Losing You by Nicci French

Losing You by Nicci French
My rating: ⭐⭐⭐/5

It's Nina Landry's birthday, and she's supposed to have her kids ready to leave in a few hours for a Christmas holiday in Florida with her new boyfriend, but her fifteen-year-old daughter Charlie spent the night at a friend's and hasn't come home yet. Not by ten a.m., not by eleven. Nina is getting angry---they have a plane to catch, and Charlie hasn't even bothered to pack. As time passes, though slower and slower by the minute, Nina becomes uneasy. Her anger gives way to worry, and that worry quickly builds into panic.
By one p.m., she's wondering, has Charlie run away, or has something far worse happened? And why won't anyone---not the cops, not Charlie's friends, not Charlie's father---take her disappearance seriously?
As day turns to night on their home of Sandling Island sixty miles from London, and a series of ominous secrets leads Nina from sickening suspicion to deadly certainty, the question becomes less whether she and her daughter will leave the island in time and more whether they'll ever leave it again.
In "Losing You," the newest thriller from the long-acclaimed master of psychological suspense, Nicci French unravels one mother's life and replaces it with every mother's worst nightmare.

Paperback: 368 pages

Expected publication: January 28th 2020 (first published March 2005)  

Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks 

REVIEW

I am a big fan of Nicci French but Losing You wasn’t a favorite. To begin with, some of the things happening prior to Nina’s discovery of her daughter Charlie missing were almost comical and I don’t mean this in a good way. The entire island *popping* over for a surprise birthday party on the day she’s leaving out of the country for vacation seemed a bit outrageous to me, not to mention that nobody was packed ...so, yeah, there's that.
There are some other things, too, but I can’t really point them out without revealing spoilers so I’ll leave my statement at that. Another thing was that I had a strong suspicion of just who took Charlie, it was basically a blinking neon sign and this made it a bit hard to push through. I felt like there was a lot of clutter and a ‘look here, not there’ attempt at giving the abductor and excuse to be around.

What I did like is the actual story-line and how well-developed the characters are. I am a fan of any book that can make me have a strong feeling for any of its characters and Losing You was able to do that. I felt emotionally drained at certain points throughout the story because I was having intense feelings towards certain characters and events. While I was 99% sure who the abductor was, the revelation of why was intriguing. I am a mother and the thought of one of my children going missing is the worst thing I can imagine so while I thought Nina acted a bit rashly, I understand that Ms. French is conveying the absolute panic a mother would feel and the absolute certainty that there is nothing you wouldn’t do to protect your children.

This wasn’t the best book I’ve read by Ms. French but it was still good and I’d still recommend it to any fan of the genre.

A big thank you to Edelwiess and William Morrow Paperbacks for providing me with a copy of Losing You to read and review.


View all my reviews