Almost needed a lie-down in a darkened room after finishing this book. What a packed and edge-of-the seat read! Simon and Catherine are a couple in their thirties with three children. But it is soon apparent there is something amiss in their outwardly perfect marriage. When Simon disappears without a trace, his wife is left to pick up the pieces. Her shattered life gradually comes together… until someone turns up on her doorstep twenty-five years later.
The story jumps back and forth through time, and we learn of shocking incidents, foul play and how misunderstandings can result in monstrous deeds. Also, the author shows how the failings and weaknesses of others play a big part in shaping destiny.
My only criticism would be some plot elements that stretched my credulity to the max, and the ‘head hopping’ in scenes when the focus switches abruptly from one character to another.
Overall, however, this is a book that grabs you by the throats and demands your attention. I look forward to reading more by John Marrs.

Great book! Looking forward to reading more by this author! Highly recommend!

3 stars. This novel had such potential with a highly enticing premise, however, the extreme lack of believability meant the story fell flat for me.

I enjoyed the way the story unfolded. The novel was told through Catherine and Simon’s perspectives ranging from 28 years ago to a present-day meeting. The author, John Marrs, does a great job revealing pieces of the story in a suspenseful and intriguing way, all the while making me curious to see how the story would play out. Unfortunately, many of the situations, particularly those involving Simon seemed highly unlikely and absurd. Believability is a huge requirement for my reading enjoyment - I have a hard time truly immersing myself within a story that isn’t realistic (the “believability police” within me kicks in quickly!). My reading mind can stretch to accept slightly exaggerated situations, but the list is fairly long of the things that I found far-fetched within this novel.

There were some very serious parts to this story that really pulled at my emotions and maternal instincts. I had a hard time reading some pages as there is such a devastating family loss that deeply affected me.

Overall, I found this to be an averagely enjoyable read with nothing that truly made it stand out other than its lack of believability.

A big thank you to NetGalley, Thomas & Mercer and John Marrs for a copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review!

To find this review along with our Traveling Sister Read review, please visit Brenda and Norma’s fabulous blog at:

https://twogirlslostinacouleereading.wordpress.com/2017/08/16/2938/

Traveling Sisters NetGalley Sister Review

When You Disappeared started off with seven of us for a Traveling Sister Group read, and then they started to disappear with three sisters dropping out and the thread started to read like a thriller itself. Norma with a full weekend ahead had to drop out as well, leaving Kaceey, Lindsay and me as the last standing Sisters for this read

When You Disappeared is a family drama thriller that is heavy on the drama and light on the thrills. Some parts of the story dragged and were unrealistic for us. We had the believability police on duty for this one and reporting back to the rest of us. We found much to be unrealistic but came to the conclusion it was for the convenience of the story and thought it was written more for drama than believability.

The story is told by Catherine and Simon in two different timelines which we all enjoyed. At times when the story dragged we really wanted Catherine to put down the wine and do something. We really had some strong feelings of dislike for Simon and there was nothing likable about his unlikeable character for us.

The story had no suspense for me and I was rushing to get to the end but for Kaceey and Lindsay, the suspense kept them turning the pages to see how it ended. In the end, we all found the ending to be over the top and underwhelming. We still recommend for thriller lovers who really like a lot of drama to their thrillers.

Thank you to NetGalley, Thomas &Mercer and John Marrs for a copy of this book to read and review.

2.5 Stars

Having read glowing reviews from some of my GR friends, I wanted to love When You Disappeared. But of course, I have to be the person who didn’t love this book!

Married for 10 years with three children, it might seem like Catherine and Simon have the perfect marriage. But when Simon disappears without a trace, Catherine comes to learn that she never really knew the man she married. Flash forward 25 years, Simon has returned determined to punish Catherine for her wrongs. The two share with one another what happened over the course of their time apart, and buried secrets begin to emerge. At this point, it seems as if the reader is being set up for an expert game of cat and mouse.

But as they share more and more, and tell and tell and tell, NOTHING really happens. And things move SLOWLY. All I wanted to know was why Simon left?! Little clues do emerge, and I was hoping I was being teased for a big reveal. But as I read more and more, and NOTHING happened, I grew rather frustrated. And once Simon finally told Catherine his rationale for leaving, I wanted to jump in the book and beat the crap out of him! Not because of why he did what he did (which is just stupidly awful), but because I had to wait so freakin long to find out!

Sadly, it all just felt so contrived.

I received a copy of this book from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

GREAT book!!! Lots of twisty turns that show that John Marrs has a twisted mind (LOL) Loved it, highly recommended 5*****

I read this book when it was published as The Wronged Sons. I loved it then and I really really enjoyed it the second time around. A true five-star read.

