Charlotte and Harriet have a strong link as we watch their stories unfold. Why does Harriet fake her daughter’s kidnapping. Her husband is a controlling and violent man and yet Charlotte does not see him that way.
This is a story of manipulation, violence and trying to make the right decisions under pressure. Who is right Charlotte or Harriet, you will have to decide for yourself. I enjoyed this book and will look for more titles by Heidi Perks

Charlotte is looking after her best friend’s daughter the day she disappears. Charloote wrongly assumed the little girl was playing with her own children, but in just one second, or so she claims, the child is now missing and she has to break the news to Harriet, her best friend and the child’s mother.

Absolutely distraught, Harriet can no longer bear to look at or see Charlotte. But two weeks later, she has no choice. Harriet and Charlotte are both being questioned separately by the police and all is not quite as it seems!

A great read!

Charlotte is watching her friend's child when the worst happens, the little girl goes missing. Harriet her mother is devastated but it soon becomes clear things aren't as they seem in her house. What has happened to Alice?

This is a really interesting book and it does get you thinking by the end about how you might deal in her situation. The plot jumps from present to the day of Alice's disappearance then gradually joins it all together. The story is also told by Harriet and Charlotte. The story is good and I liked the ending but would have liked a little more resolution for Charlotte. That being said, the ending does work really well. The story is steady with some clever twists. Some I predicted along the way but one caught me out. A well thought out thriller.

Gripping and emotional thriller, lots of curve balls kept me guessing right until the end. Definitely recommend

I love all Heidi has to offer in her writing style. She really knows how to grip onto you and not let you go until the final bitter moment. A gloriously twisted tale to be devoured in one sitting.

This was a good read. It is true that there are no lengths a mother will go too to protect her children and Harriet is an example of this. I enjoyed the twists through out the book, and Harriet's desperation was evident. There are a lot of twists and turns scattered between lies and secrets.

Charlotte is looking after her best friend’s daughter the day she disappears.
Now, Charlotte must do the unthinkable, tell her best friend Harriet that her only child is missing. The child she was meant to be watching.

Devastated, Harriet can no longer bear to see Charlotte. No one could expect her to trust her friend again.
Only now she needs to. Because two weeks later Harriet and Charlotte are both being questioned separately by the police. And secrets are about to surface.'

I read this book from cover to cover in less than three hours I could just not put it down.

This was such a fresh, compelling and thrilling story that had me on the edge of my seat by the end of each page. What I loved most was that the first twist in the book (because honestly this is just full of amazing twists and turns) was shocking but immediately understandable. On every turn of the page there was something new happening with the plot or the characters that you could never just stop and you couldn't make judgement about someone's character because something new was revealed that changed your mind about them. There were scenes that were so tense and uncomfortable that I was almost screaming down at the book.

There were only two points about this book that I slightly didn't like although they weren't big enough to change my emotions over the plot. The first was that towards the end after the two separate perspectives of Harriet and Charlotte had been marked out clearly they began to just intertwine with each other which made reading a bit confusing and I think some of the perspectives dragged on slightly longer than they should have in a fast paced book like this.

The second is entirely a personal opinion and has nothing to do with the way she was written but Charlotte's feelings and decisions at moments made me so frustrated especially as she was a mother I thought she would have a different perspective of what happened but can also understand some of her emotions.

I would firstly like to thank Netgalley and the publishers for allowing me the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

What would you do if your friend's child went missing in your care?
I, for one, would be utterly devastated.
I found myself feeling so much empathy for Charlotte, her character was excellently written, and, honestly, was the only character I genuinely connected with.
I had a lot of mixed feelings about Harriet. Her daughter goes missing, which is sad, but her story was just rather dull and predictable. Than came the twist, and she just instantly became unlikeable to me.
I also thought the constant back and forth between the past and present was rather unnecessary and confusing.
As a first read from this author, I enjoyed this one, but I wish I had liked it more, but I just couldn't bring myself to feel sorry for Harriet.
I will still read more from this author, but this one wasn't massively for me.

Unfortunately I read this book a while ago and seem to have missed it when writing reviews. - sadly I cant remember enough detail to give a full review.
However, thanks to NetGalley for the ARC :-)

Another book from my “busting my backlist” shelf.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, it hD eerie feels, chills and intrigued me.
There are so many “missing children’s” books that they can all merge into boredom don’t you think?
Well this one had that little ‘something’ extra for me.

It’s a slow plodder at the beginning so don’t expect it to be fast paced but then suddenly......boom....right between the readers eyes, what! WHAT?

I enjoyed it

I received this book from NetGalley at a time when I was trying to read more contemporary fiction, but for whatever reason, I didn’t pick it up. I didn’t connect with the cover and the idea, but I knew that it sounded like something I could like. So I waited, and I waited, and I waited some more, and finally decided to dive in, and found a complex and compelling narrative that I should have consumed so much earlier.

Now You See Her is split into two halves and tracks two timelines that combine to create the overarching story and I guess mystery that progresses throughout the novel. Harriet and Charlotte, at the beginning of the book, are two seemingly normal mothers and good friends. The first half of the book is told from Charlotte’s perspective, sure we still see the story when she isn’t there, but it is from her point of view or as a third person, a feature which switches to Harriet half way through the book. I think the tool was used well, it opened different character aspects and stories well and undoubtedly had to be the way round it was in the story.

The story itself centred around the mysterious disappearance of Harriet’s only daughter and the subsequent search to find her. I had something fixed in my mind as to what I thought had happened and was pleasantly surprised to find that it wasn’t quite as straight forward as I thought it was progressing to be. Charlotte is a fairly straight forward character unlike Harriet who is surprising and challenging and fascinating, again a combination that progressed the story at differing speeds, allowing the twists to present themselves.

