3.5 stars

I really enjoyed the first Kendall Beck book and went into this second one with high expectations. It was great to see Kendall and Adam working together again, although this one unfortunately due to the disappearance of his brother’s daughter. As the investigation progressed, it felt a bit disjointed following the different possibilities from the shooting at a grocery store robbery to potential bullying or drug issues with the hockey team to the possibility of a child sex-trafficking ring in the neighborhood. Things all came together in the end though.
*Thanks to Dreamscape Media and NetGalley for the advance audiobook for review.

Missing pre-teen girl under the nose of her detective uncle and his FBI agent friend. Count me in! Kendall Beck is who most women wish to be. Her no nonsense, hyper focus and dedication to her cases, makes her an easily loved character. The fast pasted novel, meant to mimic the speed at which authorities have to move to find missing children, made me a fan. Even with its constant twists and turns, you do not see the end coming.

This book allows the main character to be a woman and not fall for the man, it’s story driven, which is a breath of fresh air. Each character had a specific purpose in the story which made the reader invested. The ending is atypical of these books, but makes it even better. This was my first Leanne Kale Sparks book but won’t be my last!

While very beliveable and honest, Every Missing Girl is also charmless, a fault that carries throughout the entire book to the point of it becoming unberable towards the end. The main characters were boring, copy-paste fictional cops, and while one could enjoy the overall mystery and how two seemingly unconnected stories weave together at the end, it was too unoriginal and bland for me to actually care about anything that was happening. It also felt very copaganda-y, which I'm against and didn't add to my enjoyment of the story.

☆☆☆☆☆
The second in a series follows FBI Agent Kendall Beck and Homicide Detective Adam Taylor as their paths cross once again at a mini-mart in the captivating state of Colorado, where I happen to live.

One of the best features of the book…the author kept it short and thrilling! No added fillers! My first 5-star read this month.

Kendall and Adam worked together in book one, investigating the murder of Kendall’s best friend. That book slipped by me. Fortunately, “Every Missing Girl” can be read as a standalone. Sparks provides plenty of detail on the main characters and I instantly connected with Kendall and Adam. I thought their banter and dark sense of humor was an ideal addition to the story. In their words, Adam “does dead guys” and Kendall “does kids”…which is how they pair up on investigations.

The suspense picks up speed when Adam’s niece—Frankie—goes missing. The mini-mart investigation indicates child trafficking and the two cases may be connected. Frankie’s mother is being evasive and her secrets may be impeding the investigation. AND…to keep the tension at full throttle, the beginning of the chapters update us with the amount of time Frankie has been missing, to the second!

Ms. Sparks is a fabulous thriller author. I look forward to reading more of her excellent writing and I hope to get the chance to read the next ARC in this book series!

Sincere thanks to Dreamscape Media and Ms. Sparks for the opportunity to listen to this gifted audiobook through NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

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Thank you to Dreamscape Media and Leanne Kale Sparks for the opportunity to listen! This was a good one! I had an idea of who did it multiple times, and boy was I wrong! I enjoy being proven wrong in thrillers. Lots of extra twists! I had no idea it would end like it did. Kudos to Leanne Kale Sparks for a great thriller! The narrator was great too!!

I received this audiobook in exchange for an honest review from NetGalley.

Every Missing Girl is your classic mystery novel. Girl goes missing, FBI agent tries to figure out what happened. I personally did not like this story that much. It felt like every other mystery novel that I've read and didn't have me on the edge of my seat. I also thought that the narrator was boring, which may have played into some of my feelings of disinterest.

This book seems to have two story lines going at the same time. One is that girls are being trafficked and are being switched at a convenience store. The other story is that this girl, Frankie, goes missing from a hockey rink.

This book is the second in a series. I have not read the first book, but I believe that the FBI agent's friend was murdered. This is referenced a couple of times in this book, but it didn't seem like an integral part of the story.

**SPOILERS AHEAD

The ending also results in Frankie being found dead. The way that I see this ending is that the FBI agent failed at their job, if their goal was to find the girl unharmed. This really cemented my dislike of this novel. I know that not every book can have a happy ending, but I just felt like, "Wow, I spent all this time listening and it didn't even turn out well,"

Thank you to Leanne and Dreamscape Media for an advanced copy.

