Stella is a woman who deals with the grief of her lost daughter every single day -- even though she has a successful practice and a picture-perfect husband and son. But when a young woman enters her office and reminds her so much of her daughter Alice, Stella is worried that she may be losing it, or she may have just found the only thing she's ever wanted.

This story is told through the perspective of three women: Stella, Isabelle (who Stella believes is her daughter Alice), and Kerstin, Isabelle's mother. These women all have everything at stake, and their interactions with each other throughout the book prove them to all be unreliable narrators. It is up to the reader to determine who has been telling the truth, who has been duped, and who is spinning the web of lies they all have believed for so long.

This book didn't convey the same urgency as other thrillers of the same genre mostly because the author leaves enough clues in the beginning of the story to guess at what will happen in the end. Although readers may not be able to accurately determine which of the women is sane and which are unhinged from the beginning, it's pretty clear that the story takes you exactly where you want to go.

I received a free e-copy of Tell Me You're Mine by Elisabeth Noreback from NetGalley for my honest review.

This book is told through the eyes of three different characters (Stella, Isabelle and Kerstin). Stella was on a family vacation by the sea twenty years ago. On that vacation, Stella's daughter disappeared and it was presumed that she drowned. All that remained was her red stroller which was turned over in the sand. Her body was never found.

Stella never believed that her daughter was dead. Keep in mind that Stella is very dramatic but she is convinced that her new patient, Isabelle, is her daughter, Alice. Is she loosing her mind or is Isabelle really her daughter? Kerstin, is Stella's mother and you really don't find out anything about her until the end which I don't want to give away.

I enjoyed the book and there were a lot of twists and turns but the first half of the book was a bit slow for me. It was worth reading as I enjoyed the last half of the book more than the first.

When Stella was little more than a teenager, her year old baby went missing at the seaside. Investigators determined that the baby drowned and closed the case. Stella slowly regained her life, marrying, having a second child, and establishing a career as a successful psychotherapist. When Isabelle steps into her office Stella immediately, believes that she is her lost daughter.

I thought this was a well paced book. The author did a good job of building up suspense and slowly unraveling the story. I thought Stella was a hard to like character, and wished she was a bit more relatable. Otherwise, I thought this was a well written and engaging book. Overall, well worth reading.

This book was fantastic. For a debut book for this author, it was awesome. Once I started reading it, I couldn't put it down. It revolves around a woman named Stella who is at the beginning of the book an accomplished psychological and married and has a 13 year old son. but when Stella was 17 and got pregnant by her boyfriend, she decided to keep the baby and they stayed together. Her name was Alice and they adored her. They were on vacation at at a beach and at the age of ten months old Alice was stolen out of stroller. They searched for weeks but could not find her. Stella was so distraught she needed to go to an institution for her breakdown. She finally recovers, her and Daniel part ways and she goes on to become a psychologist. The book really begin here when a girl named Isabelle walks into to Stella's office and wants counseling and joins her group session and Stella is sure that Isabelle is Alice. First that point on, this book is a true page turner.. My heart was pounding from this book. It was well written and I highly recommend this book. I will not give away any spoilers. There are twists and turns right to the very last page. I received this book from netgalley.com as an ARC for an honest review.. If you like these types of books, then you will love this one..

“””Twenty-one years ago my life was destroyed, but I rebuilt it. I can’t forget that. I chose to live.””” It only takes a split second and you’re whole life changes...

Stella looks away from her baby for just a moment and suddenly she’s gone, stroller empty. Baby Alice is believed to have perished into the ocean. But her body is never found. Without closure, we follow Stella’s story. Trying to maintain her sanity while never giving up hope. Wouldn’t we all? A mother’s worst nightmare unfolds into a huge “what if” plot.

Fast paced thriller, that leaves you needing to turn the page to find out “what next”. The ending was slightly predictable, a perfect beach read. I would definitely read anything else this author offers us.

The lives of 3 women collide with a deadly force. Three women: one who believes she has found her long lost daughter, one terrified she's about to lose her child, and one determined to understand who she truly is.

