In the latest installment of Lisa Gardner’s Frankie Elkin series, Frankie dives into the mystery of Sabera Ahmadi, a refugee from Afghanistan.
The story is told in past/present dual POV of Frankie and Sabera.
There is more to this story than meets the eye. So many twists along the way. This book will keep you guessing.
Frankie is such a fascinating character!

"I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own."

Kiss Her Goodbye s the fourth book in the Frankie Elkin series. While the case itself is a standalone, I recommend reading the series in order as there are references to events that happened in previous books.

In this one, Frankie is hired to search for a missing Afghan woman. When the woman’s husband disappears days later, the search becomes even more complicated. Frankie isn’t a cop, or a trained PI. She’s an ordinary woman, trying to find herself after losing someone close to her, as she looks for the forgotten. She’s observant, persistent, and empathetic, which helps her gain people’s trust and uncover the truth. As the plot and danger escalates, she even risks her life to save someone else. I could not put this book down and the final twist made it all the more satisfying.

What I love about Gardner’s writing is it is fully immersive. She heavily researches her books, and for this one, she visited Tucson and spoke to Afghan refugees to understand their experiences and the challenges that come with acclimating to a new country and way of life. That care and authenticity really come through in the story. Tucson was also the first place I ever had Afghan food and the details in this book brought me right back there.

3.5 stars. Not my favorite Frankie Elkin book, but another enjoyable installment in the series. This one focused on an Afghan refugee who has disappeared, and also features a new cast of associates for Frankie--who she has met while temporarily reptile-sitting at the mansion of a super-rich young gamer. You can see that Lisa Gardner did a lot of research into the plight of Afghans trying to escape after the Taliban seized control and in particular what life is like for refugees in the US, and she did a great job of working that information into a suspenseful story. I found it a little convoluted at times, but thought everything came together nicely in the end.

Unfortunately, this was not for me. There were elements that I really enjoyed but found the story overall a little lacking. First, I really loved the premise that is what drew me into the book and it started off pretty strong. Second, from an educational perspective it was eye opening to read about refugee struggles in such a real way. Kiss Her Goodbye is book four in the Frankie Elkin series. Though you can truly read it as a standalone or out of order and you don't feel like you are missing anything. I thought the overall pacing was strange. The back and forth slowed things down. Didn't necessarily love the main character Franke. There were times throughout where she seemed abrasive and almost rude in her investigation. I didn't love the convenient snake/iguana pet sitting situation. Though this was the first in the kind of over the top suspend rational thought situations. There were more than few moments that just didn't feel that realistic. Overall, I really enjoy Lisa Gardner as an author. This just wasn't the book for me.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

Thank you to Lisa Gardner, Grand Central Publishing, and NetGalley for an advance copy of kiss Her Goodbye in exchange for an honest review. I have loved all of the books starring Frankie Elkin and this one was no different. I flipped through the pages as fast as I could traveling through Arizona with Frankie and a whole fun cast of characters. The book kept me guessing until the end and the supporting characters really made the story so unique and enjoyable. I also enjoyed how Gardner included a bit about the refugee experience and it was very eye opening to me. I cannot wait to see what Frankie gets up to next. Be sure to add this one to your bookshelf on August 12th!!

I think the second book in this series is still my favorite, but this one was still good that I stayed up late one night listening to it (did not finish though). I liked our new cast of characters that joined our MC Frankie (silly Petunia) and that some might make a cameo one day. The storyline was intriguing as well as one that will make me think well after the book is done.

Kiss Her Goodbye is the fourth book in the Frankie Elkins series by Lisa Gardner. OH MY! Prepare to be exhausted, because putting down this book is very very hard! The book is written in two voices: One being Frankie and one being Sabera and her early life in Afghanistan. Reading about the fall of Kabul and living in a refugee camp in Sabera’s voice can be difficult.

Frankie is in Tucson, Arizona trying to find a missing person named Sabera Ahmadi, an Afghan refugee. Finding a place to live meanwhile is difficult, but she finds a job house sitting with reptiles in a mansion with two other “misfits”. (The reptiles were anacondas and a very large iguana.)

