Then She Was Gone: the addictive, psychological thriller from the Sunday Times bestselling author of The Family Upstairs
£2.80
A missing girl. A buried secret. From the ten-million-copy bestselling author comes a brand new look for this compulsively twisty psychological thriller that will keep you hooked to the very last page.
‘A tense, clever page-turner that everyone will be talking about.’ Adele Parks
‘Dark and claustrophobic but also heartfelt and moving … packs a huge emotional punch that will leave you winded. I loved it.’ C. L. Taylor
‘Both utterly gripping and startlingly original. Prepare to be hooked.’ Sun
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Ellie was her mother’s golden girl.
She had her whole life ahead of her.
And then, in the blink of an eye, Ellie was gone.
Ten years on, Laurel has never given up hope of finding Ellie. And then she meets a charming and charismatic stranger who sweeps her off her feet.
But what really takes her breath away is when she meets his nine-year-old daughter.
Because his daughter is the image of Ellie.
Now all those unanswered questions that have haunted Laurel come flooding back.
What really happened to Ellie? And who still has secrets to hide?
_____________
OVER 180,000 5* RATINGS – this is why readers love this book:
‘Breathtaking. Compulsive. Suspenseful. Poetic.’
‘One of the top 5 thrillers I’ve ever read.’
‘I wanted the book never to end.’
‘Suspense filled… edge of my seat… I could not put this down!!’
‘This was my first Lisa Jewell book, and it will definitely not be my last.’
‘Dark, winding and haunting, I couldn’t put this one down.’
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Additional information
| Publisher | Cornerstone Digital, 1st edition (27 July 2017) |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| File size | 4542 KB |
| Text-to-Speech | Enabled |
| Enhanced typesetting | Enabled |
| X-Ray | Enabled |
| Word Wise | Enabled |
| Sticky notes | On Kindle Scribe |
| Print length | 421 pages |
| Page numbers source ISBN | 1780896425 |
by jane
I have not read any of this author’s books before, but certainly Wii do. This story laid so many twists and turns and just as you thought you had it sussed one surprise after another the ending. Brilliant in every way.
by S. F
A good read, a bit of a slow burn , but took an unexpectedly twist for me . Throughly enjoyed it . Well worth a read.
by Jade
“Maybe Ellie Mack would have gone to the library, got to sit all her GCSEs, got to marry Theo, got to live her life. But unfortunately that’s not the way it worked out.”
I am begrudgingly giving this book 3 stars just because I spent most of the day reading it. While it was at times intriguing and I needed to know how things were gonna end, by the end of the book I just found myself annoyed, even now as I’m writing this review I am annoyed lol.
Firstly, this is my first book by this author and I’m unsure if this kind of story is her usual. The more I read I wondered if it was intentionally written in the style that it was; as in the way a lot of the big things, the twists and the mystery were pretty much just there, there was no true hiding. In other words it was quite simplistic. But I’m not sure. I wouldn’t go into this with the idea of a big heart-pounding thriller. It’s more the pieces start to unravel and come together especially for Ellie’s mom and the reader who eventually gets more than one POV.
We pretty much know Ellie’s fate early on and I hated that. I wished for another outcome for her because my heart broke for her truly (and the weird ending does not make up for that). The further we get into the “then” chapters the harder it was to read them, I’d rather we didn’t get Ellie’s POV tbh. It was horrible to read. There’s a certain helplessness it evokes. Then there’s the POV we get from “Part three” and it’s very much Monologuing Villain.
Personally, I feel like the author attempted one too many pieces to this puzzle and it just felt like too much.
One of the bigger plot points was a little too far fetched for me.
And Hanna, girl, really?! Now what was the point of that honestly? I’m so annoyed and weirded out by that tbh.
Then there’s Laurel who I rarely liked; in the beginning she was hard to like at all even when a switch was flipped & she was moving on with her life after 10 yrs, she forgot about her other kids while grieving but all of a sudden wanted everyone to be a family again, ma’am please. But also there were times I did feel for her and even warmed up to her the more we go into the book but then she’d do some other stuff that I’d go back to not liking her a whole lot.