Stella is a psychotherapist with a tragic past. More than 20 years ago her infant daughter disappeared. Authorities determined that she had somehow got out of her stroller and fell into the swirling waters and drowned. Even though there is a marker in the cemetery with her name, she is not buried there. Stella has always believed that someone took her and her daughter is still alive.

But everyone around her thinks she is mentally unbalanced. Sometimes she thinks she is, too. She suffers from guilt .... she left her daughter alone for just a moment ..and that moment was long enough for her baby to disappear. She suffers from grief ... she has mourned her daughter every single day.

Alternating voices of these women tell a story about love ... and obsession. How far will a mother go to protect her children? What will she sacrifice ?

This author has started her career with a winner. It's a riveting domestic suspense debut that had me hooked from the very first page. The characters are cleverly showcased. The suspense starts out fairly low key, but it increases significantly with each chapter leading to an explosive nail-biting ending.

Many thanks to the author / G P Putnam's Sons / Netgalley / Edelweiss for the advanced digital copy of this psychological thriller. Opinions expressed here are unbiased and entirely my own.

Five stars for Tell Me You're Mine by Elisabeth Norebäck. This story was a great read that was interesting and kept me guessing until the view end. Thank you for the opportunity to review.

'Her right ear looks like Daniel’s and Maria’s. Elf ears. It’s genetic.'

Stella Widstrand was on a family vacation in a secluded cabin by the sea so long ago, when her baby daughter disappeared, thought to have drowned. All that remains, her red stroller, turned over in the sand, but could the sea have truly taken her daughter, whose body was never found? One fatal mistake, one walk and it was all over for Stella and Daniel, the blame all hers to bear.

Now Stella has Henrik and Milo, a happy life despite her terrible grief. It’s better to leave that tragedy in the past, where it belongs. Psychotherapy once saved her, pulled her out of the abyss, inspiring her to help others, studying psychology herself. She was good at it, her job, until now. A handwritten letter, a threat or warning is turning her life upside down. It could be the one hostile patient from her past or it could be Isabella, the woman whom she recommends group therapy to and believes could be her dead daughter, Alice. Her child whose body was never found, Alice who could have been taken!It isn’t just grief, making her see something familiar in the stranger, it is possible, she never believed her to be dead, she isn’t losing her mind!

Isabella is damaged, raised by an overbearing mother (Kerstin) who feels her child is slipping away, living in Stockholm, engaging in therapy that she doesn’t trust. Private thoughts should be kept private, she’s of the keep yourself to yourself generation. Her daughter is fragile and should be home where Kerstin doesn’t have to worry about her, can guide her, care for her. Her father, Hans passed away recently, and she’s had a hard time with it, she needs her mother! Why don’t people understand this? Isabella is seeing her caring mother in a different light due to the therapy sessions, questioning things in her life, even her father’s death. Things no longer make sense, therapy is opening her eyes but to what? She wants control of her life and her emotions, but why is that a threat to Kerstin.

Stella is getting too close to her patient, Henrik doesn’t like it a bit, knowing how vulernable his wife his to her past tragedy. Is this all just hysteria, is she projecting on the young patient? It’s impossible, irrational, Henrik doesn’t believe her, worries over her, could she be sick again? Stella is slipping, breaking but she is going to find out if Isabella is her Alice, at any cost.

This was engaging and strange at times, one of those stories about a mother’s worst fears coming true, though what follows seems more than a little impossible. Then again life is stranger than fiction at times too. It was good but not as thrilling as I had hoped, I think because I figured it out early on. It’s more a psychological drama about damaged people and I’ve read other novels with striking similarities but it was still enjoyable.

Publication Date: September 4, 2018

Penguin Group

G.P. Putnam’s Son

This one was a tough read for me. The first half was a bit boring to read, but the book really started to get better in the second half. Unfortunately, right around that same time, I pretty much figured out what was really going on (and I ended up being correct). A bit predictable in that sense, but the ending was written very well. I was horrified and my stomach turned quite a bit, which is actually a feeling I quite enjoy when reading books like this. I wasn't prepared for the extremely graphic sex scene - I have nothing against it but I was just not expecting that. All in all, I enjoyed the book but I didn't find it very suspenseful.

