A dark, twisty thriller with wonderfully complex characters. A certain romantic/physical tension kept the pages turning.

Thank you Netgalley for sending me a pre-release copy.

This was a pretty good book. Kind of messed up. Loved the chemistry between Vega and Cap. Kept you going to the end. Good page turner.

Great read-- characters were interesting, plot was realistic and ending came out of nowhere. I look forward to hopefully seeing Vega and Cap again

An exciting read that was quick and adventurous. I loved all the characters. A great read.

4⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Alice Vega is a tough bounty hunter (in a unique kind of way). Her specialty is finding missing people. She’s good at what she does - and she knows it. Rawhide tough, she doesn’t let anyone get too close to her, but knows this time she’s going to need help.

Max Caplan, (Cap) is a former policeman who was forced into early retirement. He’s a single father raising his sixteen (going on 25!) year old daughter, while now working as a private detective.

Vega is called to a small town in PA to assist in finding two missing young girls. It’s time to enlist the help of Cap. With two sets of eyes, and no help from the local police department she hopes to hunt down the kidnappers before it’s too late.

I just loved the dynamic between Cap and Vega. You can feel the tension, touch the sparks…grasp the loneliness of their hearts. Truthfully, I was more swept up in their dynamic than the actual kidnapping!

This is a slow read, but once in I was all in, and found it hard to put down. The chapters are long, but you’ll easily lose yourself in the storyline. I didn’t want it to end, and was left hoping to hear more from Cap and Vega in the future! Highly recommend!

A Traveling Sister read with Brenda, Susanne and Jan! 🤗💜

Thank you to NetGalley, Doubleday Books and Louisa Luna for an ARC to review in exchange for an honest review.

For this review and our full Traveling Sister review please visit Brenda and Norma's fabulous blog:
https://twosisterslostinacoulee.com/

Alice Vega is a bounty hunter hired to find to girls who were kidnapped from a mall. Vega is a female Bosch. She is tough and smart. Teaming up with a disgraced ex cop, they navigate the twists, turns, and lies on their quest to investigate the crime. Two Girls Down by Louisa Luna is an adrenaline rush from start to finish.

My review for this book can be found on my GoodReads account. The link to that account is https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/1335387-kelly.

Doubleday Books and NetGalley provided me with an electronic copy of Two Girls Down. I was under no obligation to review this book and my opinion is freely given.

When two sisters go missing from their mother's car while she is running a quick errand, will private investigator Alice Vega be able to find them in time? After getting no help from the local police, Alice turns to a fellow investigator and former police officer for assistance. As the team digs through the scant evidence, will their perseverance pay off?

This book had a good flow and I liked the main character Alice Vega quite a bit. The IT guy that Vega calls on for assistance feels like the main behind the curtain, a shadowy figure that is just there to give Alice the information she needs to allow the plot to move forward. I would have liked a little more background on the man, especially the details as to how the professional relationship with Alice started. Readers who like mystery/thrillers and suspense will enjoy the intensity of the search and the good characterization. Two Girls Down was a good novel and I look forward to reading more by author Louisa Luna in the future.

HOLY CRAP!!! I know I'm late to the party, but I was not expecting to like this as much as I did. I'll admit, I had an eye-roll moment in the middle when there started to be a somewhat forced romance brewing, but I got over it. Other than that, it was exactly what I wanted in a thriller/mystery novel.

I flew through this book, and I was really bummed I had to go to sleep last night before I could finish (lol). The book was extremely intriguing and entertaining from beginning to end...with a few minor dull parts. I really enjoyed how Luna explored all potential suspects and theories - it definitely felt like I was part of the investigation myself. That may seem like a drag to some people, but I thought it was necessary. Because that makes the ending SO MUCH BETTER.

There have been a few books in my life that have made me emotional in the ending as they solve mysteries and/or explain what happened. Two Girls Down is one of them (but maybe it was the wine). Anyway, Vega and Caplan are sorting things out and then an epiphany hits, and it's like oh my gosh I knew the whole time! But no one really did because Luna so expertly takes you down different paths and red herrings. There were lots of characters, but they were introduced and developed so naturally, I felt like the city of Denville was real, and I was part of it.

I absolutely love love love the second-to-last chapter when they explain everything from a birds-eye/true crime/news point of view. I was extremely impressed by that. It's not something you see/read every day, and I definitely got chills. It really could've ended there...but I think readers will be happier with more of a wrap-up and conclusion.

I just added all of Louisa Luna's books to my Want-To-Read shelf. Excited to read more of her works, especially as she develops into this genre.

*Thank you to Netgalley and Doubleday for the ARC, for which I have given an honest and unbiased review*

Published by Doubleday on January 9, 2018

Jamie Brandt leaves her two daughters, Kylie and Bailey, in the car while she runs into a K-Mart for a birthday present. When she comes out, the kids are gone. Yes, this is an “every parent’s nightmare” story. But it’s better than most child kidnapping stories, which tend to overdo scenes of hand-wringing and weepiness and too often feature self-righteous protagonists who make a point of telling the reader how deeply they care about children, unlike all the people who care less than they do.