Then there’s Floyd & Poppy. Floyd who treasures Poppy but his first child SJ? Nah forget her, apparently. I didn’t mind SJ but what was that random rant about people being sheep? Very much felt like the author had something to say & that’s the only place she could slot it in. Also I’m sorry but Poppy unsettled me so many times, and she was not coming across as a child in any way until it was necessary for the plot. And again with Floyd it seemed like one too many things there that I’m not entirely sure how we should feel about it.
Don’t even get me started on characters getting all psychic all of a sudden about things that were happening or that they had a “feeling” about plus the character who sees auras. The author really said “eff it, put it all in there”
I think this book has one too many pieces to the puzzle trying to make it mysterious where I feel it would have been better to just focus on on one or two things. Some things were just weird and again I will reiterate WTF was the point in the Hanna thing? Of all the options it had to be that one? And the ending with Laurel? Ehhhh.
Anyways the book was entertaining. My heart really hurt for Ellie & she deserved better in so many ways. I enjoyed it in parts but unsure that this author’s books are for me.
by JulesH
I loved that this book was in the vein of books I’ve loved like Fowles’ The Collector or The Lovely Bones. I loved that the story is set in North London in and around all my old stomping grounds. I loved that the characters are not not perfect or too flawed and that the plot twists are believable but I didn’t guess them immediately. I kept turning pages and finally finished the book at 1am with my eyes closing. A lesson in how happy ever after is just about making the best of right here, right now. Beautifully written.
by Sandra E.
couldn’t put this book down , the daughter goes missing believed run away , but she’s not run away there’s so many twists turns it was brilliant, I got lost in the book and didn’t want it to end . I’m
now following this author and intend reading more books .
by DoodleJM
A good, fairly quick read. My first by this author. The multiple timeline, multiple narrator format meant that there wasn’t much surprise, but the story moved along nicely – although I felt the ending was a little rushed. I’ll definitely check out her other books.
by Amazon Customer
Like many of Lisa Jewell’s books, it has everything. Thrilling, happy, twisted, dark, sometimes predictable, sometimes unpredictable, and also like many of her other books – you just can’t put it down!!!! I’d recommend this if you’ve enjoyed other books from this author. It’s a good one.
by Read and Reviewed
Having read several of Lisa Jewell’s previous novels I have come to expect an engaging and well-written story that draws the reader in, flows effortlessly and features ‘real’ characters with heart that hold a readers attention. Unfortunately whilst I found Then She Was Gone easily readable I cannot say that much of what unravelled was either vastly original or well-disguised. In fact the synopsis for the novel and the first fifty-pages together will be enough for most readers to fill in the blanks. I believe that this is the first of Jewell’s attempt at turning her hand to a darker and more unsettling storyline and all in all it felt a little off, slightly warped and, at times, very unsavoury. Perhaps if this aspect had been executed a little more seamlessly then that would have translated to creepy and suspenseful, but as the inconsistencies and questions in the readers mind grow it never quite manages to convince.
Then She Was Gone opens ten years on from the disappearance of fifteen-year-old ‘golden girl’ and overachiever, Ellie Mack, having gone missing just days before her GCSE exams on a routine trip to the library. For her mother, Laurel, is was to be the start of something that has never ended and ripped a hole through her life and at the age of fifty-five she has split from husband, Paul and has a superficial relationship with remaining daughter, twenty-seven-year-old Hanna (the difficult middle child) and rarely sees her twenty-nine-year-old son, Jake. After two years the search was downgraded and Ellie chalked up as a runaway by the police but Laurel knows that would never have been the case and has never stopped hoping. Then, after ten years of no substantive leads human remains identified as Ellie’s and her backpack are found close to the ferry port in Dover. For Laurel this is an opportunity for closure and a chance to feel her way back into a life that ended the day Ellie vanished and she effectively stopped functioning as a mother to Hanna and Jake and a wife to Paul.
