My biggest complaint is that the big "twist" was something I predicted from the first chapter. That aside, it's entertaining enough. A bit exploitative and thinly characterized.

COULD.NOT.PUT.DOWN. This was a gripping mystery that pulled me in from the very beginning. The characters were vivid and well developed and the struggles they faced were realistic. I always feel like abduction mysteries are overrated but this one set the bar to a new standard!

Blink was a mystery that pulled me in right away and kept me wanting to know more until the end.

Josh lives in Sugar Creek, a small town in Illinois. His mother had him young and their relationship is really toxic. Josh has to take care of his twin sisters while his mom works, which is a lot. He is also trying to get through school and maybe get a football scholarship. Josh is protective of his sisters. Their father is abusive and they have a protection order. The problem is that his mom keeps letting him back in.

Josh has been obsessed with the story of Rachel, a girl who went missing from the area when he was younger. Something makes him think about her a lot. One day, he meets a new girl at the beach. Chatham tells him that she's there looking for her sister, Savannah, who ran away. Josh is drawn to Chatham. So much so that he becomes even more obsessive about her. She starts to tell him a bit about her life and he realizes that they've both dealt with abuse. It connects them. Chatham stays in town and they become closer, but she's still keeping things from him. Josh falls for her and starts helping her try to find Savannah. Savannah told Chatham that their foster parents had a girl under the floorboards in the stable. There are little things that Savannah remembered about Sugar Creek and that's why she was going there. Chatham also had dreams about a train station, which connects back to Rachel.

Most of the book is clues trying to figure out who each of these girls are and how they connect to Sugar Creek. There is some romance/sex. Also, there are warnings for anyone who can't read about abuse. There is quite a bit of physical and emotinal abuse in the book.

I ended up enjoying this and parts of it were hard to put down. It's hard to like many people in the book, but I still wanted to know everything.

I gave Blink 4 stars. Thank you to the author for providing me with a copy for review.

A captivating mystery with lots of twists. Most readers will need the last chapters of the book to figure out the details of the story. Josh is a “good guy”who still does not so good things sometimes, but he makes a formidable hero.

Loved this book! It was a quick read!
4/5 stars - full review to follow closer to publication date

Joshua Michaels is stoked that he has been given some quality playing time as quarterback for his high school team. And all he should be worrying about right now is hitting the weight room and keeping his grades up. But Joshua Michaels isn't your ordinary high school athlete. Joshua Michaels is also responsible for the care and safety of his twin four year old sisters when his mother is unavailable, and she's unavailable a lot!



One day, while on a beach trip with his sisters, he meets a beautiful, haunted girl, Chatham Claiborne. She asks Josh to watch her bag while she swims. She ends up hanging out and Josh is smitten; he can't stop thinking about her.



Fast forward to school, and who shows up? Chatham Claiborne, of course. As smitten as Josh is with Chatham, he also knows that she has secrets. Where did she come from? Why is she here?



Josh soon realizes that Chatham is in some way connected with the disappearance of a young girl, Rachel Bachton, a decade ago. And he just might be as well. Blink is the unfolding of the mystery of what happened to Rachel Bachton, and how these characters fit into the picture.



Dawn writes a very compelling story that kept me up way too late on several occasions! This is definitely a high school - young adult book, there are detailed sex scenes, descriptions of child abuse and issues of domestic violence. Parts of the story were also hard to believe, what high school quarterback puts his four year old twin sisters over his love interest? But it was a pleasure to read! I think this book will appeal to mystery lovers, but mystery lovers with thick skin!

I found myself disturbed by Joshua's home life and that sense of disquiet overshadowed a lot of the rest of the story for me. It seems obvious that we are supposed to be unhappy with his mom and former stepfather so Dawn did a good job of weaving some low level dread throughout most of the book, but that didn't make the book as enjoyable for me. I also was not taken with Chatham as a character. Something about her didn't connect for me so I had little interest in finding out her secrets, feeling invested in them, or cheering on her relationship with Joshua. Instead, it felt to me like she was using him toward her own ends most of the time. I can chalk all of those issue up to the book just not working for me, specifically, but I actually have a serious issue with the transformation of Joshua's mom from abuse-enabler to someone who I think is supposed to be sympathetic as a character. Overall, it just wasn't a fun read for me.

Another YA winner for me! When sixteen-year-old Josh meets pretty newcomer, Chatham on the beach one day, he is smitten and taken in by her story of the disappearance of her sister, Savannah who has apparently run away to this very town. Adding to the mystery is the long-ago abduction of a local girl, Rachel, whose disappearance is still in the minds of the townspeople as a child's bones are discovered. And yet another layer is the story of Josh and his mother, Rosie who is a single mother to her son and her two young daughters fathered by the abusive ex-husband, Damien who is still stalking and scaring the family. This novel moves at breath-taking speed as Josh must unravel the mystery of the sometimes-elusive Chatham and keep his own family safe while he continues to remain a high school student bent on a college scholarship for football. Realistic and often gritty, this novel will tug at your heart-strings while keeping you up at night trying to save this young man and his family from peril. A must read!