I Found You
Lisa Jewell
Atria Books, April 2017
ISBN 978-1-5011-5459-1
Hardcover

Is there anything more evocative of a mystery than a stormy beach on the coast of the North Sea? Well, yes. Add in a man who huddles there wearing shirt and trousers for more than twenty-four hours while the rain beats down on his head. This is the scene that leads single mother Alice Lake, whose beach the man has selected to inhabit, out to give him a coat and ask him a question.

“Who are you?” she naturally asks. But he doesn’t know. He’s lost his memory. He’s lost himself.

In an act of kindness, Alice invites him into her chaotic home. Her three children, all from different fathers, and three dogs, all left behind for her to care for, greet the newcomer with varying degrees of welcome.

Since he lacks any other name, Alice’s youngest daughter bestows the name of “Frank”on the stranger. It serves as well as any as Alice and Frank try to discover just who he is and what he’s doing on Alice’s beach.

It’s quite a suspenseful journey.

Alice is a great character, complicated, compassionate, flawed, and ultimately, so worthy of love.

Her children, each very different from the other, are fleshed out real people. Each has a definite place in the story, when they so easily could’ve been thrown in simply for effect. And Alice’s friend Derry’s place is to help the story along.

The book is written in alternating points of view. There’s a present day young bride whose husband has gone missing, and a seventeen-year-old boy from twenty-two years ago whose sister was raped and murdered before him, her body carried out to sea and never found. And of course, both Frank’s and Alice’s.

Tension builds as Frank slowly recovers bits and pieces of his memory. The journey through his ordeal is mesmerizing.

Ms. Jewell’s storytelling and writing is wonderful. I’m already putting this one on my ‘best reads of 2017’ list, and I think anyone who picks it up will too.

Reviewed by Carol Crigger, February 2017, for Buried Under Books.

Wow! Gripping, suspenseful, and uniquely captivating, “I Found You” simply blew me away!! It’s not often that I find a book that has me completely enthralled right from the very beginning and straight up until the very end. But when I do, I want to shout it from the rooftops. So, this is me--on the rooftop--shouting.

Broken down in its simplest form, “I Found You” is actually three stories in one. The reader is first introduced to Alice Lake, a single mom living in a seaside town, who takes in a stranger that has lost all memory of who he is or where he’s from. Then, we meet Lily Monrose, a young bride whose husband mysteriously disappears after only a few weeks of marriage. Lastly, the story regresses back in time to 1993, where we meet Gray and Kirsty, teenage siblings, who once vacationed in that seaside town. In each scenario, secrets abound; each story is shrouded in mystery. But with each turn of the page, clues are laid out, insight is gained, and slowly, we’re able chip away at the underlying mystery.

Written in the present but interspersed with segments from the past, the story’s narration gives voice to several key characters. Each of these characters are complex and multi-layered, and are woven into an intricate plot that is nothing short of spell binding. It’s the tale of two very different women, whose present lives become entangled with men holding secrets from their pasts. And how their search for answers leads them to a shocking discovery when past and present finally converge to reveal the horrific truth.

This book takes shattered people, shatters them again, and then finds a way to put them back together that not only makes them stronger but gives them hope and purpose.

When Alice Lake decides to take a jacket to a lonely looking man that has been sitting on the beach in front of her home for hours, she did not realize that she would be involving herself in a 20-year old mystery. Alice is notorious for making bad life choices so it is no surprise that she invites him back to her home and allows him to live in her shed for the time being. Unaware of his own name or how he got there, the man that Alice’s children have name “Frank”, just knows that his answers are on this stretch of coastline.

Outside of London, Lily Monrose, a young recently married Ukrainian woman waits for her husband to arrive home. He is always on the same train, always answers his phone when she calls, always draws her bath at night and treats her in a way that no one has ever treated her before. What she did not know, was that her husband was not the person that she thought he was. His name is a fake, his passport a lie.

In 1993, the Ross family takes their annual vacation to the seaside town of Ridinghouse Bay. Kirsty, a young 15-year-old is smitten with a 19-year-old that she meets on the beach. Her brother Gray does not trust Mark, there is just something wrong with him. He warns his sister and their parents, but Mark comes from a local wealthy family, what could possibly go wrong.

Ms. Jewell expertly weaves these three stories together. As your brain intertwines the three narratives, you find yourself trying to figure out exactly who the man on the beach is. With various twists that prevent you from reaching the conclusion too quickly, you are drawn to this book in a way that only a well-written psychological thriller can.

Three stories converge to reveal a decades-old mystery in “I Found You,” the story of a man with no memories, a wife whose new husband has disappeared, and a family on holiday.