I just finished "When You Disappeared" by John Marrs, and I'm astonished. This book, narrated alternately by husband Simon and wife Catherine, follows the path of both of them after Simon just disappears one day. The reason why, and the end of this book, are gut wrenching. I absolutely recommend this book to anyone who places importance on character development and slow but steady reveals as the story builds to the end.

Excellent book. Great main characters and a real page turner. I loved the plot and would recommend this book.

Depressed with his life and wife, Simon Nicholson gets up one fine morning and leaves his wife, Catherine, and his three children, James, Robbie and Emily. It is evident that it’s because of something his wife had done – but what?

Twenty-five years later, he turns up at Catherine’s doorstep to explain to her why he left her and finally give her the closure she fully deserves. But why has he chosen to come back now?

Told alternately from the viewpoints of Simon and Catherine, and alternating between the past and the present; this is a psychologically twisted family drama.

Both Simon and Catherine had come from broken families. Simon’s mother, Doreen, left him and his father, Arthur, for another man; whilst Catherine’s mother never really cared for her. Having a not-so-great childhood themselves, both vowed to not be like their parents and create a loving family. Somewhere early in the story you learn that they had lost a child, Billy. As you’re left to wonder how, Catherine takes the brunt of the guilt and believes it was her fault. Just when she had overcome this grief, Simon decides to walk away.

I disliked Simon form the moment he started unraveling his story. While Catherine was dealing with his disappearance, keeping the family stable and running, and trying to search for him, he was busy being a vagabond. He spent at least the first 4-5 years of his “new life” with people who had no idea who he really was. Nobody judged him, challenged him or bruised him which suited him perfectly. Till he met Luciana and fell in love.

The story progresses into an intense and disturbing chain of events that are triggered by Simon’s selfishness. As he recounts his tale, Catherine couldn’t believe what she was hearing. It was someone she couldn’t recognize. Had it really been in him all along to live without a conscience? How could she have failed to recognize such deceit?

The book poses a lot of questions. One of them is, do our parents shape who we become?
Simon was petrified that everyone would be like Doreen and he strongly believed that ”everything that makes you happy eventually disappoints.” He’d been so hasty to blame everyone else for not living up to the perfection he’d expected from them, yet he was the least perfect of them all.

This book was never predictable and both Simon’s and Catherine’s revelations shock you. The ending was equally harrowing, and only someone who is at the very core a cold-hearted monster can do what he did.
The book wasn’t fast paced as most books of this genre are, but every chapter had a twist.
John Marrs has a way with words – if someone can make you detest a character just based on his writing, that’s saying something about his ability.

How many times have you made an assumption about someone, without discussing it with them? How many times have you drawn a conclusion based on those assumptions and then acted accordingly? You need to read this book to know how assumptions can change the course of one’s life, and everyone associated with it, forever.

When I started reading this book I was instantly drawn in to its dark and twisted plot, what a fabulous mind the author has. I loved how the booked jumped from the husband’s point of view to the wives and also the different time lines of the story.
Simon is a very dark character who wakes up one days and decides to leave his wife, kids and life behind him. Catharine the wife struggles to cope without him and finds she also has to change her life but not through choice. Twenty five years later and Simon is back, ready to tell his story.
I loved how the characters were believable even with an ever changing plot and would recommend this book to anyone who loves a good fast paced, dark and twisted story.

A very well written story with believable characters but is very heavy and sad. I could not put it down -I had to know what the events were that set this off even though it was making me very depressed!

This book is, quite simply, spectacular. To give it five stars is almost to rob it of it's true worth. It is easily the best book that I have read this year - and I read a lot of very, very good books. I finished it and found myself desperate to discuss it with someone! I ended up outlining the plot and main events to my daughter who promptly wanted to read it too. Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the author, publisher and Netgalley for an advance electronic copy in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you Netgalley for an RC of this book.

Thank you all other readers/reviewers ;-) I waited with writing my review for this book because I couldn't really decide what to say about it. I don't like starting a review with an abstract of the story because we can all read that at the top of the page on Goodreads.
No, I like to try and tell people why I like a book so much, or why not. The latter is often much easier to do.
At first, I was deeply impressed by this book. For me, it fitted in a list with The Girl on the Train, The End of the World Running Club and The Girl with all the Gifts, to name a few. Books that are so completely different from what you think they will be. When You Disappeared is indeed different, because it is being told in the past and in the present at the same time. And yet, sometimes I would have like a litte more 'past', because, as many other people point out here on Goodreads, it gets a little slow sometimes.
Furthermore, I just cannot understand what a monster of a man Simon is, and I cannot understand that Catherine is happy with just cooking and cleaning.
So, on second thought, not so deeply impressed as I thought, but I couldn't give it less than four stars because it gripped me and kept me reading for a couple of days. I would love to read more by John Marrs.

