Emiko Jean is officially a must-read author of mine. I absolutely adored her Tokyo Ever After series and Mika lives in my heart forever, so it was very fun to see her enter the mystery and thriller genre. I could not put this book down and binged it in a day - so very good. I loved the plot, the characters, the twist, the social commentary, all of it. I really hope she drops a few more in this genre for us to devour.

If someone always remembers your name, speaks it out loud, you're never really gone.

A parents worst nightmare came true when the disappearance their daughter Ellie became their reality. She was taken without a trace and and returned in the State Park of Washington without any clue to where she was and who she was with.

Detective Chelsey Calhoun is called on the case to investigate what really happened to Ellie. Ellie is now withdrawn. She is not same girl that disappeared. Her parents are walking on egg shells not knowing what happened. The narration is key to brilliance of this read. To me the narration is done in 3 parts. One is Chelsey's story. Why she is detective, why she is drawn to this case. Her own experience drives the plot. Ellie's story is told in her return and what happened. You do not get the whole story but bits at a time. It helps you know Ellie in a deeper level and keeps you engaged. I was surprised by it and highly recommend.

A special thank you to Simon & Shuster and Netgalley for the ARC and the opportunity to post an honest review.

I had a complex relationship with this one. On one hand, some of the themes gave me a lot of anxiety. On the other hand, it's probably one of the best thrillers I've read this year.

Ellie shows up two years after disappearing from a party as a teenager. Detective Chelsey Calhoun, who lost her own sister as a teenager and is investigating the death of a another teenage girl, is determined to find out what happened and bring Ellie justice but something seems off and Ellie doesn't want to help. When Chelsey realizes more girls may be in danger, she steps up the chase and the timeline.

I gave this one ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. I definitely could not stop reading. I feel like Emiko Jean wrote well about trauma and how women are preyed upon, but that social class could mean they're treated differently by law-enforcement and our criminal justice system. I did not love everything about the book, but I loved the book as a whole!

Thank you to @Netgalley and @simonandschuster for an advanced copy!

Forewarning: I am in the minority with my opinion on this one.

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Ellie Black was a perfectly normal teenage girl - until she disappeared after walking out of a high school party, never to be seen or heard from again, until she suddenly reappears in the woods of Washington state roughly two years later.

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Detective Chelsey Calhoun, the only female detective in her precinct and the detective in charge of Ellie’s case believes Ellie’s unexpected return is not only a miracle, but a chance to crack a case involving a potentially large amount of taken and murdered young girls. Unfortunately, Chelsey is also forced to acknowledged that something is just not right about Ellie upon her return…

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I really enjoyed this one, as it is apparent that a vast majority of people on #bookstagram have based on their glowing #reviews. I will say, admittedly, I am not quite as obsessed with this one as everyone else appears to be. I thought it felt a little rushed at times (both the plot and character development), I did not find portions of the plot to be super believable (granted I’ll take thrill over plausibility any day, it is #fiction after all), and I just didn’t think it was worthy of ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ or particularly extraordinary. Really good, but not incredible.

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Again, I did really enjoy it - I think maybe the level of hype on this one just made it hard to live up to!

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**3.5 rounded up**

The Return of Ellie Black pulled me in from the start. It's one of those thrillers where there's an underlying secret that you're dying to know, so you keep turning the pages until it's revealed.

In this book, we have two pain POVs: Detective Chelsey Calhoun who is the one to get the call when a girl who has been missing for two years has mysteriously turned up, and Ellie Black, the very girl who went missing. The dual POVs really works with this story. You're unraveling the events of Ellie's disappearance alongside Chelsea, and then uncovering Ellie's first-hand experiences in her chapters.

The ultimate mystery here is what happened to Ellie? Did she willingly disappear or was she taken against her will? What happened during the two years she was gone? Why did she suddenly return? And the problem is - Ellie is refusing to reveal much at all. It's up to Chelsea to get to the bottom of this increasingly bizarre mystery before something similar happens again.

I gave this book 3.5 stars and what brought it down 1.5 for me was the fact that it was character-driven rather than plot-driven. Typically, I wouldn't mind that if it was done well, but I felt like this story had what it took to be plot-driven, then flopped a bit in that department the deeper I got into the story. Not saying it's not worth the read - it definitely held my attention throughout.

This is a heartbreaking and engaging read. Every time I felt j knew what was going on, the author threw me for a loop. There was a good deal of education on trauma and how to changes the brain and also how the people we idolize aren't always the true heros we view them as. This is a book of growth, love, and healing.

Detective Chelsey Calhoun’s sister disappeared 20 years ago, in an apparent murder-suicide although her body was never found. The distress broke up her family and left Chelsey determined to become a detective and stop other families from going through the same thing. So when Ellie Black goes missing, it lands on her desk and she’s the one meeting with the family, talking to the parents, trying to suss out if there was anything fishy going on at home.