I am a huge fan of strong female characters, especially mothers who have experienced grief, who go against the odds and do crazy, illogical things to prove others wrong. Maybe twenty years before our main protagonist lost her daughter and years later she believes she has appeared in front of her in the form of a girl attending therapy sessions. One would think, "How" and "Why" and this is the driving force of the story.

I didn't feel very attached to any of the characters besides our protagonist, Stella. I felt that characters like Stella's husband and her friends were a bit un-subtle and kind of obvious and halfway through the book I felt more detached and I had begun to see through the author's holes. I thought about giving up but was pleasantly surprised by the ending and the twist.

I recommend this to anyone looking for a good mystery and thriller and for short summer days. I also would recommend this to friends and family.

My first Scandinavian suspense read! Wow, I can’t believe this is Elisabeth Noreback’s debut, what a terrifically twisted book!

I’ve heard from some folks who feel that this book is just another retread of the unreliable narrator trope, but I never found myself doubting the reality of Stella’s actions or her search to confirm whether or not her therapy patient is indeed her daughter who disappeared at age one. Certainly with all her lies, misdirections and half-truths, her husband could not trust her, but I did. I found myself mistrusting the other characters motivations—Isabelle, the husband, and Kirsten were all under suspicion.

Noreback pulls out every psychosis in the book to test them out on her characters. I found this part of the book to be off the wall as far as realism, but exceedingly enjoyable in a Jerry Springer/train wreck sort of way.

One drawback for me was that the culprit and their background is obvious before you even reach the halfway point. Perhaps that’s a failing on my part as a reader... If the story is suspense and the characters are unable to deduce the culprit causing all the mayhem, then I feel like I’m not supposed to know either. Maybe that’s not a prerequisite for a 5 star read, eh? Combined with a lot of coincidence that creates the underlying structure of the novel, I’d say this one gets knocked down to 4 stars. A super fun read if you’re willing to suspend disbelief.

I almost gave up on this book early so be warned it has a slow start and other issues but I’m glad I stuck with it. My big problem with the beginning was the character of Isabelle, the woman that Stella believes could be her missing daughter. Isabelle is very angry and a hard character to want to read at the beginning. The POV is mostly Stella but also alternates to Isabelle and somewhat another character. Eventually the character mellows out and becomes very normal. The main driving point of the story is what happened to Stella’s missing daughter and is she Isabelle.

There were a lot of issues in my ARC that will hopefully be fixed by publication but there were other language issues that will most likely not be fixed. The writing is very stilted and obviously a bad translation that does not flow. This becomes less of an issue as the story settles in and you get used to it.

There may be cultural differences that make the characters behave in very different ways than would be acceptable to us. Stella has had previously mental breakdowns, which is understandable given what she went through, but her friends and family are not there for her. Her husband all but ignores her as she is falling apart. It makes these characters difficult to read to say the least. Stella will also act in ways that are suspect even for her circumstances. The police are also very different from what would be expected.

It becomes very clear where the story is headed but that only ratchets up the anticipation of the conclusion. I wanted the final scenes to play out and see where the pieces would find up. I did wish there was more of a conclusion with some more explanations of events.

Psychotherapist Stella Widstrand's one year old daughter Alice was stolen from her stroller while the family was on vacation over 20 years ago. Or at least that is what Stella believes. In fact, she is the only person who is convinced this is what happened to Alice. Everyone else has accepted that Alice likely drowned in the ocean that fateful day. Her body was never found and the family even held a burial for her. But Stella is not convinced. She knows her baby is out there somewhere.

Stella's entire world is turned upside down one day when a patient named Isabelle walks into her office. Stella is convinced that Isabelle is her long-lost daughter, and she is determined to prove it all costs. But as Stella begins to behave more erratically in her efforts to convince the world that Isabelle is in fact her daughter, she gains a reputation as being someone whose perception of the world cannot be trusted. Is Isabelle really Stella's daughter, or has she just lost her mind?

