There are a myriad of books saturating the universe dealing with abducted children, but none like what Christian White paints for the reader. Kim Leamy is a photography teacher in Australia when a man approaches her with a picture and tells her that he is sure she is his kidnapped sister from over 20 years ago. Despite the similarities she finds it hard to believe. She can't confim her birth circumstances as her mother had recently died. So...the fishing expedition begins with her trip to Kentucky where the family is from. The rest of the novel is told between different characters and flashes from the past to the present. It is totally a smooth transition and increases the reader's eagerness to discover details of the plot.Without giving the plot away, I was transported to an unfamiliar world- a cult like religion, equipped with members worshipping snakes. Surprisingly, this did not feel artificial at all but very real indeed. There are many twists and turns with a shocking ending that I never saw coming. Suspend your skepticism and dive into this novel. It is one you won't regret.

3.75

The Nowhere Child is a very clever psychological thriller. Kim is in her late 20s and lives in Australia, when a man shows up and tells her he thinks she went missing as a child in Kentucky, USA, in 1990. The story unfolds in two plot lines -- one focusing on Kim as an adult trying to figure out whether this is true and what happened and the other going back to the early 1990s at the time of the abduction. It's a dark story with quite a few interesting twists and turns. Some of the characters and their interactions were especially strong. While also takes on some real contemporary issues -- that I won't mention for fear of giving away some spoilers. The only reason it wasn't quite a 4 star read for me was that there were a few too many sharp turns at the end that left me shaking my head. But, still, it kept me reading and I will definitely look for White's next book.

One warning is warranted: you may want to stay away from this one if you're squeamish about snakes...

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an opportunity to read an advance copy.

In April of 1990, two year old Sammy Went disappeared from her home in Manson, Kentucky and was never found. Twenty-six years later in Melbourne, Australia, photography teacher Kim Leamy has a happy life but her world upends when a man confesses to her that she was his long lost sister Sammy. The two eventually travel back to Kentucky. Soon, with rising suspicions and unearthed secrets, the truth begins to unfold. This suspenseful novel is for fans of Ruth Ware.

A fabulous debut thriller by Christian White.
Kim has been enjoying her relatively normal life in Australia. Sitting alone in a coffee shop, a man approaches her. He shows her a photograph of his sister Sammy, who went missing over 20 years ago in Kentucky. He insists Kim is that sister!

How would you react if a complete stranger walked up to you out of the blue and tried to convince you that you were their long lost sibling? Would you even listen? Or run full-speed the other way?

Now she’s made the journey back to Kentucky on her own quest for the truth. And the prospect of facing her newly-found potential birth family. She expected some surprising revelations. But Kim didn’t expect her 'new sister' to immediately call the media and turn the reunion into a circus.
Or discover that her 'birth mother' belongs to a church that uses snakes in their prayer ceremonies! Be prepared, there’s a lot of snake talk!🐍

But is this her real family? Or one huge mistake?

It’s always so exciting to find a new author to enjoy! A fantastic exciting read from start to finish. I will most definitely be watching for more of Mr. White's books in the future!

A buddy read with Susanne that left us reminiscing about my own encounter with an uninvited snake on vacation...
Me: Standing on the sofa screaming for my husband! Texting furiously to Susanne and Brenda!
Susanne & Brenda: doing their best to keep me calm, googling how to remove the snake safely.
Husband: taking a leisurely stroll around the mountain-side! Unaware of the drama going on inside the cabin!🙄

Thank you to NetGalley, St. Martin's Press and Christian White for an ARC to read in exchange for an honest review.

I received an advanced ARC copy of The Nowhere Child by Christian White for my honest review.

This is the first novel by Christian White, an Australian author. In 1990, two-year-old Sammy Went is abducted in the middle of the day, from her home in Manson, Kentucky. No trace of her was ever found. Now, twenty-eight years later, photography teacher, Kimberly Leamy is approached by a man who shows her a photograph of Sammy Went. The photo shows that Sammy resembles Kim when she was two-years-old. He thinks that Kim is Sammy Went.

Kim doesn't believe any of it. She can't believe that her mother, Carol Leamy, who is now deceased could ever have kidnapped a child. As time passes the idea an picture bother Kim so she asks her stop-dad. Kim is suddenly driving to Kentucky, where it all happened, to find out things for herself.

A tragic event, stories not told, secrets to be found. A wonderful debut novel with lots of twist and turns.

I found this book to be a fun read. It was filled with a lot of suspense that kept me turning the pages. I found the ending to be rather abrupt, resulting in a four-star rather than five-star rating.