Thank you so much for the opportunity to read this novel but it wasn't to my liking and really didn't hold my interest enough to finish. I thought the premise of this book did sound quite intriguing though but it just didn't work for me.

Who was Jack-the-Ripper? Who killed Kennedy? Why did Simon Nicholson vanish from his home whilst his wife and family slept in their beds? Questions that keep you thinking and analysing, they are endlessly fascinating and therein lies the appeal of this book, you just want to know.

Simon and his wife Kitty (later to become Catherine) seem to be in love and then one day, he starts walking and keeps going, to Europe, to the USA. Twenty-five years later he walks back in. Kitty is left to deal with the children, finances, emotions, police and suspicion and the huge gaping questions of ‘is he alive’ and ‘why did he go’.

The story is presented from two points of view, Simon’s and Catherine’s. Through Catherine we experience all the doubts and fears, the uncertainty and the mundaneness of day-to-day life whilst burdened with loss and questioning your understanding of your husband. Through Simon we are shown details of his journey, emotionally and figuratively. We witness his adventures through a changing landscape both internally and externally.

From the outset Simon appears to be the more interesting character, because we don’t understand why he is making these choices. However, apart from Oscar the dog who pines for Simon until he dies many years later, in reality Catherine is the most sympathetic character. She is the one who has to cope and come to terms with her life and care for the family.

That said, despite what Simon does through the years I remained loyal to him, trying to understand and fathom his psychology. By the end that had completely disappeared and I felt a deep sense of anger towards him, confounded by his stupidity and somewhat frustrated. I can’t say more as I need to protect the plot. Speaking of which, well done Mr Marrs for providing us with a compelling read with a great plot, eeking it out to slap it to us right at the end.

Thank you to the publishers and NetGalley for providing an ARC via my Kindle in return for an honest review.

This is why I'm kinda unsure about marriage!!

Good build up, well developed characters, shocking, sad and a wonderful ride! Read in 2 sittings as I needed to know what was happening!!

Highly recommended!

WOW, just WOW! This book was a hard but fascinating read. The twists and turns of the story left me stunned...just when I thought I had everything figured out...another piece of information came to light and changed my perceptions completely. Fascinating!

This story revolves around a married couple, Simon and Catherine, and what happened and happens when Catherine wakes up one morning and Simon is gone. Simon’s reappearance 25 years later with his desire to tell his story in his own way and following his own timeline, alternates with Catherine’s own story. The narrative weaves between each of their viewpoints, as well as the past and the present.
What caused Simon to leave? That was the ultimate question I wanted answered and as he tells his story, pieces of the puzzle are gradually exposed. Catherine’s disbelief and despair are gut wrenching as she believed she had a very strong marriage and that Simon would never willingly leave her and their children. As time progresses, Catherine has no choice but to move forward not only for the sake of the children, but also to keep their home and provide a decent life for all of them. The twists and turns just kept on coming as the answer to this mystery is revealed.
Simon not only provides sometimes excruciating detail regarding the things he has done since he vanished, but also how his choices always served Simon, not matter what the cost to those around him. Without giving anything away, I have to say that whether he was right or wrong to leave, the man he became had no redeeming qualities and while Catherine may not have seen it, he was a seriously flawed individual during their marriage. I was glad that while Catherine’s life without Simon had many challenges, ultimately she managed and even thrived without him.
I kept reading late into the night, which for me, is the ultimate kudos to the author. I would rather be tired tomorrow than stop reading today! I highly recommend this if you enjoy a mystery that goes to many unexpected places.
Thanks to John Marrs, Thomas & Mercer and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I'm so torn on this book. On the one hand, it was fairly well placed and well written, with an interesting idea behind it, so I thought about giving it a 4. On the other hand, I absolutely hated the climax, resolution, and endig, and would give it a 1 or 2. . I have no problem reading books about mental illness, bad choices, family dynamics, etc., but the ending of this book made me feel just gross and awful, which is not the way I enjoy feeling after finishing a book. But like I said, it was well written and engrossing, so I can't not give the author any credit for that. And so, I'm giving it a solid 3 stars. But I wouldn't recommend it.

The institution of marriage harbours some of the worst manifestations of cruelty. John Marrs’ debut thriller, When you disappeared, is a wonderful example of this harsh truth.


Simon Nicholson, plagued by some inner demon with reference to his marriage, leaves his wife, Catherine, and three young children, James, Robbie and Emily, and quietly walks out of the life that was his for 33 years, taking nothing with him and plunging his family into grief and trauma.

Twenty-five years later, he returns, to offer his wife a meagre apology and to let her know that it was a grave sin that she committed 28 years ago that drove him away.

The truth, Simon knows, will break her. He hopes it will torture her, as it has tortured him.