Translated from its original Swedish, Elisabeth Noreback's Tell Me You're Mine is a long-winded psychological suspense novel told from the POVs of three women - that of Stella, Isabelle, and Isabelle's mother Kerstin. Noreback creates a tense atmosphere In Tell Me You're Mine as she showcases a woman spiraling out of control in an effort to prove that she is not crazy. Throughout the novel, Noreback makes it difficult to determine just who is telling the truth as the novel unravels. Is Isabelle really Stella's daughter, or is Kerstin being accused of a kidnapping that she didn't commit? And just why is Isabelle so angry and seeking therapy? What is really going on here?

Perhaps it is due to Tell Me You're Mine originally being written in Swedish, but much of the first two-thirds of the novel was lost in translation for me. I found the story line difficult to follow with much of it taking place in the characters' heads and constantly jumping around. The novel would have benefited from a tighter plotline, as it goes on and on without much development. There are also numerous Swedish locations mentioned throughout the novel, and being an American with no frame of reference, I was easily confused by the number of unfamiliar place names.

Overall, Tell Me You're Mine is not a bad novel, but it isn't an easy one either. The pace and development pick up in the last third of the book, making me wish that the rest of the novel had been similarly thrilling and consequential.

Elisabeth Noreback has written a mystery that follows three women, Stella, Isabella and Kersten. Stella believes that Isabella is her daughter and that sends her to read through her journal from when her daughter went missing. Tell Me You're Mine kept me reading because I wanted to know is she her daughter and what happened that day and I was not let down with the suspense that came with that information being revealed. Mystery readers should pick up this book, especially if you want to experience one in another countries and am so thankful to Netgalley and Putnam Books for an ARC to review.

I received an advance readers can't be in exchange for an honest review. This book was enjoyable although not particularly well-written or well-crafted. Good time-passer on a rainy day. Ham-handed description of a female sociopath. The combination of the 'sociopath versus shrink" and the "long-lost daughter" tropes was interesting though . Good enough.

Stella's baby disappears when she is a baby and Stella thinks the young lady she is treating in her psychotherapist office is her daughter grown up. As Stella tries to figure out if the young lady is her daughter Alice, her life spirals out of control. The book was a bit confusing for me as it goes in many directions. Stella is an unreliable narrator and at times I just didn't understand why she does the things she does. I received an advanced readers copy from NetGalley and Penguin Group Putnam. All opinions are my own.

Tell Me You're Mine was an interesting thriller to say the least.
Stella Widstrand is a psychotherapist who starts seeing a new patient named Isabelle. Stella believes that Isabelle is her daughter who went missing twenty years ago and was never found. As Stella becomes obsessive with finding out the truth.. her world turns upside down.

I was very curious of finding out if Isabelle was really Stella's missing child or if there is something else sinister going in with Isabelle. Unfortunately, the book just turned into an annoying mess with one outlandish thing happening after another. Really disappointing after what was a promising premise and start.

I'm not sure that I would recommend this one to thriller fans. I think many will be left disappointed and wanting more.

2 stars for me on this one

Huge thank you to Netgalley and P.G Putnam Son's for the opportunity to read this in exchange for my honest thoughts.

Publication date: 9/4/18
Published to GR: 8/5/18

It took a while for me to get into Elisabeth Norebäck's book. She didn't seem to mind explaining the sex scenes which the Swedish people are quite open about, but I seem to brush over them, because I guess I feel embarrassed. It starts out with Stella Widstrand as a therapist meeting a client, Isabelle Karlsson, who is the spitting image of her lost daughter from 20 years ago, Alice. It goes into the history of the crime and also what Stella does with Isabelle. I'll let you figure out how and what happens in this story. Let's say it unfolds with many people being involved with Stella in her practice and it comes to a head. You'll like reading it, you do get involved with Stella. You ache for her, so read it, you won't be disappointed.

I received an ARC of this novel from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Stella stepped away from her infant daughter for a few minutes, and Alice went missing. Although Stella went on with her life and had another child, she mourned the loss of her daughter and thought of her constantly. Fate brings a girl into Stella's life that she is certain is her missing child.

Exciting mystery read with several plot twists. I really enjoyed the novel.

Now this was a physiological thriller, gotta love a little old fashioned gas-lighting. Set in Sweden, this one had me racing to the end, at the expense of the writing sometimes.