[Review] The Girl You Lost - Kathryn Croft

Summary: 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 daughter 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? (Pub Date: Feb 5, 2016)

ARC received from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review

Simone has lost her baby daughter many years ago and now Grace, a young woman, approaches her saying she is the one Simone has been looking for. Before they can get any DNA proof, however, Grace disappears once again, and Simone needs to follow a trail that becomes more twisted with each step she gets closer to the truth of what happened eighteen years ago and the night before Grace came to her.

I feel this book tried too hard. I do agree this is gripping, I couldn't stop reading. First because I took long to figure anything out, the author was good at leaving just enough to keep us reading and never what we needed to know the answer. At least, it was so for half the book. The other half, don't think it went downhill. The action scenes and plot twists did their job. And then we simply couldn't leave the main characters alone until we knew what happened to them.

Although, at first, I thought people act weird—just go to the police already!—, it wasn't hard to like the main character. I do wish I had enjoyed Abbott and Matt more, her two love interests here, and that Ginny, Grace's mother, had had more depth and more importance. On the other hand, there wasn't a character I actually hated unless I was supposed to—this book has a lot of bad people to hate.

The big fault in the book are the extra bits. The main story is nice, the drama is heartbreaking, the action scenes are gripping, you do want to know what happened, and even though I guessed most of it in the middle (and had a feeling from the beginning), I still wanted to know what would happen. But extra happenings kept piling up and now I'm done I am still not sure why they were written—hence calling them extra. I wonder if this time edition got in the way, giving us some scares—there was a character that was only present to scare Simone—and twists—was that last plot twist even necessary? I can here the editor screaming "brilliant" while I just rolled my eyes at how much of a cliche that changed nothing it was.

I feel sorry for pointing those no-nos out because the truth is that it was a lovely story. I couldn't put the book down until I learned everything the author had to tell me. Despite having everything there for a lot of heavy tear-inducing scenes, I admire how she stood her ground and didn't sell us melodrama. Moreover, I was very glad with the ending. This is not extraordinary but above average and more than recommendable.

Rate: 4