The book opens with Alice, a kind of lovable disaster finding the man they subsequently call “Frank,” for lack of a better thing to call him, staring out at the ocean. He has been there for days, has no idea who or where he is, and kind-hearted Alice takes him in, putting him up in a room normally reserved for boarders (which is just one of the ways she supports her children). Alice is a single mom, and despite knowing better she slowly becomes attracted to “Frank.”

Cut to Lily, a woman from the Ukraine who has relocated and married to the man of her dreams. He’s doting, loving, and missing. She has rushed into their marriage out of naiveté, and only when reporting his having gone missing does she learn his passport is a fake. The man she marries is a fraud. But who is he? And what has he done?

And then there’s Gray and Kirsty, brother and sister from a close-knit family on holiday who encounter Mark Tate, a handsome boy of means who, despite being older and probably out of her league, is fascinated with Kirsty, much to her brother’s chagrin. Gray gets a bad feeling from Mark from the outset. With good reason.

The story alternates and the author does an excellent job seaming past and present events with just enough foreshadowing to create intrigue (without telegraphing the outcomes of each of these characters’ situations). “I Found You” is a gripping page-turner with well fleshed out characters and an authentic voice. My primary complaint stems from Alice’s monitoring of her parents, both suffering from advanced dementia, on her iPad. I’m not sure why this was left in the final draft as it has little to nothing to do with either the story or Alice as a character other than to show that she envies the love between these people who know nothing else except for that they care about each other. Overall, an excellent book. Four and a half stars for this recommended read.

Thank you to author Lisa Jewell and Atria books for providing me with a review ARC.

I Found You by Lisa Jewell is a very highly recommended novel of suspense. This page-turner held my rapt attention from the mysterious beginning to the satisfying conclusion.

For much of the novel the story follows three different narratives. The first part of the book follows Alice and Lily.
Single mom Alice Lake lives in a seaside town, Ridinghouse Bay in East Yorkshire. She sees a man just sitting on the beach in the rain. He's been there for over a day and is soaking wet so she offers him a coat her former tenant left. She ends up inviting him to stay in her studio room/guesthouse for the night when it looks like he's simply going to stay on the beach. The man can't remember who he is or why he'd be at the beach. Alice's children give him the name Frank.

Twenty-one-year-old Ukrainian Lily Monrose has only been married for three weeks to Carl, her British husband when he fails to come home from work one night. She has no idea where he is or how to find him in England. When she contacts the police and gives them his passport, she learns from them that his passport is a fake and officially her husband, Carl Monrose, never existed. Lily was sure her much older husband was devoted to her and loved her, so where is he? But maybe more importantly, who is he?

The second part of the book opens in 1993 when Gray, seventeen, and Kirsty, fifteen, are on a summer holiday with their parents. In town and later on the beach nineteen-year-old Mark makes it clear that he likes Kirsty, while Gray doesn't quite trust Mark and his intentions toward his sister.

This is a captivating novel where the tension increases with each new chapter. Who is Frank? Where/who is Lily's husband? What are Mark's intentions? But the overriding question is how well do you really know other people? Alice tries to help Frank figure out who he is while Lily tries to figure out where her husband is. The story of Gray and Kirsty eventually ties into the other two, but it all happens in a rather surprising way.

Jewell's writing is admirable, both poetic and descriptive. I Found You is a well-paced novel that slowly becomes more and more unputdownable with each chapter. I can honestly say that I was equally interested in each character and every revelation or question that each new chapter divulged. The desire to just read one more chapter was almost addictive. She deftly moves her characters through their chapters and allows the questions and intrigue to build up while she develops her characters into believable people. Jewell combines impressive writing with great character development and wraps it all into a novel where the psychological suspense and mysteries keep building for a winning combination.

Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of Atria Books.
http://www.shetreadssoftly.com/2017/04/i-found-you.html
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1979552197

This will go live on my blog on May 5. Kellyvision.wordpress.com

This takes place in two time periods (present day and 1993). The 1993 story centers around a family (mom, dad, teenage boy and girl) on vacation. The girl meets a charming boy who turns out to be less than charming, after all. In present day, Alice (single mom, three kids) meets a man with amnesia. Meanwhile, Lily's a newlywed whose husband has gone missing.

Yes, that's a super vague synopsis. And yes, you've probably guessed how things fit together. (But do they?)

This is an incredibly fun novel, one that almost hinges more on its characters than on the plot itself. I didn't love any of them, but I still cared about their outcomes. I wanted (most of) them to be OK and to get a happy ending.

