A troubled mother (Audra) is in the process of fleeing her wealthy, abusive husband when she has her car stopped by a shady police officer in rural Arizona. He and a colleague abduct her two children but then claim she never had children in the car with her to begin with. As suspicions turn to Audra, she must prove her innocence (and her sanity) all the while getting to the bottom of what happened to her kids. Hint: it has something to do with the “dark web”. This commercial thriller leaves a lot to be desired when it comes to character development, but plot-driven readers will likely appreciate all of the action. For fans of Harlan Coben, Lisa Gardner and maybe even Chevy Stevens.

A masterpiece of creativity and not so far-fetched as to think it could never happen. A mother with her two children aboard are pulled over by a local sheriff in an out of the way off the map ghost of a town. As she is carted off to jail for some rinky-dink charge her children are taken by a deputy to a safe house. When she asks her jailer about her children the sheriff’s reply is “what children”? From there it goes downhill. Eventually the children are found and their destination to a game for sadistic adults is discovered. A sex traffic scheme, big money for young sex toys for depraved adults. Finally, vengeance. Now you know the story but the enjoyment is in the reading, the who, what, why and how? A thought provoking five star read I have no hesitation to recommend.

I kept reading to the end but was sadly never surprised by the plot.

A tense thriller about a mother who stands to lose her children in a multitude of ways. I had some difficulty with the believability of the characters, but I thought the story was innovative and exciting. Very shocking and suspenseful, I couldn't put it down until I got to the end.

This had me turning pages left and right! Great suspense, super fast paced and makes me want to read more from this author.

Audrey is running away from her terrible past with her children. She is not hiding from the law technically but was she? When she is stopped by the cops on her way to San Deigo, does not realize her life was going to turn for worse. She knows the cops took her children while she was arrested on a fake charge of possession of Marijuana, but who is going to believe her? It is her words against the County Sheriff's, and her ex-husband's attempts to discredit her does not help her case. A former addict, single mother with no one turn to, one who is running away from Child Protection Services. It doesn't take long for the media to turn her into the villain - child murderer. Does she get her kids back? Who could help her out?


I always have affliction towards strong women who face abusive relationships and come out better for it. Audrey's past made me like her and understand her situation better. She is a flawed woman, my favorite kind, who has had a terrible past, yet she fends for her own - well mostly. I do hope Patrick and his mother rot in a special kind of hell, or wherever bad guys from books go at the end. I had a problem with the whole Audrey - Patrick scene was how quick she recovered from her drinking woes, I don't think that happens so fast and easy ever.


I have a solid woman crush on Mrs. Gerber. I could picture her smoking from the top of her stairs looking down at her husband's body like a badass, just moments after pushing him down to his death. I wish I could have felt this close to Danny or Audrey, but I am not complaining. Dark web and their conversations were flimsy and disappointing. Thankfully their parts were kept brief, lest it might have been bizarre and too clichéd.




Rarely thrillers sustain the pace they begin with. Here and gone does a great job at maintaining it till the very end, even after we got to know what had happened to the kids. Even if at times when we get the gnawing feeling that it is one of those stories that has been retold countless times, we stick glued to the book, and that is the power of crisp and straight forward narration. There are no unnecessary twists and turns that could have made false promises to the reader.

Here and Gone does justice to the plot and genre. I can recommend this book if you are looking for a fast paced thriller that might keep you occupied for an hour or two.

It would be so horrible to be pulled over by police and taken to jail even when you have done nothing and then be told you did something to your children because no one can find them. This book was so hard to put down. I could not wait to find out if they would find the children dead or alive. I loved this story and hope it would never happen to any one I know. I received a copy of this book from Firsttoread for a fair and honest opinion that I gave of my own free will.

This is a solid thriller with some great, developed characters and a quick pace that keeps you wanting more of the story. I gave this 4 stars on goodreads.

