Laurel has never been able to get over Ellie’s disappearance and as the rest of her family have moved on, Laurel has drifted through the last ten years. Ten years later, her family has evaporated – Ellie’s disappearance and the subsequent stress caused the breakdown Laurel’s marriage and her relationship with her other two children is remote and difficult. Laurel Mack’s daughter Ellie was only 15 when she went missing. What really happened to Ellie? And who still has secrets to hide? Now all those unanswered questions that have haunted Laurel come flooding back. And then she meets a charming and charismatic stranger who sweeps her off her feet.īut what really takes her breath away is when she meets his nine-year-old daughter.īecause his daughter is the image of Ellie. Ten years on, Laurel has never given up hope of finding Ellie.

Long after I finished the book, I was still wondering about how each move we make in life can affect not only ourselves, but the generations that come after.She was fifteen, her mother’s golden girl.Īnd then, in the blink of an eye, Ellie was gone. It raises the bigger question of how each person’s life would have turned out if they had not made that one wrong move, or as Ellie describes it, experienced a “kink” in the timeline. The story is interesting in that a number of “chance” meetings drive the narrative, including the ones between Noelle and Ellie and Floyd and Laurel. For the reader, knowing what happens to Ellie, while simultaneously watching Laurel uncover the truth, creates an effective cringe-worthy tension, as we wait for Laurel to uncover the devastating facts behind her daughter’s disappearance. Through chapters labeled “then” and “now,” author Lisa Jewell allows the reader to see events as they actually happen to Ellie “then” and watch the mystery unfold through Laurel’s eyes “now.” She later inserts Noelle into the narrative, letting her tell the story from her own chilling perspective. Though Laurel doesn’t know it, all three of their lives are deeply intertwined in a way that she, and the reader, could never have expected. Not only that, but Laurel begins to wonder about her new beau, especially when she discovers that Poppy’s mother, Noelle, who has also disappeared, was once Ellie’s tutor. Moving on is made more difficult, though, when she meets Floyd’s daughter, Poppy, a child who looks just like Ellie.

A chance meeting in a café becomes a romance, and slowly, Laurel starts to deal with the fact that her daughter is never coming home. Divorced and still mourning the girl’s loss ten years later, she hasn’t really moved forward until she meets Floyd.

When Laurel Mack’s 15-year-old daughter, Ellie, disappears, Laurel’s life begins to crumble.

Then she was gone a novel reviews