The storyline is complicated and seriously twisted in places. The life of a Afghani woman with the fall of Kabul and later as an inhabitant of a refugee camp really opened my eyes to how difficult their world was. Frankie had to follow the clues that seemed to make no sense, but all seem to add up to a huge secret that Sabrina knew and other people wanted.

Lisa Gardner’s newest book, Kiss Her Goodbye, is a mystery and thriller with spies, secrets and family. Frankie is determined to find her way through the mystery. The book is well written and well paced. Kiss Her Goodbye is a great read.

Lisa Gardner did an amazing job keeping Frankie’s journey fresh in a chaotic and highly suspenseful world. Looking forward to hearing what our shoppers think of the book!

Give me everything Lisa Gardner forever. Love the writing style. Love the character development. Love that Tucson, AZ is the setting, as I'm an AZ girlie. This series is so good and this book did not disappoint.

Rating: 3.5 stars

I love whenever Lisa Gardner comes out with a new Frankie Elkin novel. Each book in this series has its own distinct feel while Frankie hunts down a missing person. In Kiss Her Goodbye, Frankie is looking for Sabera Ahmadi, a recent Afghan refugee, who is living in Tuscon. She has been missing for a few weeks when Frankie starts looking for her at the behest of Sabera's best friend. I liked the back and forth between present day and Sabera's memories as she speaks to her daughter. It helped to create a good picture of who Sabera is and what she's also trying to hide.

I listened to the majority of this book and really enjoyed the narrator. I thought she did a good job of differentiating the voices present so they were distinct. Although each book that features Frankie has a new team of side characters for her to interact with, I do really hope we get to see some of these characters again. Also I liked the events in the house at the end of the novel. It gave me a very Home Alone feel to it when they try to rob Kevin's house in the film.

Now I'll let the wait begin for the next time Lisa Gardner will write a Frankie Elkin book for us.

Thank you to Grand Central Publishing, Hachette Audio, and Netgalley for a copy in exchange for review consideration.

Frankie Elkin has a new missing person to find in Tuscon, Arizona. Once again Lisa Gardner has used her own travel experiences to bring us a new chapter in Frankie's story.

Here are four things I liked:

🎮Frankie housesits for Bart, the gamer. He has an iguana named Petunia, a Burmese python named Marge, and twelve baby pythons. Even a herper might find that to be challenging. Could those critters come in handy later?
🌎Lisa Gardner takes us to Afghanistan via journal entries from the missing woman. Experiencing the fall of Kabul and becoming a refugee is unimaginable. It is hard to walk in her shoes.
🥣The Afghan food sounds amazing, especially the rice pudding made with rose water and topped with pistachios.
🕵️‍♀️Frankie may seem a bit lost on her own path, but she has a knack for helping others. Love to watch her work through the challenges of each case.

The audio book is narrated by Hillary Huber and I spent a majority of my reading time with that version, finishing up with the digital.

I look forward to each new title from Lisa Gardner with anticipation. Once again she has delivered a unique and thought-provoking read. Thank you to Hachette Audio, Grand Central Publishing, and NetGalley for both an audio and digital ARCs. All opinions are my own.

I won’t be reviewing this book. I think I got the author mixed up when I requested it. I didn’t realize this was part of a series. I got about halfway through the book, but just wasn’t vibing with it and was a bit confused. It wasn’t keeping my attention.

Kiss Her Goodbye, by Lisa Gardner, is the 4th installment in the author's Frankie Elkin Series. Set against the scorching backdrop of Tucson, Arizona, the book follows Frankie Elkin, a recovering alcoholic and missing persons expert, as she takes on the case of Sabera Ahmadi, a young Afghan refugee who has vanished under mysterious circumstances. What unfolds is a riveting narrative filled with twists, trauma, and a deep exploration of the refugee experience, making it both a thrilling mystery and a poignant social commentary.