I can’t say that I actually liked any of the characters. The women were great friends, and the deep bond remains through the story even if their surface relationship is strained as the books events unfold. The side characters with respect to the ‘friends’ of the pair (more accurately Charlotte) were fairly detestable but worryingly imaginable. No-one likes to think of parents and friends thinking the worst, abandoning, or judging people, but you know that it happens and I think Perks presented that trait of adulthood extremely well, even if it was an unpleasant aspect to the story. The men were, much like the women, a mix of complex and simple. Charlotte’s ex-husband is OK, seemingly long-suffering but over-archingly well-meaning, he simply exists in the story. Brian, however, is horrible, controlling, and the worst type of man/father/husband imaginable. While I know his evolution is a reality for some, and I know was required for the story to take place, I found him unbearably horrid and completely unrelatable.

I am trying to tip-toe carefully around the plot, because ultimately the book unfolds in a complex weave to create what turned into an emotional rollercoaster and carefully thought out mystery. I didn’t quite connect completely with the book. Sure, I read and devoured it quickly, but once I was finished I was quite happy to be done and move on, an unusual personal feeling when finishing any form of mystery book. There was a depth and a power to the story, but I think that would be more acutely felt if the reader were a parent, or a gaslit partner, or someone whose story can be found between the pages.

Ultimately, it was a good book and a good story, but it wasn’t spectacular. It had depth and drive, but lacked some form of ultimate connection that stopped it wowing me.

An edge of your seat thriller about a missing child. Parents might find this difficult to read, as it touches on the worry we have about anything terrible happening to our kids.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for letting me read an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

Couldn’t put it down, had me guessing throughout and chilled me as a mother too, such a horrible event - a child going missing, especially when being looked after by a friend. I thought it was well told from all sides with the guilt and friendships portrayed as I would expect. Frustrating at points but a good read!

This lingered on my TBR for much too long. I was gripped by Charlotte's worries and guilt at Alice's disappearance under her care. Harriett's unease was also a hugh point of intrigue for me throughout the book.

Lots of twists to unravel here, some which are a little obvious and some took me genuinely aback.

Every parent has known that heart stopping moment when their child is suddenly not where they are supposed to be. Is that awful moment even worse when the child that has gone missing is not your own, but the child of a friend whom you were supposed to be looking after?

Charlotte is distraught when Alice, the shy child of her school mum friend Harriett, goes missing whilst under Charlotte's care at the school fete. Was Charlotte being negligent, popping onto Facebook for a quick scroll, at the exact time that Alice disappears? The court of public opinion is savage, and it is not long before Charlotte is the hot topic of discussion in her community. Meanwhile Harriet struggles to keep it all together with the police dogging her every move, and those of her husband. The police seem to want to know every single minute detail of Harriet's life. Harriet's husband does not know all there is to know about Harriet either though, and that's a good thing...

NOW YOU SEE HER trundles along as a fairly standard thriller (let’s not use the term domestic, or women's thriller anymore as they are old hat) until you click as to what is really happening between the parents of the missing child. Without throwing in major plot spoilers, this feels like it needs to come with a bit of a trigger warning but then again, what is the crime and thriller fiction exists without cruelty rearing up somewhere at some point?

The push and pull between the narratives of the two mothers is a strength of this novel, and the overall premise of the work is a very identifiable and confronting dilemma for parents to consider. You do feel there is a bit of a lag midway where the action needed a bit of a push but be patient, this will come.

NOW YOU SEE HER is an absorbing take on what could easily happen to any one of us. But would we react the same way?

#NowYouSeeHer #NetGalley

I'm afraid I skim read the majority of this book. It took a while for it to start and the middle didn't really go anywhere, but the ending did grip me when I read the twist in the story and wanted to know how it ended. I think this book will be a hit or miss book.
I would look out for this author again but I wouldn't shout about this book. Thank you for accepting my request.

Now you see her was a great book. Cleverly written. Loved the twists that I did not see coming. I could not put this book down.

In the five years since Alice was born Harriet has never let anyone look after her daughter. So, when she starts an accountancy course she is understandably anxious to leave her with her best friend Charlotte. That day, along with Charlotte's three young children they all go to have some fun at the local school fete. When all the kids run off to get on the bouncy castle Charlotte takes a minute to use her phone and updates her Facebook account. It's something she'll never be able to forgive herself for because little Alice disappears. The police launch into action trying to find her but there's not many leads. Harriett and her husband Brian both have alibi's. Soon, the agonising minutes without their daughter turn into hours, days and then weeks.
But is all as it seems?
This story reminds you that you just never know what goes on behind closed doors; even the people you think you know best and it makes you wonder; what lengths would you go to to protect your children?
I absoloutely loved reading every page.

A good premise and a compelling storyline. The characters were above average but not much development. 3/5.

A book full of twists that I didn’t see coming! A gripping read about the abduction of a 4 year old girl and the frantic weeks that follow and the unravelling lives of those involved.

While Harriet attended a bookkeeping course and her husband Brian went fishing, 4 year old Alice was left with Harriets friend Charlotte and her 3 kids to attend the local school fete. It’s while Charlotte scans emails and Facebook while the kids play on a ride that Alice goes missing without a trace.

Set in both the now and the before, the intricate storyline keeps the reader guessing for most of the book about who did what and why.

A great book, fast paced with a very real storyline. Many thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.