Back then, Catherine is badly shaken, afraid that he is hurt or dead, but when police searches reveal nothing, she is forced to pick up the pieces of her life and move on, for the sake of her children.

But they are broken pieces. On the way to rebuilding their lives, the homebound Catherine nearly loses her home, and is forced to sell all their possessions, in order to save it. She begins to work 18-hour days and takes up three jobs in order to be able to pay the bills, nearly losing herself to a spiraling alcohol addiction.

Why did Simon leave? What pushed him over the edge?
These are questions that plague Catherine and us.

The only thing we know of that fateful day is that something unforgivable has torn the couple apart. They have also lost a child, Billy, but we don’t know how, only that the death was tragic, and that Catherine still bears the scars of that loss.

As each fills the other in about the events of the 25 years they have spent apart, we see how Catherine suffered while Simon prospered.

We learn how he moved from England, to France and then the US, his moral compass askew, stealing, committing identity theft, implicating an innocent person falsely on a charge of intent to sell narcotics, and setting fire to a hotel that he helped restore to its glory, snorting drugs and sleeping with young girls, and killing, anything to drive his family out of his mind, while Catherine struggles to do the right thing for her family, suffers a miscarriage and copes with her trauma alone, while trying to shield and protect the children.

As the truth about what transpired over the course of the 25 years they spent apart is revealed, their recollections alternate with each other’s, each in a different reality, growing further apart, until they converge on the answers and we come to the fateful truth of what went wrong in their marriage, 28 years ago, and what happened to Billy. Their diametrically opposite understanding of what happened is an eye opener.


There is no second guessing just what prompted Simon to leave. The author gives us no clues, revealing the truth so slowly, we can barely see the layers being prised apart.


The flashbacks, covering their lives over the course of the 25 years since Simon left, as well as the years of their childhood and other events in their past, are written in the first person past tense point of view of both Simon and Catherine.

On the other hand, the revelation of the truth today is in third person past tense. All the accounts are preceded by qualifiers detailing time- and datelines.

The changes in the PoV helped me understand whether the narrative was in the past or the present. It felt as if the author had given them the first person in the flashback so they could be honest, hiding nothing, while in the present comes the reckoning in the third person.

Through the course of the decisions and the actions the characters take, we become aware of just who they are.

When Simon tells us about his mother who walked in and out of their lives, we are better able to understand him. His fascination with the absent parent, his desire to run away from his responsibilities, to chase the wrong choices.

It is amazing how quickly Simon learns to be different from what he is. He is willing to put every moral code aside in his quest for self'ish'-fulfillment, including committing murder several times, to punish Catherine. At the core of this attitude is his belief that If you scratch the surface of something perfect, you’ll always find something rotten hidden beneath. Through his account, Simon showed himself to be so fickle and remorseless, I wondered what he found so unforgivable in Catherine.


I found it easier to relate to Catherine. I rejoiced in her success, and felt sorry for the children who, afraid their daddy had vanished, worried their mommy would too. I felt her pain at not having closure. In Catherine’s words, My husband’s disappearance still had a curiosity factor attached to it, like the village had its own Bermuda Triangle.


Years later, Catherine is in a good place, personally and professionally, but I ached at the thought of all that Simon had put her through. I wanted to reach into the pages and slap him hard.

The mainstay of this book are Simon and Catherine, but Marrs paints a strong picture of Steven and Baishali, Roger and Paula, Douglas, Simon’s mother, Doreen, and the other characters whose lives coincide with theirs.


The author must be commended for holding our interest and keeping us anxious to know more, even as the revelations slowly tumble out. I also appreciate Marrs’ keen grasp of a woman’s emotions, how Catherine must feel to know herself, at first widowed, and then cruelly abandoned by the only boy to whom she gave her heart.


The book was a pointed indicator of how parents define their children, and how while some like Catherine are hurt, yet don't inflict their hurt upon others, many are like Simon, choosing to do as they were done by, hurting twice as much as they were hurt.

Both Simon and Catherine were rejected by their mothers, and yet Catherine emerges as the greater among the two. She mothers her kids with love, despite suffering at the hands of parents who didn't care about her.

On the other hand, Simon's father, though not his own, loves him. That still doesn't stop Simon from projecting his hurt on to others.

The lesson in it is that old adage about whether we let circumstances make us bitter or better. Catherine chose to be a far better mother to her kids than she ever had. Simon, on the other hand, persisted in the delusion that he had no choice but to act the way he did.


Although grownup stories aren’t supposed to carry morals, this one reminded me of the need for communication within relationships, and especially within marriage.

How much trouble could have been eliminated if only Simon and Catherine had sought answers and solace from each other. Simon would not have disappeared and we would not have the emotion- and nerve-wracking novel that is When you disappeared.


(I read a Kindle edition of this book through NetGalley.)