The story begins with Frankie Elkin, a nomadic investigator who specializes in finding the "invisible" people society overlooks, arriving in Tucson to search for Sabera Ahmadi. Sabera, a recent Afghan refugee, wife, and mother, was last seen leaving her workplace three weeks ago. The local police have not opened a case, and Sabera’s older, domineering husband, Isaad, appears strangely unconcerned. However, Sabera’s closest friend insists she would never abandon her three-year-old daughter, Zahra.

Driven by this conviction and her own empathy for the marginalized, Frankie takes on the case. The plot thickens when a video surfaces showing Sabera walking away from the scene of a brutal double murder, raising questions about her involvement. As Frankie digs deeper, she uncovers layers of complexity within the Ahmadi family: Isaad is a brilliant mathematician, Sabera a gifted linguist, and their daughter Zahra possesses an uncanny photographic memory. This gift may be a curse, given the family’s traumatic past.

When Isaad also disappears and an attempt is made on Zahra’s life, Frankie realizes the stakes are higher than she imagined. The narrative spirals into a web of secrets, espionage, and violence, forcing Frankie to confront not only the Ahmadi family’s dark history but also her own demons. The novel delves into the horrors of refugee camps, the psychological toll of war, and the challenges of adapting to a new life, including issues like PTSD and postpartum struggles.

These elements are woven seamlessly into the thriller framework, adding emotional weight without feeling didactic. The secondary cast of characters includes Detective Marc, a man who is brought into the search for Sabera after Isaad is found dead. Then there's Daryl Daniels, who helps Frankie around and tries to prevent her from getting over her head. Sabera's story is featured over the course of this story as flashbacks and storytelling to her daughter, Zahra who is only 4 years old, and was born in a refugee camp.

Zahra, in particular, stands out as a heartbreaking yet resilient figure whose photographic memory becomes a pivotal plot device. There are, of course, other secondary characters who are essential to the story, as well as others whose participation in the story reveals that not everything is as it appears. It's a story that is filled with layers and mysteries.

*On a side note: This story dives into the chaos that was the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, and the impact it had on those left behind. The US left behind many people who had worked with the US for years. These should have been the first people taken out of the country because the Taliban ended up hunting these people down. They deserved the respect and admiration for what they did against the same threats that US troops faced in the country.

Sabera's story is interesting in that she ends up getting involved in things that her own mother likely guided her on this path before dying of cancer. The one person in this entire book you should have an emotional connection to is Zahra. This little girl has gone through so much in 4 years of existence, and it appears that she might be a prodigy like her mother, who can hear a language once and understand and speak it.

*As always, the author does an excellent job of researching the issues in this book, and that is why she's at the top of my must-read list of authors.

3.5⭐️

With this being my first Frankie Elkin novel, I found my favorite part was her great witty sarcasm. It was a good balance to the heavy subject matter. My intrigue and attention ebbed and flowed. Some parts had me deeply enthralled, but I also found myself distracted at times and having to refocus. I found this could be read as a standalone book. The bits and pieces mentioning information from earlier books have me interested to go back and read those too eventually.

Frankie Elkin is back to hunting the missing after a respite with a lovely man in Seattle. She's summoned to Tucson by an Afghani refugee to find a recent immigrant, Sabera, who vanished three weeks prior. Her husband and the police seem unconcerned, but her friend is firm that she wouldn't leave her four-year-old daughter. As Frankie digs into Sabera's background, she discovers the young mother is more complex and intriguing than she appears on the surface. I found the information about the refugee process interesting, but the plot gets bogged down with journal entries from Sabera to her daughter and cryptic messages. While Bart's compound and its inhabitants are the most colorful party of the story, how Frankie ends up there so quickly and their willingness to join in the danger seems far-fetched. A decent read, but not the strongest entry in the series.

I was on the edge of my seat for most of this story. Lisa Gardner knows how to build tension, and this book was no exception. I couldn’t believe how the plot twisted and unraveled—it kept me guessing the entire time, and that ending was really intense.

Frankie Elkin is such a compelling character. She's smart, relentless, and emotionally layered in a way that makes her feel so real. I loved watching her navigate a deeply complex and dangerous case with empathy and grit. Her connection to the people she helps really stood out here, especially with Zahra, the Ahmadis’ daughter.