It is several weeks after Ellie’s funeral that Laurel meets Floyd Dunn, a charismatic single father with a twinkle in his eye and a very flirtatious tone. There is something of Paul about Floyd from his dress sense to his kindness and Laurel quickly finds herself swept off her feet and subsumed into his life which centres around his nine-year-old daughter, Poppy, who is the spitting image of Elise at that age and reminds Laurel so much of the daughter she lost. Brilliant at maths, with a dry sense of humour and a maturity surpassing her tender years, idolised by her father and clearly as infatuated by him, the experience is enough to send Laurel on a renewed search for answers to just what did happen to her beautiful Ellie. As Laurel slowly learns more about Poppy’s unconventional upbringing and home-schooled life with her father, she recognises a child desperately in need of a mother… and then Laurel stumbles upon a tangential connection from her life of ten years ago with Floyd and Poppy’s world and it is enough to send her into a obsessive search for the truth of her daughter’s disappearance.
In the main the narration is largely supplied by Laurel (with the now perspective) and Ellie (from ten years previously) aside from a few interludes from a more sinister voice (which felt contrived and I cannot say worked for me). Jewell has an abundance of experience with portraying credibly flawed individuals with believable redeeming features but on the evidence of her efforts in Then She Was Gone her attempt at recreating a nutjob was significantly below par! Lisa Jewell handles a dual ‘Then’ and ‘Now’ timeline with consummate ease and the switching back and forth is deftly done and feels incredibly natural. Occasionally with such dual timelines the constant transitioning can be somewhat jarring for the reader, but it is testament to Jewell’s expertise that even in a story which never hit the spot or connected with me, the unravelling was exceptionally well done.
As Ellie’s story unfolds in one timeline, alongside this the reader sees protagonist Laurel struggle to put her finger on where her feelings of disquiet are stemming from, but the fleeting connection between a time when Ellie was at home and glimpses into Floyd and Poppy’s past is enough for a newly positive Laurel to face the consequences of her journey. Despite Laurel being somewhat blinkered and a little slow on the uptake concerning Floyd and their fortuitous meeting I found her sympathetic and realistic. It was refreshing to hear her acknowledge her responsibilities for the distancing of her family and her contrasting attitude to both Ellie and her two older children, in particular Hanna who she is overly critical of and appears disappointed with for simply not being Ellie. Indeed it was the story of the Mack family and their evolution back to a complete blended family that genuinely seems well-explored with a realistic dynamic.
The let down for me is with Lisa Jewell’s characterisation of both the unbelievably articulate and ludicrously precocious nine-year-old, Poppy, a far too slick Floyd Dunn, not to mention the mentally insane character (Noelle) who connects the two families. Likewise, it was the dialogue of Noelle and Poppy that proved such a sticking point for me and was neither terribly realistic or convincing and had me cringing on many occasions. Poppy speaks like an over-educated forty-year-old and she is extremely self-possessed and all in all this feels a little unsettling and conjures up images of brainwashing! Also the relationship between Floyd and Poppy has rather too much of the Oedipus complex about it and in all honesty turned my stomach.
So, whilst Then She Was Gone is a decent read and far better than some of the more recent and frankly ridiculous psychological thrillers saturating the market place, it holds very little in the way of surprises for any savvy reader and relies on a sequence of unlikely coincidences. I didn’t find this an emotional read as it all felt a little too artificial and implausible for me, from the sentimental ending through to the good grace with which the unfolding revelations seemed to be received. All in all Then She Was Good is an immersive and very readable character driven family drama and offers an insightful look at a family reuniting after the tragic disappearance of one of their number.
Given the wealth of editorial support at Lisa Jewell’s behest, I do think that advising her on the scientific specifics of aspects of this book would have proved beneficial (rate of decomposition of a human body to skeleton form being just one of them).
Review written by Rachel Hall (@hallrachel)