3.25 stars

Kim gets the surprise of her life one day when a man approaches and shows her a picture of a 2 year old girl who went missing 26 years ago. The girl’s name is Sammy Went and he thinks Kim is that girl.

Kim has lived her whole life in Melbourne and has always been very close to her family. Stuart is from a small town in Manson, Kentucky and he has been searching for Sammy for a long time. Everyone else had given up on her but Stuart has had his reasons for searching for Sammy. When he finds her, he gets what he thinks is indisputable proof that she is his sister and he convinces Kim to make the trip to his hometown. What Kim finds upon meeting the Wents is not what she imagined. Some moments are heartwarming, some are heart stopping.

Told in two timelines: the past and the present, “The Nowhere Child” is a novel that I had to ease into. I found parts of the book to be far fetched and unnecessary and parts of it to be engrossing and really well written. One however really freaked me out: Snakes? How about no thank you!

This was a buddy read with Kaceey. So glad we read this one together!

Thank you to NetGalley, St. Martin’s Press, Minotaur Books and Christian White for an ARC of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

Published on Goodreads and NetGalley on 12.21.18.

3-3.5 stars.

This book has a really interesting premise. Imagine you are approached at work one night by a stranger that tries to tell you that you are a long lost kidnapped child. How would you react? Would you immediately discount the stranger, or would you stop and wonder, could this actually be real? This is exactly what happens to Kim Leamy.

I really enjoyed the back and forth between the past and present chapters. Each chapter in the past slowly moves the reader through what happened the day that 2 year old Sammy Went goes missing. Then we are taken back to present day and going along for the ride as Kim Leamy travels to the US to meet a family she never knew about.

Mr. White does a great job of layering multiple things throughout this book. On the one hand, there is Kim Leamy, a woman who doesn't really seem to fit in anywhere, even in her own family. She felt like a ship out at sea that has a broken rudder and can't seem to steer itself in any one direction. In the past chapters, there is Sammy Went's family, who all seem to have secrets they are hiding away. Some pretty big ones, that I have to admit, I couldn't wait to see get blown wide open. Then back in the present, we have an older group of Sammy Went's family that Kim/Sammy is trying to get to know and accept. And interspersed throughout all of it, is the Pentecostal Fundamentalist church in which Sammy's mother Molly is a devoted follower. Exactly how devoted is she?

I must admit, I very much enjoyed the past chapters the best. Getting to meet each of the players, finding out what their secrets are, and ultimately building up to the big reveal of exactly what happened almost 30 years ago was thrilling. The present chapters? They were not that interesting to me. I think this was because I couldn't form a connection at all with Kim. She came across to me as a very 2D character. I felt no depth or emotion from her. Everyone around her was being emotional for her, it felt like. I understand her character is someone who is not overly emotional in the first place, but I just didn't connect with her.

The ending is very exciting and kept me on the edge of my seat, until it wasn't. I felt like I built up all this anxiety and excitement to find out the truth, and then it is revealed and all my feelings just kind of fizzled out, like air leaving a leaking balloon. It all felt anti-climatic to me, so that was a bit of a let down. I wanted to know "what happens next?" and we don't really get that. So I guess what I'm trying to say is that I didn't get that happily ever after that helps me to feel a story is complete.

I am sure this book is going to be very successful, based on early reviews I'm seeing. It is a very engaging story, particularly the past chapters as I mentioned above. I'm hearing rumors that it has already been optioned for a movie? Not sure how true that is, but if so, I would buy a ticket and watch it.

I enjoyed this thriller. It definitely kept me on the edge of my seat, wondering what had happened to Sammy/Kim. I thought the flashbacks were interesting and added to the story. This was a pretty straight-forward, easy to read suspense novel. I don't know if I'd necessarily move it to the top of your pile, but I thought it was a decent story.

I hate snakes. Hate them with an absolute passion. How I got through the climatic ending is a mystery (okay - so I skimmed some parts - shoot me)

I loved the premise of this book - Its an amazing, original concept and kudos for the author for the plot. I thought the climactic ending was terrific - the plot twists were jaw dropping.

What I thought was missing was a little more dimension from the characters. I would see glimmers of depth with Jack and with Kim at times but everyone else.... it was just a flat surface. Where was the true inner turmoil of Kim finding out she wasn't who she thought she was? Where was the anger? Where was trying to find the balance between the old and the new parts of her life?

But - the ending makes the book all worth it.

B

Stunning debut! Terrifying at times and completely broke the mold with this genre. It stepped outside the lines and it was a thrilling read!