When Ellie Black reappears two years later, walking out of a forest and announcing herself to some startled hikers, her arrival is initially greeted with rejoicing. But Ellie herself is secretive, unwilling to really open up about her ordeal and others who may have been taken by the same man. She’s cagey with Courtney and wary around her parents, and while she opens up a bit to a counselor, it’s not much. The mystery continues to build, until Courtney is convinced that there’s much more to the story to discover. She has to figure out what Ellie’s hiding before the next girl go missing.

The Return of Ellie Black works on several levels. First of all, it’s a well-written and well-plotted story, a gripping read that you won’t want to put down. But it also touches on many other things; how society feels towards young women who go missing, where our loyalties lie, dealing with sexism and racism in the police force, and more. It’s an excellent book that will keep you guessing up till the final, satisfying page. Highly recommended.

Thank you to Netgalley and Simon & Schuster for a copy of this e-book in exchange for my honest review.

This was on of those books that is so good that you decide you want to read every piece of work this author writes until the end of time.

This is the story of Ellie Black, a teen girl who suddenly returns 2 years after going missing, and Chelsey Calhoun, the detective on her case who has devoted her life to solving kidnapping cases ever since the death of her own teen sister years ago

As the book slowly unravels what happened in those 2 years, the story gets bigger and stranger (in a good way) as the stories of these two intermingle.

I do not want to give away too much, but suffice it to say it’s a twisty one!

I loved this book. It was gritty and suspenseful and I couldn't put it down. I loved the way Chelsey was written: she's flawed and emotionally invested while trying to fight her emotions. Just a great book that I would highly recommend to anyone.

Thank you Netgalley for this ARC of The Return of Ellie Black by Emiko Jean.

If you're a fan of thrillers, then I don't have to tell you that we get PLENTY of missing girl stories. However, this one is fresh, exciting, and compulsively readable. It's a small door that opens to a big world, and I LOVED how the stories of the missing girl, and the detective looking for her were linked up. You'll love this one!

This was a nice quick read. Kept me guessing with plenty of plot twists, that are all wrapped up nicely.

Thank you to NetGalley and the Publisher for allowing me to read The Return of Ellie Black.

I read this book in one sitting, staying up late into the night, needing the next journal entry from Ellie.

Chelsey Calhoun is used t0 investigating missing girls. She's even more used to their stories ending badly. It ended that way for her sister, and Chelsey has never quite managed to get over that night, to wishing she could do everything differently. When Ellie Black returns after being missing for 2 years, Chelsey hopes her escape can lead to finding the man who took her.

Interviews with Ellie don't go as planned though. Chelsey doesn't want to push, though she quickly realizes Ellie is hiding things from her. When it becomes clear that there are more girls that can be traced to Ellie's case, both bodies and girls that might still be alive, Chelsey is even more desperate to get whatever information she can from Ellie. Even if that means treating her more as an accomplice than a victim.

As Chelsey gets more lost in the case, in her past, her marriage frays. She's supposed to be packing up her childhood home, looking for houses to finally take the next step in truly starting a life with her husband. Instead, she uses her father's old home office to dig deeper into everything she has on Ellie's disappearance. She can't bring herself to box up her old life, come to terms with her father or her sister's deaths. Maybe that's the fate of a marriage when a detective is involved.

Gripping, twisting, I was absolutely thrilled with this book. I've had Tokyo Dreaming and Tokyo Ever After on my TBR for awhile, and I'm looking forward to them even more now, even with the genre change.

This is an amazingly written book! I was hooked on from page one. There are a lot of pieces to the story but when you see them come together it is brilliant!

This was my first book by this author, but WOW! It was a jaw-dropping, page-turning, stay-up-late thriller that I couldn’t put down without finishing! Such a good book and definitely one I won’t forget!

A teenage girl is abducted and is found two years later--half-starved, traumatized and unwilling to talk about her experience to her family and boyfriend or the detective assigned who will not let the case go as she has her own past trauma to contend with.

Well-written thriller that kept me turning the pages literally--I finished it in one day.

Actual Rating 3.5

TW: Rape (of minor), Physical/Mental Abuse

This work is told from a dual timeline, which was done really well. The timelines were balanced to perfectly reveal past information as the investigation moved forward, which kept things interesting. Not much time was spent in the past either, which kept the tension and intrigue of the primary timeline from being broken.

The characters were good overall. Chelsey’s character was fine, but at times I forgot she was supposed to be an adult and a detective and thought she read more like she was in her early 20s and inexperienced. It was also mentioned several times that she was Japanese and adopted, but not in a way that really meant anything or added to her character or the story, so that was a little odd. The revealed motivations for the antagonists weren’t quite as convincing as I hoped they would be, which might be partially due to how fast it was revealed then moved on from. But I think it was also partially since this book didn’t go beyond the “you can’t trust men, women are always going to be victims” trope or add anything new in relation to this and the resolution.