The blurb alone was enough to suck me in. Stories that include abusive relationships always drag me in, you just never know! only in this book you actually do know. It's the characters that are out of the loop, I have to say I really enjoyed this change. I feel so bad for the main character, you know she's right yet you know something is just not right. There are some things in here that are definitely sensitive, but I know that it is also realistic, and I also enjoyed that very much. There is some serious ugly here, and I don't know that many could handle this however, I think the author really took a chance here and succeeded in writing on this subject, I don't know that many could pull it off with out making the reader feel annoyed at everything going wrong for the main character, knowing everyone else is wrong as well as screaming "This isn't right!" or "This isn't fair!"... I hope that made sense! I recommend this book to all of my thriller loving friends and anyone who enjoys an enthralling page turner!

Loved this book
Didn't want it to end
Highly recommended

There are certain keywords that are overused in book reviews, both amateur and blurbed on the front and back covers. Compelling is a certain favorite. Such a compelling novel! A compelling storyline! A compelling tale of strength and a mother's love!

This book is not compelling.

This book is propelling. This book forces you to continue, pushing you farther and faster into the action. You will find yourself incapable of setting it down, needing to, feeling compelled to, continue on until you reach the bad-ass, heart pounding climax.

You will be exhausted, and winded, and you will feel so completely and utterly satisfied by the end.

I have a major love/hate relationship with stories involving hurt and/or missing children. I love them, but at the same time, they mess with my head, with my heart, with my nervous system. Even though you're certain everything will be alright in the end, you just never know what is going to happen between lost and found. The better the writer, the worse the dread.

Haylen Beck, aka Stuart Neville, is very. very. very good at causing dread, and anxiety. You need Audra to get her children back. You need these corrupt figures to get their comeuppance, in the most upward direction possible. You want CARNAGE, because he makes you want it.

There is no down time in this novel. You aren't ever lulled by waiting for something to happen. Any time you're not right in the thick of it, you are waiting, waiting, waiting, because you know something is about to happen, and it's not going to be good.

The characters are fantastically well done. Audra is a complex, flawed character who you find yourself rooting for from the start. Her children aren't perfect snowflakes, but they aren't little brats, either. Her husband is a dickwad of epic proportion, and while I won't say my exact thoughts on him, I will say that anyone who knows what my long-standing career was, will understand when I say I've spoken to him before. Multiple times a day.

Our main villains aren't black and white, mustache twirling bad guys. They aren't good guys, we're not conflicted about them. But they're written in such a way that they're believable.

That's the thing about this book. It's propelling because it is so. damn. believable. This really could happen. Odds are good something like this HAS happened. It's horrifying and nerve wracking and you will NEED to get to the end to feel better about the world.

So good. So, so, so good.

"Unputdownable"
This was a rare treat - one of those gripping, engrossing books that you cannot wait to get back to when life gets in the way of reading. Absolutely enthralling from start to finish. What a ride! Thank you for the ARC! I can't wait to see more from this author.

Absolutely brilliant.
I was hooked from the first chapter. That's not to say that I felt entirely comfortable reading those first few chapters; in fact, when Sheriff Whiteside made his appearance, I felt like holding the book between my finger and thumb, setting it down somewhere far away then scrubbing myself clean in a shower, it was THAT creepy!
Once I realised I couldn't actually put the book down, my brain relished the quickly changing storylines and my heart demanded to know if they were going to save the children or not.
If I were to say one thing negative about this book, it would be that I felt that some loose ends remained at the final page.....Did Danny get a lead on his daughter's fate? What about Robert and his mother - did they get some kind of punishment for the way they had treated Audra? What happened to Collins' sick son?

Then again, when a book still makes us ask questions when we've finally closed it, I guess the author has done their job. Thanks, Hayley Beck, for sending my wheels of thought spinning!

Enthusiastic five stars for this. I'd give it more if I could. It was a hard read because just the thought of bad cops pulling something like this... so scary. The characters were well written. I was intensely pulled into this story. The ending was fantastic.