This is a total vacation novel, one that will hold your attention on an airplane. It's not this year's Must Read Thriller, but you'll have fun.

I found myself trying to squeeze in a few minutes here and there to read some more of this book. It definitely was one that was hard to put down. Throughout, I thought I might have unraveled the mystery but still was unsure.

Lisa Jewell writes an enthralling, character driven suspense novel in I Found You. Although the circumstances are somewhat rare, I still felt like the characters were completely believable. The story is written so that you feel like you are a part of it - uncovering new things along with the characters.

I really enjoyed how I Found You unfolded and revealed little layers at a time. The suspense was just enough to want me to keep turning those pages. Any time I am put in a situation when I really like a character, but am completely unsure if they are a bad guy or not, is a good day for me. This book keeps you guessing until the end.

I Found You is a psychological thriller that often had me on the edge of my seat. In her latest book, Jewell weaves together an intricate story with multiple points of view which captivated me and had me questioning the identity of some of the players.

And yet I'm finding this book hard to review. There are some great tension building scenes, a diverse cast of characters, a few time frames and a lot going on. But it worked ... until it didn't. Noooo! After the wonderful thrilling set up I was waiting for a gripping, twisty "I didn't see that coming!!" reveal but was left with an ending which felt too neat and tidy.

There are a variety of characters in the book and unhealthy, sometimes creepy and desperate, relationships abound. I know what Jewell is capable of with her characters (read her book The House We Grew Up In for stellar characterizations) but this time around they fell a flat for me. I wanted more depth to them and the fact that readers must suspend belief to believe that so many of the characters would refuse to involve the police (or medical help) when it's blatantly clear that many of the issues could be handled better by the authorities seemed an odd (and unbelievable) choice.

Alice, the single mom main character, came off as desperate, naive and not very likable. I couldn't get behind the idea of Alice bringing home a man she found on the beach like he was one of her dogs. Who does that with a house full of kids, especially after her past (which is eluded to but the details of which aren't given to the reader)? Lily, the young newlywed, felt excessively wooden and unemotional for a young woman whose life has just been turned upside down. The characters just didn't work for me.

What stood out for me is the tension-building and the fact that the author constantly had me questioning Frank's identity. It was awesome and I spent a couple very late nights unable to put the book down. The tension-building was a solid 4 - 4.5 stars for me but the depth of the characters and the ending lowered that stellar rating for me.

While this book wasn't a home run for me it is still quite a good read and Lisa Jewell will continue to be an author I seek out. We may not always see eye-to-eye on all of her books but she can spin a good, unique tale and when I can connect with her story and characters it's a truly awesome reading experience. My favourite book by Jewell continues to be The House We Grew Up In followed closely by The Girls in the Garden.

Disclaimer: My sincere thanks to Atria Books and NetGalley for providing me with a complimentary e-book copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It is my first read from Jewell, but will not be my last!

I read quickly through this book in one day, a real page turner. Found it interesting the way the story and characters developed with a solid ending.

Great read! Highly recommend!

I Found You by Lisa Jewell is my first encounter with this author, but will not be the last.

First, let me thank NetGalley, the publisher, and of course the author, for providing me with this copy in exchange for an honest review.

The story unfolds from three angles.

Alice, known for taking in strays of all kinds, finds a man sitting on the beach in the rain. He has no memory. No idea of who he is, where he is from, or how he arrived at the beach in Ridinghouse Bay. Alice brings him home, and lets him stay in her shed out the back. He is not the first man who has lived there, although they usually pay rent. Her three children, to varying degrees, disapprove. Her three dogs love him. Her youngest daughter names him Frank. They decide not to call the police yet. As Frank and Alice grow closer, his memory starts to return.

Lily, an immigrant from Ukraine, sits in her London apartment waiting for her husband to come home. They are newlyweds. Although they’ve only known each other a short time, Lily knows Carl would never leave her. They are hopelessly in love. He doesn’t come home. She calls the police. Now she realizes how little she knows about her husband.

Rewind to the year 1993. The Ross family rented Rabbit Cottage every year. Gray is 17 and his sister Kirsty is 15. Their parents are enchanted with the atmosphere of the cottage and the area of Ridinghouse Bay. The kids loved it when they were younger, but this year they don’t really want to be there. When a young man named Mark Tate starts showing a rather obsessive interest in Kirsty, Gray is on guard. The family will never be the same.

As mentioned earlier, this is the first book I’ve read by Lisa Jewell. I really like her style of writing, and the suspense really built with the way the story unfolded. Her characters were really deep enough so that you felt you “knew” them. There was a bit of a twist at the end, which was really good.

