‘Whistle In The Dark’ is Emma Healey’s second novel. Her first novel ‘Elizabeth Is Missing’ was released in 2014 and it became a bestseller. I must admit that I haven’t actually read ‘Elizabeth Is Missing’ much to my shame but judging by how much I enjoyed reading this book, ‘Elizabeth Is Missing’ is not going to be on my ‘to be read’ mountain for much longer. I read the synopsis for ‘Whistle In The Dark’ and I just knew that I had to read this book. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it but more about that in a bit.
The two main characters are a mother and daughter called Jen and Lana respectively. Lana has just surfaced again after having gone missing a couple of days before. Lana doesn’t want to talk about where she has been or what she has been doing. At times I wasn’t sure if it was more a case of she wouldn’t remember rather than couldn’t remember. Lana has some injuries but she can’t say as to how she has got them or what caused them. I get the impression that there is a gap opening up between Jen and Lana and in part that could be down to Jen being over protective of Lana and interfering in her life. I did feel for Jen and I can’t begin to imagine what goes through a parent’s mind when their child goes missing, but I think Jen is trying too hard to discover what happened to Lana during the missing days. Jen doesn’t always phrase things right and she can come across as being quite confrontational. What did happen to Lana during those few days she was missing? Will Lana and Jen ever repair their relationship? Well for the answers to those questions and more you are just going to have to read the book for yourselves to find out because I am not going to tell you.
‘Whistle In The Dark’ is extremely well written. The author grabs your attention from the moment you open the book and keeps you under her spell until the moment you finish reading. What I like about this story is the fact that the author writes about the events following Lana’s reappearance but at the same time she also has chapters which fill in the back story. This way of telling the tale works very well and the story flows seamlessly. I was hooked from the moment I picked the book up. The characters are so realistically written that they seemed to spring to life as it were and I began to think of them as real life people. There were times when I wanted to slap Jen across the chops with a wet fish for the way in which she spoke to Lana or because of something she had done. It didn’t seem to take me long at all to get through the book. Usually I have the attention span of a gnat but not in this case because I was so gripped by the plot and so interested in the characters that my sole focus was on the book. I managed to block out all other distractions which isn’t easy for me to do.
The author writes about some pretty tough subjects, such as teenage mental health and self harm but she writes with great compassion and sensitivity.
In short, I thoroughly enjoyed reading ‘Whistle In The Dark’ and I would definitely recommend it to other readers. I am definitely going to read ‘Elizabeth Is Missing’ as soon as I get a moment. I can’t wait to read what Emma Healey comes up with next. The score on the Ginger Book Geek board is a very well deserved 4* out of 5*.

So I absolutely adored Elizabeth Is Missing by Emma Healey so I was so excited when I heard about her new book and unfortunately it’s taken me this long to get round to reading it!

Whistle In The Dark opens with Jen’s suicidal fifteen year old daughter Lana being found after being missing for four days. Lana refuses point blank to tell her what happened to her saying she doesn’t remember. This sets Jen’s overactive imagination into overdrive, until she follows her daughters footsteps and finds out what really happened to her.

The book pulled me in with the dream like style of writing with the added mystery about where had Lana been. Had she been abducted or something else? Why won’t she tell anyone what happened to her? I was imagining all sorts I can tell you!

The characters are very realistic, especially Lana who reminded me so much of my moody teenage son. I have to be honest though pretty much all the story is told from Jen’s point of view, while she has this child-like overactive imagination, she is also pretty neurotic which grated on my nerves a little bit.

I will say this it does show a quite unflinching view of depression which I appreciated and also showed it from the parents perspective, the feeling of hopelessness and inadequacy that someone who’s child is suffering might feel.

Unfortunately I felt like it missed the mark slightly, mainly because I was expecting a little bit more mystery and intrigue and it kind of just morphed into a family drama (that’s why I marked this as women’s fiction rather than mystery/thriller). In all honesty the only reason I got to the end was to find out what happened to Lana which I found disappointing.

I’d recommend Whistle in the dark to anyone who enjoys realistic characters mixed with family dramas.

I found this a very well thought out psychological book and the ending was not what I was expecting and was slightly disappointed.

I did enjoy this book but not as much as I thought I was going to. It started off with promise I mean a girl who had gone missing for four days and turned up hurt and not knowing where she had been. Several scenarios wen through my mind and found that the beginning of this book showed much promise.

I liked how Emma wrote about the mental health subject of mental health especially in a younger person and how the parents cope with it.

So what was wrong with it.... I found the middle part of the book less engaging and even though I don’t mind a book that swaps from different time frames it just wasn’t for me in this book.

Overall a well thought out book with an ending that just wasn’t for me.

So happy to be given a whole budget to replenish our senior shelves in the school library. The books in there are far from appealing at the moment and I have been delighted to find books here that will intrigue, captivate and engross my senior students.

