal people,” who, when they shed their skin, can appear human. A selkie is mythology for many people, but Constance believes it’s real. Naturally, Ruby thinks she might have some mental health issues but wants to help.

Thanks to NetGalley for the opportunity to review this novel, which RELEASES NOVEMBER 9, 2021.

A 2-year-old girl is found abandoned in a seaside town. A reserved, solitary man is found left for dead in his apartment. Ruby leaves opposite this apartment, and is now enamored by the fit and charming man that lives there. But oh - there's a daughter and an apparently mentally unstable ex-partner that he has to help look after. Joanna is in charge of the hurt man's case, and quickly realizes something's very wrong. Soon, she discovers Ruby has something to do it and the problem is - Ruby is Joanna's estranged daughter.

We quickly dive to the many lives affected by these crimes, and I soon got caught up in wanting to know more and more and being compelled to not put the book down. The characters were interesting and complex. After a while I think it was a bit easy to know where the story was going, but there were still some plot twists that compensated that and turned our mystery even more mysterious, so to say.

I loved the combination of the action with the local legend/mythology, which is something I don't think we get to see a lot.

The one thing I didn't like as much was the writing, which made me feel removed/distant from what was happening.

This was an interesting book. It was not completely what I expected. I love a good mystery or thriller. I don’t read myths or legendary type books. This felt like this to me throughout the book I’ve read so many great reviews. I’m just not sure this book was for me. Please give this book a try if you are into these kind of stories.

Thanks to NETGALLY for my advanced copy for my honest review

Melanie Golding can do no wrong, and once again her newest is totally captivating. A thrilling, up-all-night read.

The Hidden, by Melanie Golding

Short Take: Twisty abduction thriller? Maybe-maybe-not fairy tale? Why not both?

(*I voluntarily read and reviewed an advance copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.*)

Good morning, duckies! And what a lovely gray, rainy morning it is! I would normally be wittily denouncing (read: whining about) the weather, but after the punishing heat we’ve had for the last way-too-long, I’m enjoying the current storm. Plus, the calendar has turned the page into September, and I don’t know about all of you, but in this house, that means one thing: Halloween candy season!

Ok, there’s more to it than candy, I”m a big fan of comfy hoodies, changing leaves, and all that fun stuff, but the candy is definitely up there. I am ALL ABOUT the peanut butter cups and salted caramel anything - something about the contrasting tastes just works for me in a way that single flavors don’t.

Which is why The Hidden tickled my neurons on a couple of levels. On the surface, it’s your standard chase thriller: Constance has left her baby (Leonie) with her BFF Ruby, and is running away from the baby’s father. Ruby’s close relative, Detective Joanna Harper is trying to get all three of them sorted out, while also uncovering a lot of secrets held by daddy dearest (no spoilers here!).

Cool story so far, right?

But then there’s also Constance’s repeated insistence that she’s a selkie, able to transform into a seal at will, which is obviously just the delusion of a desperately mentally ill woman. Right? Maybe?

Duckies, I’m going to be upfront with you: The Hidden isn’t perfect. The characters are all a little one-note, and I wasn’t always feeling the pacing. The dialogue is OK, nothing too great or too egregious, and there are some real soap-opera moments. But somehow, it just works. The police-chase-thriller story kept me engaged, and the maybe-or-not supernatural elements kept me curious. Not perfect, no, but the originality of Ms. Golding’s tale was enough to gloss over the blemishes.

The Nerd’s Rating: FOUR HAPPY NEURONS (and a whole pile of peanut butter cups, it’s fall, y’all!)

A really good read!

A toddler found on a wintry seafront.

Ruby, estranged from her family. She is lonely with only her violin for company. No friends apart from Sam, who lives on a narrow boat travelling the waterways, so not always close.

A mystery yoga guy, who does his exercises before dawn each day.

A police officer committed to her work to the detriment of her relationship with her girlfriend.

There seems a lot going on at the start of this book, but the story is well written and the characters well developed so they interweave beautifully.

It is quite a lengthy book, but I read it in three goes, it was very addictive!

The psychological thriller aspect, along with the Scottish folklore thread seem an unlikely pairing but it works well. The dark side of the thriller unfolds slowly at times but when the pace picks up it really gets going.

I would definitely recommend.

Thank you NetGalley.

Thank you for my early review copy. I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I believe this book will be a huge bestseller.

I absolutely adored The Hidden, I loved the characters of Ruby, Jo, Constance and Lorie. The story kept me gripped, I honestly couldn’t put it down and I loved the Selkie folklore mixed in with the story.

I enjoyed Little Darlings but Melanie has surpassed it with The Hidden; I will absolutely be reading all her future books.

The Hidden is the first book I have read by Melanie Golding.  It is a thriller/fantasy and I usually don’t care for fantasy.  The folklore of the Sulkies, or seal people, somehow worked  and actually added something to the overall story line.  It started out slow with a toddler being found wondering around the storefronts of a little seaside  village.  A woman, Ruby, shows up and claims to be the mother but then takes the baby and goes on the run.  As the story unfolds, you meet Constance, the real mother, and Gregor, the father.  Then enters Detective Joanna Harper who is Ruby’s mother.  When she recognizes a picture of Ruby as the woman who took the baby, the story starts to unfold.  It is told from several different view points and several timelines.  You quickly get drawn in wondering who is mentally ill, who is telling the truth, what the heck is really happening.  By the end, I couldn’t put it down.  I will definitely be checking out Little Darlings , also by Melanie Golding.  You will want to check this one out if you like thrillers with a  little fantasy/folklore twist.

I love the cover of this novel and the inside. "The Hidden" is an exciting novel by Melanie Golding. A page turner for sure.

A thriller with selkie folklore! Really great story, it got so suspenseful at parts I had to put the book down! I really enjoyed this book. Even more than her first book Little Darlings. In this story the folklore played a much more active roll in the plot of the story. I definitely will be recommending this one!

Contemporary mystery beautifully Written.
The book doesn’t end the way you want it to, but it ends the way it should.
An engaging and entirely satisfying read!

• ARC Provided via Net Galley