The story itself was incredibly timely and emotionally charged. Sabera’s disappearance, the family’s hidden past, and the sense that danger was always just around the corner made this feel much more than your typical thriller. There’s also a deep emotional thread about motherhood, sacrifice, and survival that hit me hard.

The only reason I’m giving it four instead of five stars is that some parts of the investigation felt a bit too neatly resolved or required a little suspension of disbelief. But honestly, that didn’t take much away from my overall enjoyment.

If you're looking for a thriller with high stakes, emotional depth, and a strong female lead, this is a great one to pick up.

My copy of this book was provided by NetGalley and Grand Central Publishing for review purposes. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

"Missing persons expert Frankie Elkin takes up the search for recent Afghan refugee, Sabera Ahmadi. Her domineering mathematician husband seems unconcerned with her disappearance, but her friends maintain that Sabera would never leave her four-year-old daughter, Zahra. When a video surfaces showing Sabera walking away from a double homicide, the case gets even more complex."

Elkin needs a place to reside while searching for Sabera, who the police believe has simply run-away. Grudgingly, she accepts a position as a "babysitter" for a tech mogul's reptiles and spiders.

The job introduces Elkin to an interesting cast of characters, from Daryl, the ex-con driver and muscle, to Genni, the flamboyant and sensible housekeeper, to Aliah, Sabera's friend who has secrets of her own. The interesting mix of characters livens up what I found to be a sometimes saddening novel.

The plot line moves between past and present, giving the reader a background on how difficult and chaotic a life refugees had after the fall of Afghanistan. Sabera, a linguistics genius and has an eidetic memory has secrets of her own and a family bent on retribution.

When Isaad, Sabera's husband, disappears and a kidnapping attempt is made on Zahra, Elkin knows she must act quickly and without much assistance from law enforcement, for a positive outcome.

Enjoyable read with a great cast of likeable and quirky characters. Gardner has another winner.

I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

Another great read in this series! I enjoyed Still See You Everywhere a bit better than this one but still enjoyed this one too!

A couple of typos I noticed were as follows:
Chapter 15, location 1842 "How to" was printed twice
Chapter 26, location 3055 "an bottomless well" should be "a bottomless well"
Chapter 35, location 4158 "one either side" should be "on either side"

I loved the story, really felt for the characters, and was quite surprised at the end! Thank you for another great read and I can't wait for the next one!

This is such a great series! I’ve been reading it since book one and I swear the stories just keep getting better and better. Frankie is a great character and it’s really easy to root for her. Maybe part of the reason I identify so much with her is because we’re both sober (16 years for me). So the baggage that she brings into the story has a lot of parallels with my own life. When she does certain things or feels a certain way (guilt mostly), I really understand it. I’m also a big fan of how she chooses to make her amends, by taking care of “the little guy”. While I’ve loved all of her stories, this one in particular was really interesting to me. I’m sure the subject matter was inspired by recent global events. Where some authors have capitalized on this and adopted an unfortunate ham-fisted approach at addressing it, I did not get that feeling at all from this book. It was a genuinely well thought out and researched story. I could tell before I even got to the author’s note that she went the extra mile to make sure she had all of her information right and that she must have interviewed countless people who had experiences similar to the characters. I was extremely impressed, and as a writer that also does a lot of research, I know it must have taken her forever to write this one. The characters she created may have been based on real people, but they were fantastically written. This one is a page turner for sure!

Huge thanks to Grand Central Publishing and NetGalley for sending me this ARC for review! All of my reviews are given honestly!

Lisa Gardner returns with another masterclass in suspense with Kiss Her Goodbye. This gripping thriller is fast-paced, emotionally charged, and full of the expertly plotted twists Gardner is known for. The lead character is fierce, complex, and utterly captivating, drawing readers into a dark world of secrets and vengeance. The narrative moves with breathless momentum, delivering jaw-dropping reveals and deep emotional resonance. Gardner’s skill at blending psychological depth with edge-of-your-seat thrills is on full display. Kiss Her Goodbye is a riveting page-turner that keeps you guessing until the final line. A must-read for thriller fans.