This is a fantastic read with characters they will be able to connect with, a pacy narrative and an ending that will provide plenty to talk about.

It's great to read a book that does not feel formulaic and gives some credit to their reader's intelligence too. Young people are very fussy about the books they choose to read and in this time-precious day and age it really has to be something above and beyond the ordinary to get them to put down their devices and get their noses stuck in a book.

I think this is one book that will capture their imagination and keep them turning the pages until the end. This is definitely going onto my 'must-buy' list and I really look forward to seeing what the young people themselves think of this twisty, clever and engaging novel.

Hmm. I think the blurb for this book makes it sound a lot more enjoyable than it was. 'Thought-provoking and psychologically complex'. Sorry, no, it was neither. The story begins with two parents, Jen and Hugh beyond relief at the return of their fifteen-year-old daughter, Lana, who went missing for four days during a painting holiday attended by Jen and Lana. Injuries and confusion render her seeming unable to explain what happened to her, but the truth must be uncovered...especially if someone else is to be held accountable. Lana insists she doesn't remember what happened to her.

At first, it's easy to feel compassion and sympathy for both mother and daughter. Jen was after all with her on the holiday when she went missing and Lana has a history of severe depression. But regrettably that sympathy disperses. I found Lana to be an obnoxious spoilt little brat and her inability to recall what happened isn't convincing; it's clear she's just rude and stubborn. 'Typical teenager' doesn't wash with me. Initially, it's also easy to sympathise with Jen as the exasperated mother who feels helpless and inadequate, but she irritated me too as the book progressed. I think the character I liked most was Grace, Jen's tree-hugging friend, whose quirkiness was a welcome relief.

The book is slow and the ending lacklustre and underwhelming. I never abandon a book, but I only wanted to finish this to find out what really happened to Lana. My road to the finale wasn't especially enjoyable.

This is a haunting real portrait of depression and it's effect on a family.

The central theme of the book is the relationship between teenage depressive Lana and her mother. While it may sound a gloomy read it's surprisingly not. It tackles lots of issues surrounding mental health and family with a hint of mystery and will have you thinking about it for days afterwards.

I loved Elizabeth is missing and recommended it to a number of my friends and acquaintances so I was excited to start Whistle in the dark. Unfortunately it didn’t live up to what I was expecting and not one for me.

Whistle in the Dark kicks off where most novels conclude: with what comes after the big event. Lana Maddox has recently been rescued and is safe in hospital, having been missing for four days in the Peak District National Park in central England. Rather than confusing us with a convoluted plot twist – like so many contemporary novels – Emma Healey’s newest offering sets up the mystery on the first page and then moves through a straightforward process of solving it. How very refreshing.

Lana doesn’t appear to be seriously injured physically, but her inability – or unwillingness – to fill in the gaps or even say who she was with, is worrying for her parents, Hugh and Jen. Jen, especially, is driven to imagine the very worst and we set out with her, as detective, on an emotional and sometimes uncomfortable quest to discover just what happened to her daughter. Did Lana suffer such trauma that she can’t force her mind to go back to what she experienced? Was Matthew – a boy Lana had just begun to date – involved somehow? Or was Lana involved in something unimaginable at the hands of Stephen, a member of the New Lollards Fellowship religious cult? His concerns with children ascending into hell and children ‘bringing something back’ (something evil) from experiences like Lana’s are both unsettling and bizarre. What complicates matters even more is Lana’s depression, which predates her disappearance and has manifested itself in bouts of cutting and suicidal ideation. As a gentle warning to readers sensitive to certain triggers, mental health plays a big role in this novel so this reading experience can feel like an intense one.

“I want to kill myself,” Lana tells her mother and “her voice was flat and quiet, toneless and powerful”.

Lana is a refreshing and ballsy character, but she is also strong-willed, scathing and often rude. She is resistant to her mother’s probing and is reluctant to provide desperately anxious Jen with any kind of reassurance while she struggles to establish an independent identity. Jen continues to try to be close to her daughter but Lana pulls away.

“[It was] as if she’d invited some stranger into the house, or some mythical creature, a unicorn or a griffin”.

Lana’s character is quite dark, with her looking into disturbing and morbid representations of organised religion, such as stigmata and hell. This darkness, however, is balanced by a deadpan sense of humour and some warm and tender moments with her family that are lovely to witness, and we begin to realise that underneath it all, Lana is a very sad, insecure and frightened young girl.

“I look hideous without the bandana,” said Lana.
“I’m sure it isn’t that bad.”
“You’re disregarding my feelings again. We talked about this with Dr Greenbaum.”