To me: this is a slow burn thriller. You heat up a lot at the beginning, then leave the book to simmer in the middle, then it lights up again at the end. If you like that style of book, you will like Every Missing Girl (I would recommend picking up the first book too then to get fully immersed in the Kendall Beck world). However, if that's not your jam, you may not enjoy this book. Slow burn thrillers are okay to me, which is why I give this a 3/5 stars.

We follow Kendall Beck, an FBI special agent for missing children, and Adam, a detective on the Denver PD. They worked together in the first book I believe, but it's not necessary to read the 1st book to enjoy this one.

One day, after a hockey game, Adam's niece, Frankie, goes missing. Adam, however, has to focus on a double homicide investigation instead of his niece's disappearance (this is the heat at the beginning). The middle is a ton of investigating scenes with not much hope until the last 2 hours of listening to the book. For 5 hours it was all investigating that seemed to be dead ends and for me, I prefer there to be at least a nugget of movement here and there in a thriller.

The investigation in the middle also involves A LOT of people, considering there are two investigations happening at once yet Adam is involved in both. It can get a little muddled. However, the ending does wrap everything else up nicely (which I love) and I was left actually WANTING a 10 year in the future epilogue (which never happens for me).

DEFINITELY check the content warnings for this book, it handles some very heavy topics. Overall, a slow burn thriller read that I'm sure fans of the thriller genre in general will enjoy.

I really like the narrator of this story, especially the banter between the two main characters Kendall and Adam. I dig the urgent tone set with the statement of hours passing by at the beginning of each chapter. Although I didn't read the first book in this series I was able to fill in most of the blanks but I think I would have had a better connection to the characters if I had read the first book.

I had a hard time keeping track of all the secondary and tertiary characters as I felt like a lot was introduced in the two investigation storylines. I lost interest in the second investigation but was very invested in the main one and those main characters. I was pleasantly surprised that I enjoyed the procedural/cop talk! That's usually not my thing but because it was mostly dialog between people working the case it really worked for me.

Many twists and turns weren't totally unexpected and I had mixed feelings about the ending but maybe that was the point!

Thank you Net Galley for an audio copy of Every Missing Girl by Leanne Kale Sparks. This is the second installment in the Kendall Beck Series. If you like crime drama, this is for you. Narration was really good also.

I haven’t read a book like this in a long time. It was the perfect mix of detective and thriller. I went into this one blind and so I didn’t realize it was the second book for this detective but I loved it and I definitely want to go back and read the first one. Usually when I read thrillers you know someone is dead or going to die, but with this one being a missing person it had me by the throat wondering if they were going to solve the case. I could not stop thinking about this one when I was not listening to. I will be thinking about that ending for a long time. The narrator for this book was great. Her voice was easy to listen to and she did a great job changing her voice for the other characters. It was a really enjoyable listen.

This novel is book 2 in the Kendall Beck Thriller series. It was well-written, captivating, and fast-paced. There was never a dull moment.
FBI Special Agent Kendall Beck teams up with Denver PD Detective Adam Taylor to take on TWO complex cases: a double murder with ties to sex trafficking, and the disappearance of Adam's niece, Frankie.
Thank you NetGalley, Leanna Kale Sparks (the author), and Dreamscape Media for graciously sending me the audiobook to review.

I read Every Missing Girl without having read the first book in Leanne Kale Spark’s Kendall Beck series, but that in no way put a damper on the reading experience. I do think if you want to read the entire series you should start with the first book, because there are spoilers in this one. I really enjoyed this thriller and while I put together what was happening a bit before the events actually happened, I really loved how the story came together and how intricate it was. I listened to the audio version of this book and I am always amazed at how narrator’s really do a story justice and, in this case, amplify the plot.

If you love cop/FBI thrillers and mysteries you should read this book. Even though missing girls is not the most novel plot for a book, the way the author went about it and how everything resolved was. It was also very realistic on the timeline, unlike other books in this genre tend to be. Everyone that enjoys this genre should give this book and series a chance, buckle up and enjoy the ride.

There are a lot of content warnings with this book, including: sex trafficking of minors, rape, child harm etc. Storygraph generally has a very good breakdown of these, so I would check them out before reading this. Other than these content warnings, there is nothing that I can think of to not recommend this book.

Overall, I really liked this book. The only reason it is not a 5 star is because there were no big shock factors for me, that doesn’t mean there won’t be for others though. I will definitely be on the lookout for more books by this author.

