Loved the book. Not as suspenseful and riveting as the Cara series, but still a very enjoyable book. I look forward to the next in the series. A mother losing her daughter to being abducted and missing for a year, with the police not doing much. Lou, the mother, takes a road trip following her daughter's trip, to see if she can find what happened to her, and who took her. Along the way she discovers other girls missing in the same way as her daughter. Don't put it down until you finish it! Highly recommend.

Review of advance copy received from Netgalley

March 25, 2026

Wow what a ride. Pun intended. While I feel for all of the characters losses I admire Lou so much. Her daughter is missing. Many daughters are missing but Lou will not sit back and let this happen to her family without action. She is a force to be reckoned with and you will love her. She doesn’t just stop with her daughter she is determined to help each family she encounters. I love the addition of a young journalist and the relationship they develop. They don’t pull punches and care deeply for each other and the work they are trying to do.

The book is written with an excellent partner team that I hope is the beginning of more to come. As always, the sights and sounds bring this book to life. I don’t think anyone does a better job with the “feeling of being there” than Alexandra Sokoloff.

Keep writing and making the readers happy!

Lou Gomersall’s 19-year-old daughter Abby disappeared a year ago, while driving south on I-5 from the University of California, Berkley.

Even though the police seem to have given up searching for Abby, Lou hasn’t.
She’s been driving through the highways and back roads of Northern California for nearly the whole time, talking to people at truck stops and campsites.

Certain she can find a pattern if she tries hard enough, Lou has begun tracking other young women who have vanished while driving in the same area.

Lou is nothing if not determined, and during her travels, she finds people who gather information for her. She even finds a few detectives who are in her corner, though they contend that Lou could be putting herself in danger.

The title comes from a stretch of I-5 in Kern County through the Tejon Pass, with Fort Tejon at the north end and the unincorporated town of Grapevine at the south, and most of the story takes place in the area surrounding The Grapevine.

Lou is intelligent woman, certain of her mission, and though some might call her stubborn rather than persistent, she’s still a sympathetic protagonist.

Thriller aficionados will find the story riveting, though I might include trigger warnings for physical and psychological trauma, especially for parents of young women.

Highly recommended, though with trigger warnings for physical and psychological trauma, especially for parents of young women.

Just how long would you keep looking for your missing daughter?

It's been a year now since Lou Gomersall's daughter disappeared. And Lou is NOT giving up looking for her. In fact, she's on the trail of a pretty nasty piece of work who preys on young women across the state of California. And Lou is nothing if not persistent.

She is traveling in a RV, following up on tips, posting pictures, tracking down leads, getting on the police department's nerves and actually finding clues to other young women who have either been attacked or disappeared in the same general area as Abby, her daughter.

Now she just needs to get someone to listen.

Great story with great characters. I'll be looking for the next book in the series.

I appreciated receiving this Digital Review Copy from Blackstone Publishing through Edelweiss and NetGalley. Thank you.

I was absolutely sucked in right from the beginning of this one!

Lou is on a mission to find her missing daughter. She refuses to give up and along the way, she comes into contact with others who have been touched by their own tragedies. The author(s) did a fantastic job capturing the emotion and heartache of not only Lou, but those she came in contact with on her travels.

The tension was there throughout the book and watching everything fall into place was fascinating. My only complaint is that now I have to wait for the next one in the series....what happens next?????

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the advanced copy. All opinions expressed are my own.

Thank you NetGalley for sending me this book. I loved every minute of it! Its definitely giving CrimeJunkie vibes. Very intersting story on how deep a mothers love goes for her daughter. It is a sad topic of girls getting abducted but the writing is well written and keeps the reader captivated the entire story. Pick this book up if you enjoy crime stories!

THE GRAPEVINE (The Lost Highway Book #1) by Alexandra Sokoloff and Craig Robertson is a tension-filled thriller featuring a mother who will go anywhere and do anything to find her missing daughter. This is a collaboration between two authors I have enjoyed reading individually, so of course I was excited when I was asked to read this book.

Lou Gomersall’s daughter, Abby, is missing without any clues. Leaving her husband at home, she takes the family RV and begins scouring the highways and byways of California. She collects any mention of other missing young women and uses the network of other people on the road living the van life, campground operators, and even prostitutes at truck stops to search for connections. Even when the police are skeptical and tell her to stay out of the cases she has found and go home, she continues. She refuses to believe her daughter is dead, no matter how crazy she seems or acts.

Lou is on a mission to save Abby and kill the man who took her.