Jen’s situation is every parent’s worst nightmare and portrays brilliantly the difficulties in dealing with a loved one’s depression. Her journey is a painstaking one. She ‘shadows’ her daughter, following her to school and checking her Instagram profile, trying but failing to decipher her teenage mind and understand her actions.

“Lana, who wasn’t talking to her that day, wasn’t talking to her in an ordinary teenage way, or perhaps wasn’t talking to her in a troubled teenage way. How were you supposed to tell?”

As tension builds, Jen’s paranoia reaches breaking point and we start to wonder who we should really be concerned about. She begins to hallucinate, seeing a cat wandering around her home; she hears noises and whispering coming from Lana’s room; she obsesses over the meaning behind Lana’s Instagram posts; and at one point she believes Lana and Hugh are conspiring again her. In a café, one day, with her older daughter, Meg, Jen gets overly concerned about an older man and a too-young girl kissing in the corner, even considering calling the police. Another day, with Lana, she obsesses about a bag going missing from under Lana’s chair, asking repeatedly if Lana still has it. The internalness of Jen’s situation, where her thoughts go and how she tries to make sense of them, is fascinating to watch and expertly evoked by Healey.

Whistle in the Dark is about mental illness, parenthood, mother/daughter relationships and contemporary family life, but at its core, it is a gripping story about a mother’s love for her child, and her absolute refusal to allow hope to die. It is deeply affecting, and not just for mothers. Its portrayal of Jen’s struggle to stop Lana falling into a state of helplessness, and to impose some form of order in a chaotic world, will strike a chord with anyone who has loved someone. It is impossible not to feel sympathy for Jen, particularly because we are drawn into her internal monologues, right inside her mind as she tries to make sense of her reality. Despite the red herrings that emerge in this story, paying tribute to your traditional detective novel, the conclusion Healey draws is cathartic and hugely satisfying. The tension and intensity she manages to construct by the close of the novel is almost too much to bear, and by the end, I was completely exhausted.

This wonderfully constructed, intelligent and emotionally compelling novel was both a difficult and engaging read, and I absolutely loved it. Bravo, Emma Healey. 4.5 stars.

I was really surprised by this book, expecting something more similar to Emma's first, but it was dark and satisfying and brilliantly evocative. Very much enjoyed.

Really enjoyed this one. Loved the style of writing, and some great characters that pull you right into the authors world.

Plot: Jen and Hugh sit by their daughter’s bedside in hospital after a harrowing experience: 15 year old Lana has been missing for 4 days following a countryside retreat with her mother. She’s injured and confused, unable to tell them any details about where she’s been or what’s happened to her. The story is told in flashbacks from Jen as she tries to find out the truth, back to Lana’s childhood and through their trip together up until the point Lana disappeared.

My thoughts: This novel is a cross between a thriller and mystery, with some delves into the difficulties of family relationships and mental illness thrown in too. It was an intriguing read that had me hooked, wanting not only to find out what had happened to Lana, but why and more about her as a character. It was a slow builder, focusing more on the troubles of the past before ending up at a pretty big banger of a reveal. I enjoyed both the slower parts and more gripping, thrilling parts equally in this and would definitely recommend it.

Great writing again by Emma Healey, The pitch of the story and the characters. Always feel like you are involved. Highly recommend. Looking forward to more.

An enjoyable read, that I wanted to finish because I needed to know what had really happened to our main character while she was missing for 4 days. I did, however, find it quite slow going at times.

Good well developed characters that I wanted to know more about and excellent coverage of the issues of teenage mental health and the effect on those around.

15 year old Lana goes missing for 4 days - when she is found she claims to have no memory of what happened. Her mother Jen tries to understand why she ran away and what happened to her and thinks of every possible scenario and becomes desperate in her need to know what happened and why Lana won't tell her, it deals with depression and anxiety. I found it to be a slow enjoyable read

Whistle In  The Dark tells the story of the aftermath of Jen and Hughs daughters disappearance for several days. Lana has been found safe and apparently unharmed but  does not reveal where she has been. She claims to have been lost but her mother is sure there is more to it.


This is not your standard missing child novel, and not only because it begins with the missing girl been found. Instead, its a mystery/family study told from the perspective of Jen, a woman who feels a failure at about everything in life but especially as a mother. Throughout the book, there are flashbacks, some of the lead up to the disappearance and some that seem connected but gradually add to the picture of this fractured but ultimately loving family.  It's a slow but oddly compelling read, aided I think by its short chapters that move the reader around the story, drawing them ever deeper in. If you want an fast paced thriller then move along but if you want and well written emotionally charged mystery you're in the right place.

Whistle in the Dark - Emma Healey

I don’t think this is a thriller, a drama maybe.
It tells the tale of the parents of Lana, a 15 year old girl, living every parents worst nightmare - a missing child.
Lana is found after being missing for four days and she doesn’t remember anything....or does she? She’s saying nothing, quite forcibly, but something doesn’t add up.