Worth the read!

When Alice finds a mysterious man sitting on the beach outside her house, she has no idea what is in store for her when she takes him in. Lily is a newlywed whose husband has disappeared. She starts digging and finds out that... the man she married doesn't exist. As parts of the past are revealed, the present becomes clearer.

I kept thinking I knew what was happening, with this one, but I was so wrong. You are given bits and pieces as uncovered from the characters' point of views, but how trust worthy are those clues? Each character has a distinct voice and sees things from their skewed advantage. That all adds to the mystery. 'Frank' sees Alice in a completely different light than she sees herself, but how trustworthy is the opinion of someone who has no idea who they are? Lily thought she scored the perfect husband, until she starts to question all those nagging inconsistencies.

Past and present are intertwined in a story that will have you guessing right up until the very end.

I received an advance copy from the publisher, via NetGalley.

This was my first time reading Lisa Jewell and this was an amazing suspense/thriller! This story involves several people, beginning with Alice who spots a man on the beach below her cottage one day – a man that has no idea who is or how he got there. Then there is Lily, who is new to London and her new husband Carl has suddenly gone missing. Alice decides to help the nameless man try to discover who he is while Lily works with police, one of her husband’s friends, and anyone who will help her to try and find her husband. In the meantime, we learn the story of Gray and Kirsty and their last summer at the beach with their parents. This tale weaves back and forth between each story keeping you on the edge of your seat wondering who is who, what happened, where is Carl, and who is this man with no memory?

I’ll start with Alice who I loved! She was so down to earth, raising three children, yet still decided to take a chance on a man with no recall of who he was and allow him to stay in her guest cottage – and feed him, clothe him, and help him figure out who he is. Then there is the mystery man himself, who they decide to call “Frank.” I love his quiet peacefulness, even when he has no clue who he is, and I love his honesty as he does start to get flashes of his memory. I did struggle to connect with, or even care about Lily and her missing husband Carl. They had only been married a few weeks and were supposedly madly, crazy in love, but something about her just didn’t mesh well with me, not sure why. Then there were Graham (Gray), his sister Kirsty, and their parents. I liked this family and especially admired Gray’s protective nature when it came to his younger sister being “courted” by an older boy.

I Found You kept me guessing the entire time and honestly, it surprised the hell out of me. The entire novel I thought I knew what was really going on, however, I was so far off-base that there are no words. The novel was already fast-paced and attention-grabbing, but once everyone sort of “meets,” I realized that I did not have the slightest clue what was really going on – which I love! Between Alice and “Frank” investigating and trying to trigger his memory, coupled with Lily trying to find her husband, bits and pieces slowly roll out and were wonderfully shocking!

Amazon categorizes this novel as “women’s fiction” and “domestic life.” Do not be misled by this odd categorization. This is a mystery/suspense/thriller at its finest. It combines fabulous literary fiction with a suspenseful twist that you will not be able to put down once you start. I suggest starting this one when there are plenty of hours left in the day unless you want a long night of reading – you will have to know what the truth is! Pre-order this one ASAP, it was fantastic.

*Thanks to NetGalley for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I loved this book! I couldn't put it down ... I read most of it in a single day.

I loved all the mystery aspects of it, all the twists, and how everything was connected. I really liked the main character, local artist Alice, her three kids, her three dogs, and how she didn't have a filter and didn't really care what other people thought of her.

This is my second Lisa Jewell book and I will be on the lookout for more from her. Her writing is addicting!

Thank you, Netgalley, for this arc.

This is the first book I have read by the author and I really enjoyed it. This book has multiple story lines and is told from multiple perspectives. Alice and her children find a man wondering around on the beach during a storm. Once Alice realizes he has no idea who he is, she brings him home and tries to help him remember who he is and how he got to the beach. We also meet Lily who is newly married. She has recently moved when he husband goes missing and while trying to retrace his movements and help the police, she finds out he wasn't who she thought he was. There is also Graham and his family who are on vacation, when a stranger begins showing interest in his sister.

I really enjoyed this book, as well as the author's writing. I don't always enjoy this style of writing, as it can become confusing if done wrong, but this book flowed very well. I felt that it was a bit slow in the beginning, but the plot moved along at a steady pace during the rest of the book. In the end, we find out how all of these characters and stories are connected and intertwined. We got to know the characters pretty well throughout the book. Overall, I thought it was an interesting plot and the author did a good job writing with multiple perspectives.