Lou is such a memorable protagonist. You have empathy for her, you feel sorrow for her, you cheer her on even when she seems or acts crazy, and you keep hoping with each revelation she discovers the truth of what happened to all the missing girls, not just Abby. All the secondary characters are believable, and I was glad she had Ethan in the second half of the book to help her search for clues and try to keep her more grounded in reality. The plot pace continuously builds as more pieces of the puzzle of the missing young women cases are revealed. The ending chapters kept me on a rollercoaster of emotions and left me completely shocked and not expecting the revelation at the climax of the crime plot and I love it when that happens. I am not sure what these authors and this series will have instore in the future, but you can definitely count me in.

I highly recommend this emotionally charged, edge-of-your-seat crime thriller!

The Grapevine is one of those books you will keep thinking about long after you've come to the final page. I loved this thriller, which follows Lou, a mother in search of her missing daughter, or maybe more accurately the person who took her. With very little information, but determination to spare, Lou tracks down every clue the police missed, connecting Abby's disappearance with missing women up and down the canyons of California. In her refurbished camper van, Lady Luck, Lou finds help from the families of the missing, other vanlifers and an ambitious young reporter.
This is a standout thriller! With pulse-pounding action, mesmerizing scenes of the raw beauty of the California canyons and coastline, and a main character, Lou Gommersall, whose persistence dances on the border of obsession and then plunge right in, you’ll thoroughly enjoy reading it. Trust me.
Thank you to Blackstone Publishing and NetGalley for the opportunity to read an advance copy.

The Grapevine is currently the best thriller I have read this year and I'm blown away by it. I have recently been in a thriller slump and The Grapevine changed that! I couldn't put it down once I started and finished within two days!

This is for lovers of Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri or Flight Plan (maybe True Detective on the Jodie Foster kick). I can totally see Frances McDormand or Jodie Foster as Lou.

There were so many elements of this book that were executed perfectly. I think one of the best parts of the book was Lou's character. Although not much occurred in the way of her own character arc, the way The Grapevine was written had me utterly enthralled and invested in Lou. I think despite Lou's unconventional and unauthorized actions to find her daughter, she never once came across as insufferable or annoying. The ENTIRETY of the book, I was wholeheartedly rooting for her success in finding Abby and honestly so proud of her brash and brazen actions. I don't necessarily need to love the protagonist to enjoy the book, but it absolutely makes the reading experience sweeter. It's easy for most people (especially women) to relate to a mother in search of her child, and the unending determination to only cease upon finding her. So even if (hopefully) most of us will never be in a similar experience, it is easy to emphasize and sympathize with Lou.

The pacing throughout the book was incredible. Not once did tension let up; the story kept moving at a quick pace that kept me on my toes but also not overly stressed. I loved all of the twists and turns of the investigation. When I thought I had things figured out, I didn't and was taken on another surprising turn. I also thought the elements of the investigation were well thought out but not overly obvious. None of the big plot twists or breaks in the case were out of left field where it verges on the edge of unbelievable, but I also really had no idea where the story would go.

I wasn't sure if Abby was going to be alive at the end of the book or not, but I was really hoping she would be (for Lou's sake!!). I actually cried a bit during the last chapter when Lou found Abby. THAT is how emotionally invested I was in Lou's character. I can't remember the last time I felt even remotely emotional during a thriller!

Seriously, a 10/10 thriller. I have no criticisms. I'll be posting a longer review on my Substack tomorrow!

What a ride! Lou’s daughter disappeared a year ago. Dissatisfied with law enforcement’s efforts, she sets out in her aging motorhome to search on her own. This powerful novel is exceptionally good. The plot is tight, the characters well drawn and believable, and the writing is very skilled. Very highly recommended! I enjoyed this book and am looking forward to the next in the series. I received a complimentary copy of this book and chose to write a voluntary, unbiased review.

This was such a gripping emotional story that had me invested from the beginning to end. Reads like an investigative detective story if the detective was a mom who drives an RV tracking a serial killer who’s been abducting girls along the I-5 highway in California. Her daughter has been missing for a year now and Lou is desperate to find out what happened to her. This was a captivating read for me!

Although missing persons cases aren’t generally my favorite trope, I read this when recommended by a friend and am so glad I did! Because you can read the overall description, and I don’t want to reveal any spoilers, here are some things that made this one different for me.

1) It was a thriller/mystery, but also leaned heavily toward being more character driven.
2) It had the perfect number of clues, red herrings, and secondary characters to keep anything from being obvious, but without overwhelming the reader.
3) The protagonist wasn’t perfect and made decisions that could make the reader shake their head and say, “Why or WTF” throughout her journey.
4) I always love a road trip and/or messy family secrets book!

WOW! It's been a hella long time since I canceled my weekend plans to finish a book, but I could not put this thriller down. Extremely tight plot, with clues and misdirects on almost every page. I was pleasantly surprised that there was a seamles quality to the voice/sentences, given this was written by a husband/wife team. WELL DONE; can't wait for book #2.