Jen is Lanas mum, she is tearing apart they days before the disappearance, when they were on a residential art holiday together. Her interactions with the teenage boy. Was he involved? Glad she’s back, but desperate for answers, Jen is trying to figure it out, only ever hitting a brick wall with Lana.
It’s quite deep in places, talking about depression and mental illness, but Jen just wants to understand.
It’s not a page turner, but it is extremely well written.

I had high expectations after Elizabeth is Missing but for me this missed the mark.

A stroppy teenage girl who lies will never be a winner for me.

Well written and paced through just not for me.

I have to admit that ‘Elizabeth Is Missing’ was one of the first books I bought as a blogger and I never got to it. A crime in itself and something I need to fix asap. Also, if we’re talking about firsts, the first thing I had to do when looking up THIS book on Amazon was to check what it was listed under as I was intrigued to see how they could categorise a book that seemed to have a little bit of everything. As expected (in hindsight of course!) it was under Mystery, thriller and suspense, detective and animal. We’ll put the ‘animal’ listing to one side, I would think that it is more nature than animal, with a book that is absolutely stunning in how it tells us about our surroundings, from birds to trees to caves to where we came from, with beauty underlining every single word, but the mystery and suspense are a good start for telling you about this book.

We get a third person point of view from Jen, a mother who’s trying get on with everyday life while wondering where her daughter disappeared to for four days when they went on their art retreat together. Jen and her husband, Hugh are possibly the nicest people I’ve come across in a book and their relationship was comforting among the everyday struggle that Jen has to contend with Lana, who is barely existing and taking it all out on her mother.

In any other scenario, Lana was the nightmare teen, but here it was justified-you couldn’t even begin to comprehend what she was going through and this was something that Jen had to try to unravel. They had no idea where she was for four whole days, having been found in a state on sheep grazing land, dehydrated and a shadow of her former self. Jen feels that by figuring out the content of these four days, perhaps they can get some semblance of her daughter back before they lose her for good and tries to trace the details of the days. We sleepwalk with her as her infatuation begins to turn to madness and she no longer knows what is real. The book is told almost like a series of stories pieced together, with headings to guide you along Jen’s journey. There is a nice mix of the everyday and the strange, some comedy thrown in (dark and light, have to say I loved their other daughter, Meg, a sardonic breath of fresh air), with dark moments mixed with beautiful spell binding ones, always leading back to a book I had to keep putting down so I could savour and relish it properly. Thanks so much to Netgalley and Viking for this book in return for an honest review.

Rating: 4.5/5

Whistle in the Dark - Emma Healey

If you're looking for a thriller or a suspenseful mystery, don't be fooled by the blurb of this, however, if you're in the mood for an introspective domestic drama, this is the one.
Emma Healey follows the success of her #1 internationally bestselling debut novel Elizabeth Is Missing, winner of the Costa First Novel Award, with this beautiful, thought-provoking, and psychologically complex tale that affirms her status as one of the most inventive and original literary novelists today

Jen and Hugh Maddox have just survived every parent’s worst nightmare.

Relieved, but still terrified, they sit by the hospital bedside of their fifteen-year-old daughter, Lana, who was found bloodied, bruised, and disoriented after going missing for four days during a mother-daughter vacation in the country. As Lana lies mute in the bed, unwilling or unable to articulate what happened to her during that period, the national media speculates wildly and Jen and Hugh try to answer many questions.

Where was Lana? How did she get hurt? Was the teenage boy who befriended her involved? How did she survive outside for all those days? Even when she returns to the family home and her school routine, Lana only provides the same frustrating answer over and over: “I can’t remember.”

For years, Jen had tried to soothe the depressive demons plaguing her younger child, and had always dreaded the worst. Now she has hope—the family has gone through hell and come out the other side. But Jen cannot let go of her need to find the truth. Without telling Hugh or their pregnant older daughter Meg, Jen sets off to retrace Lana’s steps, a journey that will lead her to a deeper understanding of her youngest daughter, her family, and herself.

A wry, poignant, and masterfully drawn story that explores the bonds and duress of family life, the pain of mental illness, and the fraught yet enduring connection between mothers and daughters, Whistle in the Dark is a story of guilt, fear, hope, and love that explores what it means to lose and find ourselves and those we love.

Some of the things that I reallly enjoyed about this book were the conflict between Laura and Jen because I feel that strained mother daughter relationships can either be done really well or really poorly in novels and I personally felt that this was a good representation. I also liked the dubious nature of reliability concerning Jen as a narrator, however I did think it was going to lead up to something a bit 'more' and that maybe Jen had played a role in the disappearance or she had made the entire thing up. I thought the ending was a little underwhelming but I really enjoyed the writing style, and Meg, who I felt could have had her own story.