This book was a little slow to draw me in, but it had a powerhouse ending. In fact, I stayed up well past my bedtime to finish it!

We are introduced to Kimberly in Australia and her world is shaken when a stranger insists that she is his long-lost sister from Kentucky. We follow Kimberly on her journey to unearth the mysteries of the kidnapping of Sammy Wendt and to discover the truth about her identity.

Kimberly travels to Kentucky where she learns more about the Wendt family and the Light Within, a fundamentalist church group that handles snakes and speaks in tongues. Does the Light Within have the final clues to unravel the mystery? The book is told in a Then and Now fashion and the pieces start to fall into place for the reader. There are some very interesting flawed characters in this story.

There are themes of identity, family, faith, intolerance, religion vs. cult. I recommend this book if you are a fan of psychological thrillers. One word of caution though -- as Indiana Jones would say “Why did it have to be snakes?”

**I will update my Goodreads review with this full one near publication date

Wow this was quite the debut!

The Nowhere Child is an exciting, addicting, and unique psychological thriller. Christian White sure knows how to pull his readers in with one heck of a ride!

The author beautifully intertwines the two stories of past/present alternating between the US and Melbourne so delicately but with such a fine crisp of edginess and thrill that will leave you turning those pages!

The story explores the mysterious disappearance of a two year old little girl Sammy Went. Kimberly Leary is a photographer who lives in Melbourne Australia with her family. One day Stuart Went shows up in her photography class convinced that Kimberly is his long lost sister Sammy Went that disappeared when she was a toddler. Kimberly is clearly caught off guard but agrees to take a DNA test to rule herself out from this possibility. But, little does she know that her DNA is a match and Sammy Went and Kimberly Leary are the same person.

The book literally takes off from there!! Talk about unreliable characters, a cult, snakes, and creepiness to a tee! What more could you ask for in a thriller?!

I really enjoyed this one and highly recommend!

4 stars for The Nowhere Child!

Huge thank you to Minotaur/St. Martin's Press and Netgalley for the arc in exchange for my honest review.

Published to GR: 12/13/18
Publication date: 1/22/19

Thank you Minotaur Books for sending me a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

Kim’s life gets flipped upside-down really fast in this book. An American walks up to her as she’s living in Australia and tells her that she may be connected to a kidnapping that happened 26 years ago. In fact, he tells her that he’s certain that she IS the girl that was kidnapped 26 years ago! Told through two timelines – the current time period and back to the past when the toddler was kidnapped – you will learn how Kim learns to cope with the life-changing news and what truly happened to her.

This book captured my attention real quick! What a fast-past read with cliff-hangers at the end of each chapter. The author did a great job and expressing the emotions felt by all the characters. I mean, can you imagine being told that you were kidnapped when you were a toddler?! There were a little too many characters in this book for me to keep track of. That lead to some confusing parts, along with the dual storyline. Other than that, it was a solid thrilling read! I would totally recommend adding it to your list!

4/5 Stars

For all of us who devoured Caroline Cooney's The Face on the Milk Carton in middle school and are now adults -- Christian White's The Nowhere Child is your next must-read! When Kim Leamy is approached by an American named Stuart after one of her photography classes, she assumes he's an interested prospective student. He explains that two -year-old Sammy Went went disappeared more than twenty years ago and he hasn't stopped looking for her since. With the flare of a Criminal Minds episode, Christian White adeptly describes what's going through Kim's mind as the "truth" gets revealed. White's alternating "then" and "now" give the siblings, the suspects, and Kim well-rounded stories that are all woven together in the end.

This is a very well written Psychological /thriller/Suspense Debut nove by Christian White. The Nowhere Child got me hooked from the start and had alot of twists that kept me hooked.
This story follows a young 28 year old woman named Kimberly Leamy from Australia who just learns she may have been abducted as a child and be the same missing child Sammie Went who went missing when she was two years old in the states. As Kimberly researches this and goes into this new world she finds darkness she wasn't expecting .

I have to say I wasn't expecting to like this book that much because it was another abduction story. However I found it Wasn't just another abduction story, it was very unique and interesting. I was amazed. The only gripe I have and it's a small one is that there were too many characters to follow. Other wise the book was great.

"The Nowhere Child" was an intriguing page-turner that follows Kim Leamy, an Australian woman who has just found out she is actually Sammy Went, who was kidnapped from the US when she was 2 years old. The book fluctuates between Kim's present following her trip to the US and her meeting of family members plus puzzling over how the kind woman she has grown up with could have stolen her from another and the past, when Sammy went missing and the events surrounding that time.