I e joyed the way Lisa wrote, small chapters with a little bit being revealed about the diferent points of view about the main characters.
A young woman is left on her own, her husband goes missing and she sets out to find him - with only one clue - a phone number.
In a other town Alice finds a man sitting on the beah - he has no memory. Alice is lonely and disorganised. She has 3 children all with diferent fathers. Her best friend keeps her grounded.
Alice gives the lost man a home and a name and tries to help him regain his memory.
Msanwhile 23 years earlier in the same town, another person goes missing and Gray tries to protect his younger sister from a man they meet on the beach.
I loved the twists in this novel, the characters were believable. There was romance, history, suspense and sadness.




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What happens when there is a single woman with three children, a man who doesn't know who he is, a newly married woman who just moved to town, and a family who might have a connection to them at some point?

Alice, Lily, and "Frank" are connected but don't know they are.

Alice invited "Frank" inside her home when she saw him sitting on the beach.

Lily's husband has disappeared and has no clue what happened to him or if she even knows who he is.

"Frank" doesn't know who he is.

I FOUND YOU has odd, dysfunctional, and mentally ill characters but flows well and has a story line that grabs you. I liked the back and forth in time and the back and forth between the three main characters.

As you read you know something is wrong all around. Someone just doesn't disappear, end up back where they may have been as a child, or be in some place a crime had taken place.

Ms. Jewell weaved in a great deal of suspense, intrigue, edge-of-your-seat tension, and a whole lot of I don't want to stop reading in I FOUND YOU even though some chapters were literally frightening and became more frightening as the book continued.

The secret of it all led to an ending with a marvelous twist and surprise. 5/5

This book was given to me free of charge and without compensation by the publisher in return for an honest review.

I really enjoyed Lisa Jewell's "I Found You". It's an easy, interesting and intriguing read - pure escapism! And who doesn't need that now and then?

There are three mini-stories going on throughout the book: single mom, Alice, with a history of making bad decisions, finds a man on the beach who has no idea who he is or where he's from, and she decides to help him; a newly-wed wife, Lily, whose husband goes missing ten days after returning from their honeymoon, and when police investigate, tell her that there is no such person; and a flash-back to 22 years ago when a family with a brother and sister were on vacation and a tragedy occurs.

How Jewell weaves these stories together, never divulging too much at a time, is skillful, fun, and keeps the reader's attention. This character-based book is one enjoyable read, and I recommend it to anyone!

Many thanks to NetGalley, the author, and Atria books for allowing me to read and review an e-ARC of this book.

Three story lines come together in unexpected ways in Lisa Jewell's new mystery, I Found You. Alice is intrigued by the man she finds on the beach outside her home who claims to have no memory of his life before that moment. A young newlywed is terrified when her husband doesn't come home. And, twenty-plus years earlier in Alice's town, a teenage boy finds something off-putting about his younger sister's new admirer. Naturally, these stories are all connected, but it will take until late in the story to find out the exact relationship between them. The "historical" parts of the story are the most intriguing, as it's clear there is something wrong with one of the characters, and the potential for that character's relationship to the characters in the present is disturbing. Overall, a pretty intriguing story that truly kept me turning the pages.

3.75 stars

I'm a bit conflicted on how to rate this book. I enjoyed reading it, no problems there, it's just that I had to suspend belief in how the whole story came together in order to enjoy it...see my quandary?

What I liked:

-Alice, one of the main female characters. She is flawed and has made a lot of poor choices in her life but she is also strong and made sure she landed on her feet. The best part about her? She curses a lot. It amazes me how many authors omit this simple character trait when it is something that everyone does in normal day to day life. I found her simple slips of the tongue both endearing and refreshing.

-The plot/mystery itself. While still part of the 'stretch', the lone man on the beach with no memory did intrigue me. As the story starts to unfold, I felt the author did a nice job of revealing just the right amount of breadcrumbs at just the right time to keep me invested.

What I didn't like:

-The pace. It was a bit slow for my liking. Took awhile to get there.

-The plot/mystery itself. Yes, I both loved it and then didn't. The downside to the plot is that it's just hard to believe all of it could have even happened the way it did. You know what I mean-no character ever feels it's right to call the police, or a character has completely lost his memory but no one takes him to a Dr. Yet miraculously they are able to solve the mystery on their own through convoluted ways that would never happen in real life.

But... I think the good definitely outweigh the bad here, so go grab yourself a copy and enjoy!

ARC provided by NetGalley

I really love thrillers with a character that has a memory loss. Don't know why, but it fascinates me. I haven't read two stories alike, and this one is no exception. It is GOOD. The plot is so well written that my jaw touched the floor a couple of times. Literally. The characters are well-defined, some detestable, some lovable.