This was an intense book whereby a woman fleeing from her husband with her two kids is pulled over by a policeman. He pulled her over because her car looked overweight and he was worried about her with all the bad roads around. Then, lo and behold he finds a bag of marijuana when he has her open the trunk. So, now he has a reason to arrest her. He radios a deputy to call the tow truck driver and to come and take the kids someplace "safe". The woman is placed in the back of his squad car and together the policeman and her wait for the deputy and the tow truck. After this, they leave and she is put into jail. When she asks about her children and where they are going, the policeman says "What children?".

Now, the woman, Audra, is seriously wondering what is going on here. Did these cops take her children, did her abusive ex husband set this up, what is she going to do. She wants her children. No one believes her when she says the cops took her children. She is held in jail for the marijuana, but because they can't find the children, they are not able to charge her for child endangerment. The news of the missing children get out and Audra is immediately considered guilty by the public. There are news reporters and TV crews getting the word out about what is happening. Audra maintains her innocence and realizes it is up to her to find her children because no one believes she did not hurt her children.

A page turner that I definitely enjoyed.

Thanks to Crown Publishing and Net Galley for providing me with a free e-galley in exchange for an honest, unbiased review.

Although I am unfamiliar with the author, Haylen Beck is a most impressive writer. "Here and Gone" is a good, old fashioned thriller. The reader is held in suspense from first page to last. If comparing this book to something else, I would say "Gone Girl" with a Stephen King touch of storytelling. An excellent effort by Beck and a book that is certain to be a hit movie down the road.

Audra Kinney has finally escaped her abusive husband in New York and is taking her two children, Sean and Louise, to seek a new life in California. Near a small town in Arizona, however, she is stopped by the sheriff who plants evidence of a crime on her and then he and his female partner kidnap the children. The police claim she didn’t have any kids with her when she was stopped but that she did indeed have them at some point before they vanished. Soon the FBI and the media are swarming the small town. It is a case of he said/she said and the sheriff who stopped her is well-liked in the town, has been a police officer for 25 years, and is a decorated military veteran and war hero. She, on the other hand, has a history of drug addiction, alcohol abuse and mental illness. And she took the children because Child Services was about to give them back to her husband. Not surprisingly, no one believes her story.

No one, that is, except Danny Lee, a one-time Tong member in San Fransisco. Her story echoes his own. Five years earlier, his wife was driving with their daughter when she was stopped by two small-town cops. When their daughter disappeared, the cops claimed she didn’t have a child with her. Six weeks later his wife committed suicide. Unfortunately, before he could find out who was really behind the kidnapping, the two cops die, one by his hand and the other in a bar fight. He is convinced that the same people are involved here and he heads to Arizona to help Audra get her kids back by any means necessary, find his own daughter if she is still alive, and at least get his revenge if she isn’t. But the clock is ticking and, if they can’t find them quickly despite all the obstacles in their way, the kids will be gone forever and Audra will be charged with their murder.

Here and Gone is one fast, exciting and unputdownable thriller by author Haylen Beck (pen name for author Stuart Neville). I always read before going to sleep and I, foolishly, decided to start this one at bedtime. Trust me when I tell you Do Not Do That. This book is just one long adrenaline rush of a story – just as one crisis is resolved or averted, another one is there to take its place leaving the reader little chance of a breather. For anyone who likes books that have the same effect on their system as a double shot of espresso, this one is definitely for you.

Thanks to Netgalley and Crown Publishing for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review

Great read!! This one hits the ground running and doesn't let up. Lots of excitement kept the pages flying by. My only gripe was that the ending should have been more fleshed out. I would still recommend it in spite of the ending. I will be looking for other books by this author.

This is one of those books where you need to stay in the dark about it until you read it. The synopsis alone should draw you in. It drew me in!

I kept asking myself, "What am I reading? Do I want to keep reading?". And I asked myself these not because the book wasn't good, but because I wasn't sure if I wanted certain things to happen that seemed to be moving in that direction.

Let me tell you, the heroine in this book is a bad ass! With everything that she has gone through to get her children safe, then them being taken and disappeared, she does what any mother would do...

For a thriller, this was definitely a page-turner. Everyone knows that I love some big plot twists. There weren't necessarily any of those, but I definitely didn't see some things coming that did.