I haven’t read the first book in this series, but this one can be read as a stand-alone. I do plan on going back and reading the first book.
I love FBI Special Agent Kendall. Her demeanor and how she handled several characters. This was a fast pace read for me and it kept me very engaged. The ending was, well I don’t want to give out spoilers but I had to get a Kleenex or two. I was so invested in the search!!
The narrator, Erin DeWard was perfect for Kendall. She kept me engaged the entire time. I felt like I was holding my breath many times through the investigation.
There was a bit of humor and I appreciated it. Perfect for police procedural and mystery fans.

✨Special thanks to Dreamscape Media and Netgalley for the gifted ALC.

Pub. February 6, 2023

Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC of this book! This book begins with a missing girl found during a double homicide at a gas station. Main characters Adam Taylor and Kendall Beck are assigned the case. Later that day Adam’s 12 year old niece goes missing. Switches between Adam and Kendall’s perspective throughout the book as they try to solve both cases.

Suspend your disbelief before beginning this book. Many of the scenarios felt super unrealistic with way too many coincidences. The story started off a bit slow but picked up about 25% of the way through. I really liked Becks character — she was strong, determined, and caring. Couple minor plot holes throughout. The author switched between calling the characters their first and last names and maybe it was because I was listening instead of reading it got confusing at times. There was a lot of side cop characters which also was confusing but they were for the most part irrelevant to the actual story. Also personal pet peeve but I don’t like Tik tok slang in literature lol

This is also the second book in a series, I didn’t read the first and didn’t feel like I needed to. Don’t read this book if you want to read the first one though, there’s a lot of spoilers!

Book 2 in the series takes place in Colorado when girls begin being kidnapped and becomes personal when the detectives niece is one of those taken.

Thank you to netgalley for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

I dove right into this book without knowing it was the 2nd book in the series. A lot of talk throughout the book dealt with FBI agent Kendall Beck’s previous case so I was a bit confused. Kendall is called to investigate the case of a missing teenage girl, who happens to be her friend Detective Adam Taylor’s niece. There is also a 2nd storyline regarding a gas station bust and kidnapping.

My thoughts:
It was a very quick read, and it was a good buddy read! I didn’t love the 2nd storyline and oftentimes it was a bit confusing to read about. There were also so many characters in the book that I had to go back and re-read to pay attention. I also would recommend reading the first book in the series. I feel like I didn’t get to connect with Kendall and Adam that much in this book because there were so many other things going on. There isn’t much thrill in this, and a lot of police/procedural talk. The ending is quick and there was a twist in it that I wasn’t prepared for, but other than that, there wasn’t much thrill. Overall I give it 2.5 rounded up to 3 stars. Thanks again to netgalley!

Wow! Good read. This book explores child trafficking and was a tough read, but ver well written and engaging, FBI Special Agent Kendall Beck and Homicide Detective Adam Taylor team up to solve a double murder and a Adam’s missing niece. As they start to put together pieces, Kendall worries their separate crimes may be intertwined and prays she is wrong.
Highly recommended!

* I received an advanced reader’s copy of this book from NetGalley and Dreamscape Media in exchange for my honest review

Every Missing Girl is my first read by Leanne Kale Sparks. I enjoyed her writing style. The ease and pace that she writes with brought me into the story. I had an idea of where the story would go and that kept me comfortable, until the story turned a corner that quickly had me anxious, upset, and quite surprised. I appreciated the relationship between Kendall and Adam. Their dynamic added layers to the plot and enabled me to get to know the other characters.

I have only one regret with the delivery of this story. I really wish we had one chapter – perhaps a prologue that was in Frankie’s POV. Not to alter the story, but to see it from her perspective. We get the investigation and the long list of complicated circumstances but that little piece felt like it was missing for me.

I highly recommend reading or listening to Every Missing Girl. The narration is great, and the writing makes you want to keep turning the pages.

I listened to this novel via audio which is nice that Netgalley offers this! I enjoyed the narrator and I can be picky about narrators for audio books. I didn't realize this was a part of a series when I requested it. I think I would've enjoyed it more if I had started with the first book. Lots of TW topics in this book so be aware of that.

I loved the whole story line ! Definitely hands down one of the best mysteries I’ve read this year. Narrators voice was very pleasant. I did find out this is a part two I wish I would have read part one. I think it is a sold 4 star ⭐️ I