As parents go, Jamie is kind of a wreck even before the kids disappear. She hires Alice Vega to recover her kids. Vega has made a reputation as someone who gets kids back by working harder than the police. In her own way, she’s just as screwed up as Jamie, but that doesn’t stop her from being competent. It also makes her interesting, as does the fact that she hates men, although to be fair, she seems to hate everyone. Vega cares about child victims, but she also cares about getting paid big bucks. She isn’t self-righteous about what she does, and that’s refreshing.

Max Caplan is another interesting character. A cop who retired in disgrace, Caplan now works as a private investigator. He’s also a bit of a wreck but, he isn’t self-pitying about it. In fact, he wrecked his life to help a friend, so he’s a decent guy. His daughter doesn’t live with him, but when they’re together, she’s his touchstone of moral authority.

Vega hires Caplan as her local source of information. They make a good pair of contrasting characters as the story moves forward. The novel succeeds as a character-driven story that pairs two broken people on a joint quest who gain strength from each other.

There are elements of a whodunit in the plot, but this isn’t the kind of mystery that makes it possible to guess the culprit’s identity. Two Girls Down is more a police procedural than a mystery — although the police and the FBI get in the way more than they help, so the novel might be more accurately described as a private investigator procedural. There’s even a hint of romance (opposites attract), but not enough to get in the way of the story.

While the plot emphasizes investigation over action, there is enough action to keep the story moving at the decent rate. The investigation creates a reasonable amount of suspense. The last pages combine action with suspense to generate the kind of tension a thriller should have. This is a strong debut, and one that could easily develop into an enjoyable series, which I have to assume is Louisa Luna’s plan.

RECOMMENDED

I really enjoyed this thriller about two missing sisters. The dynamic between Alice, the bounty hunter, and Max, the disgraced former cop, was great. I liked the twists and didn't see the ending coming.

There were some really high notes in this one and some really low notes. Overall it was a or read on a tough subject of child abduction and sexual abuse. Unfortunately, the twists came without any turns so some parts didn't make sense as the story progressed. What just happened came to mind on more than one occasion. The characters of Vega, Cam and Nell were well drawn and I would take a shot at reading about them again.

Copy provided by the Publisher and NetGalley

This was a child abduction mystery which is hard for me to read. There is a special place in hell for people who prey on children. The story is a good mystery. The characterizations were well done. The author clearly showed foibles and strengths and did a nice job showing emotions. I enjoyed the book and recommend it.

This was a decent read. The main character, Alice Vega, was very strange. Intelligent and tough, but weird.

There was something that kept niggling at my brain while reading this. Then it hit me. This was a YA book. I guess I should have figured that out way before the end with all the "duh's" I said to myself when the book was way over explaining things.

Not that being a YA is bad, it was just that it was a surprise to me that I didn't figure out until the end.

A good read that I enjoyed.

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

There was a lot going on in this book and there were parts I enjoyed. Overall, it was just meh though. There was a lot of info on some characters, but I didn't feel a connection to any of them.

I loved this book and couldn’t put it down. Being from Pennsylvania, I appreciated the setting of the book and the reference to the growing oxy crisis in our state. I loved that the girls’ mother wasn’t perfect. Fast paced thriller.

Two Girls Down by Louisa Luna
This is the first book I have read bu Louisa Luna. This story is gritty but I found it difficult to connect with Vega. She was very robotic with very little compassion. The story starts to stall out with the endless pages of conversations and dialog. Which caused this reader to flip pages to find out the end of the story.

When two sisters go missing their family calls in Alice Vega. She's had success finding missing kids. While working this case she hires ex cop local private investigator Max Caplan. Alice was very rough around the edges but going through some personal losses. She's someone that doesn't stop until the job is done. No matter the cost.

By the end of the book my jaw was dragging the floor. I never saw it coming! Smh. I dont think this is a series but it should be. Cap and Vega are good together. Nell was the glue that held all of Caplans relationships together. I will definitely be recommending this book to friends and family.

When there are no leads on missing persons, the first person you should call is Alice Vega, a PI who seems to do the impossible. Like a dog with a bone, Vega is tenacious in digging for the seemingly smallest clue and finding missing children.

After two young sisters had disappeared from a strip mall parking lot in a small town, the devastated mother fearing that the police were doing nothing, hires an enigmatic bounty hunter. The police in this small town are stretched to the limit fighting a drug epidemic so they aren’t about to give Vega any leads (not that they had any). Needing some tie-in with the police, Vega hires a disgraced ex-cop, Max Caplan who only wants to put the scandal of his past behind him. But Vega needs the help and bulldogs him into helping her.

*** Wow, with very little to go on and practically no clues whatsoever, Vega proves she is the best! She was like a bloodhound to untangle what few clues she had to go on. One thing for sure is that she was a very private individual and as she and Max followed all the threads that sprung up now and then I was hoping that these two lonely souls would get something personal going on. One thing for sure they did form a wonderful working relationship!

The story was brisk and it was a fast read, with lots of twists and turns which made the finale a real edge-of -the-seat- thrill ride. Whether we see Max show up in future Vega books is something I hope the author considers. I really like Vega even though you never get to ‘know’ her. Determined and someone you want in your corner if the need ever arose! Great story!

Marilyn Rondeau

Engrossing, well written story of two girls that go missing. It's up to Vega and Caplan to save the day! This kept me engaged, and surprised me along the way. The end is the shocker and one I just didn't see coming. I give it 4 stars!!