I found myself quickly engaged in the story and read the book very fast as a result. It is quite clear that there is more to the story than meets the eye, and it slowly becomes accessible to us as readers. That being said, it did not have the thriller feel until the last 15% or so, when things become much, much more intense. The earlier part (most) of the book felt like character studies on Kim/Sammy and the Went family. It was slow but steady in terms of writing.

The characters all seemed easy to like until they weren't. They all seemed to have one major flaw that makes you dislike them in the end, which was an interesting way to characterize people. It was some of these that made me give it 4 instead of 5 stars. For instance, the pharmacist perpetuating stereotypes about antidepressants (implying that people are weak for needing them and that they don't actually help but instead numb everything, which is just not true)- I assume this was meant to feed into later discussions, but I felt it was just overall unnecessary. There are better ways to come about this.

Overall, I found it a really intriguing mystery that kept me reading quickly through to the conclusion. Please note that I received an ARC from the publisher through netgalley. All opinions are my own.

Kimberly Leamy is living a quiet contented life in Australia as a photography teacher, constantly seeing people and things through a lens, determining the best angle, light, etc. until an unusually somber man interrupts her during a class break to calmly tell her that is he is her brother Stuart and she was kidnapped as a child from America.
Kim is no dummy, but she feels that Stuart speaks from the heart, so she agrees to a DNA test, which confirms it. Later, when she tells her stepfather about Stuart’s claims, his reaction seals the deal. She knows it’s the truth.
Returning to America with Stuart, Kim visits her hometown, meeting her sister, mother, friends, and relatives from her youth. The tangled web that is weaved is so intriguing, and her mother’s rude and unfeeling response to meeting her again turns up the tension for the reader. This isn’t your textbook kidnapping; no ransom notes, no divorce, no pattern of abductions. But it certainly wasn’t a happy, healthy home environment either. Mom is enthralled with her Pentecostal preacher and church; dad is slowly accepting the fact that he is a homosexual and living a painful lie in a heterosexual marriage.
But neither of these would instigate having their 2-year old daughter stolen from her room during the night. Kim, being a strong and determined soul, wants the truth, but she isn’t prepared for what it will cost her and her loved ones to get there.
This is not a shallow, “I know what’s gonna happen next” book. The writing is captivating; the characters pop off the page. I’m excited to see more from Christian White in the future.
(I received an advance copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an unbiased review. Thank you to St. Martin’s Press – Minotaur Books for making it available.)

Lou Jacobs's Reviews > The Nowhere Child

The Nowhere Child by Christian White
The Nowhere Child
by Christian White
M 50x66
Lou Jacobs's review Nov 19, 2018 · edit
it was amazing

An amazing debut novel by Christian White ... a page turner that was unrelenting and effortlessly propelled the reader on an exhausting journey that explored both relationships and religious fanaticism. Twenty eight year old photography teacher, Kimberly Leamy from Melbourne, Australia is confronted one evening before the beginning of her class with a situation that will turn her life upside down. An American man, who claims to be an accountant, confronts her with the proposition that she is actually Sammie Went ... a girl who shortly after her 2nd birthday in 1990 was abducted from her house in Manson, Kentucky. He provides convincing evidence that she is that abducted child.
Sammie was the daughter of Jack and Molly Went ... who mysteriously vanished from home on April, 3, 1990 ... her body never recovered ... and no convincing evidence ever uncovered regarding motive or persons responsible. (Not until later in the story are multiple possibilities explored). The flowing narrative is told in back and forth narrative ... events unfolding at the time of the abduction that are carefully juxtaposed with current events both in Australia and Manson, Kentucky. Details are explored including the relative estrangement of Jack and Molly since Sammie's birth. In the background are the disturbing elements and effects of religious fanaticism. Molly and a large proportion of the community are under the thrall of The Church of the Light Within ... a Pentecostal fundamentalist group who handle poisonous snakes as part of their worship beliefs.
Presented with the possibility of being Sammie Went, Kim travels to Manson, Kentucky to explore and investigate the family she never knew. The effortless and flowing narrative propels the reader forward as the true twisted truths are revealed ... resulting in an unexpected but satisfying denouement . Thanks to Netgalley and Harper Collins Ltd for supplying an ARC of this unusually adept Debut Novel in exchange for an honest review.

A gripping thriller about a kidnapped girl and an investigation by the girls brother that brings him to Kim, a teacher in Australia, to wonder "am I that missing girl?"
Kim follows Stuart to America to answer that question and finds a town torn apart by the kidnapping and a local "church"/cult.
The ending threw me for a loop! Crazy ending.