The Girl You Lost - Kathryn Croft

Description
Eighteen years ago your baby daughter was snatched. Today, she came back. A sinister and darkly compelling psychological thriller from the No.1 bestselling author of The Girl With No Past. Eighteen years ago, Simone Porter’s six-month-old daughter, Helena, was abducted. Simone and husband, Matt, have slowly rebuilt their shattered lives, but the pain at losing their child has never left them. Then a young woman, Grace, appears out of the blue and tells Simone she has information about her stolen baby. But just who is Grace – and can Simone trust her? When Grace herself disappears, Simone becomes embroiled in a desperate search for her baby and the woman who has vital clues about her whereabouts. Simone is inching closer to the truth but it’ll take her into dangerous and disturbing territory. Simone lost her baby. Will she lose her life trying to find her? 

Review
This is the second book by Kathryn Croft that I have read and reviewed. You can find the review for The Girl With No Past here.

This book really caught my attention from the beginning - what happened?, who took Helena? and what relevance did Grace have to all of this? Lots of questions - no answers....

Unfortunately the characters themselves were a little wooden and one dimensional, but as I was racing through the book to find out what had happened it didn't really matter. I wasn't too bothered about getting to know the characters, just to find out what was going on. The author certainly keeps your attention throughout the book with lots of twists and turns.

Every time I felt the author had missed a point, or had made a continuity error, the next sentence cleared it up - it felt like I was keeping track of what was going on. Basically was the baby who had been abducted 18 years before still alive?

It is probably unfair to the author, but ever since reading "Fight Club" I will never let a novel make me think what it wants me to think! I'm always second guessing and deciding that is what the author wanted me to think, but I know better!  I have to say with this book I thought I knew who the perpetrator was, but I think probably it was the author leading me to think that in some double bluff kind of way.

Alongside the present day narrative there is a story being told from another perspective - a sort of flashback, except you have no idea who the character is. It's a little creepy as you feel this other story is closing in around Simone and she's going to be engulfed by it too. I admit to reading this parts of the book super quick as they are not for the faint hearted.

My only slight reservation with the book is that Simone seemed hell bent on putting herself in situations where no one knew where she was - I know she was not in a fit state of mind to be reasonable, but down right stupid did not seem to fit the character only the story line.

I'm not sure what I feel about the ending of the book - sad? happy sad? It's another little twist waiting for you to get to it!

I'm giving this four out of five stars. My thanks go to Netgalley for a free copy of this book to review.