Despite that, I stayed up too late reading this book and could barely put it down, so it’s certainly an enjoyable one. If you’re looking for a dark mystery that’s more character-driven than plot-driven and doesn’t really dive too deep into anything (except for graphic abuse), then this is worth checking out. My thanks to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for allowing me to read this work. All thoughts and opinions expressed in this review are my own.

Thank you for the opportunity to preview The Return of Ellie Black. This is an interesting read. For me I found the slower pace a chance to delve into the story
This is a mystery but also a solid female lead novel.
Told in a different way at times with POVs you can feel the emotions of the characters.
Involves tough subjects and written well. A very good read with an ending that may have you scratching your head.
3.5 stars

“Why did no one ever tell her that the most dangerous thing in the world isn’t natural disasters or wars or weapons? It is unremarkable men with beautiful smiles and even bigger promises.” This line will stick with me. Also I love the advice on how to avoid being kidnapped and what to tell our daughters at about the 20% mark.

I was completely sucked into this book I could not put it down. I had to know what Ellie's deal was!
It is also just so creepy.
That ending! OMG

“Why did no one ever tell her that the most dangerous thing in the world isn’t natural disasters or wars or weapons? It is unremarkable men with beautiful smiles and even bigger promises.”

Most missing girls stories end when the girl (or her body) is found and her attacker is captured. But in The Return of Ellie Black, prolific author Emiko Jean’s first thriller, the book begins when Ellie is found. But the mystery, instead of being solved, becomes even deeper.

It’s been two years since teenaged Ellie disappeared, and Detective Chelsey Calhoun is overjoyed when Ellie reappears from the woods in Washington state. But her elation soon turns to frustration—Ellie doesn’t want to talk about what happened or help track down her abductor. What is Ellie hiding, and why? Chelsey, the daughter of a police captain, whose sister was killed in a murder-suicide when she was a teenager, can’t stop worrying about the other girls that Ellie’s captor could hurt. But with no cooperation from her police colleagues and stymied by Ellie’s stalling, Chelsey flails, putting her own marriage in danger. And then Ellie disappears again, and everything Chelsey thought she knew turns out to be wrong.

The Return of Ellie Black starts like a police procedural, but it unfolds in surprising, and sometimes completely unpredictable ways. While Chelsey, with her cliched backstory, is a pretty stereotypical character, Ellie is a completely original creation. The point-of-view is mostly Chelsey and Ellie’s, although sometimes Jean slips into omniscient narration. Several chapters in Ellie’s point-of-view are told in first person, and Ellie directly addresses the reader: “Here is a tip for all the girls out there: Never let an abductor take you to a second location.” She’s sharp, achingly regretful of her teenage mistakes, and sympathetic. Her description of her initial abduction and the techniques her captor uses to make her compliant almost require a trigger warning. The scenes describing her life in the compound where he keeps her are gritty, heartbreaking, and terrifying. Ellie is also an unreliable narrator, which makes the twists in the last third of the book completely unforeseeable.

Jean has garnered some incredible reviews for this book that specifically cite the twists—and there are many!—of its ending. Personally, I thought Jean worked too hard to tie every plot element together. Rather than being impressed with her thoroughness, I felt disbelief at all of the connections. And although her reviews credit Jean with a feminist social commentary, I felt there was an element of women being blamed for turning men into psychopaths.

Despite my personal issues with the ending, The Return of Ellie Black is a refreshing entry in the police procedural genre. Kudos to author Emiko Jean for writing outside her typical genre. Her men may be unremarkable, but her women are a force to be reckoned with.

Many thanks to Simon Books and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in exchange for my honest review. I started reading it back in May, but I heard such great things about the audiobook that I waited until I could take it out of my library to finish, while following along with the ebook. I’ve previously read Emiko Jean’s YA romance series Tokyo Ever After, but this is a completely different genre. I am always impressed when an author can write equally well in different genres!
The Return of Ellie Black is a story about missing girls thought to have been kidnapped in rural Washington state. Ellie, one of the girls, reappears seemingly out of nowhere and is questioned by Chelsey, a detective whose own sister disappeared many years before. Chelsey works to figure out what happened, and she follows her instincts to create a much larger, more complicated picture.
The plot is intriguing, and the dual timelines are done well so that they are not confusing. In terms of setting, the atmosphere is set making the reader feel like they are there - and I could vividly picture it from my experience working at a summer camp on the Hood Canal near Olympic National Park. The audiobook is narrated by a full cast, which definitely added to my enjoyment. And the ending caused my jaw to drop! I definitely recommend this book, and it’s available everywhere.