This mystery novel involves an old Scottish manse, with strange goings on and strange visitors that suggest the house is haunted. Ailsa inherits it from her mother and returns from London to the Scottish Highlands to either live in or sell the house. But there is a problem, as half of the house is still owned by her father, who has been missing for 27 years.

I read it and gave it 4.5 stars because of the complex characters involved.

A creepy tale that keeps you on your toes - is what is happening paranormal, or simply the work of malicious humans?

I recieved an ARC of this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. I loved this book and will recommend it often to lovers of mysteries, thrillers, and suspense novels!

Kind of a light thriller, felt a little bit wishy-washy like the author couldn’t decide whether to have the action or not. Enjoyed it nonetheless!

I struggled to get into this story but I’m glad I continued on with the mystery as there was a great twist with suspense at the end. Loved the Scottish setting also.

My Highly Caffeinated Thought: An eerie mystery with questions surrounding the past and secrets held in the present.

THE MISSING YEARS is a tense and wonderfully moody read filled with unique characters to keep you guessing. As a bonus, Elliott does an expert job of playing upon the atmosphere of the Scottish Highlands as well as the creepiness of the home where the main character is staying.

What I liked so much about this novel was the flow of the story. Everything moved effortlessly from one moment to the next all the while adding to the mystique surrounding the characters. The sentiment that things are not always what they seem is key to this novel. There are so many twists and turns that I was continually questioning everyone’s motives.

For those who like psychological suspense with a heavy dose of interpersonal relationships and family drama, this will be a read for you. I cannot wait for Elliott’s next book.

The Missing Years by Lexie Elliott is a super follow up to her first novel, The French Girl. This book follows Ailsa as she moves into the manse where she first lived as a child with her parents. When she was seven her father disappeared along with a bag of diamonds and her mother moved them out of the manse. Now grown, Ailsa is back, along with her half-sister, and she's determined to solve the mystery of her father's disappearance. Lots of twists and turns abound in this novel. Read and enjoy!

I knew I was going to love this book. Lexie had me sold on her writing in her first novel, The French Girl. The fact that she can come back so strong with her second book makes me believe she is here to stay as an author and I am so happy for her!! She keeps the story moving between the relationship of the sisters and their relationship to the Manse!! Absolutely perfect!!

Ailsa Calder has returned to her childhood home in Scotland after her mother's death. She is currently living in London with a job as a successful news producer. Her mother has left her half of the house while the other half still belongs to her father, who has been missing for twenty- seven years. Ailsa has not visited for many years and plans to return to London as soon as possible.

Ailsa’s goal is to sell the home but she is lacking her father’s current location or a death certificate. His disappearance has always been a mystery and there are rumors that he left town after a sizable theft. Ailsa starts her search by questioning the local residents but they are unhelpful and make her feel very unwelcome. At the same time, strange occurrences happen at the house making her stay even more uncomfortable.

The Missing Years by Lexie Elliott is an interesting mixture of mystery/ suspense with a splash of family dysfunction. This is the second book that I have read from the author and she does not disappoint.

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

Alisa inherits a house jointly with her missing father and it stirs up legal and emotional complications. The twist at the end is unexpected.

Alisa Calder inherits her childhood home after her mother dies. She, also, learns that it’s only half the house she inherits, the other half belongs to a father who abandoned her years ago. A man she hasn’t seen since.

She goes to the house with her half-sister, who is practically a stranger to her. Strange things start happening, leaving Alisa wondering what exactly is going on.

I do enjoy suspense novels centered around old gothic-type houses. This book is that and so much more. The author creates a twisty, dark atmosphere complete with a town of characters who clearly have their secrets and give off a dangerous feeling. The house itself is a secretive, scary character.

The book keeps you guessing and sitting on the edge of your seat. It's the type of book that will keep you up late at night until it's finished.

The best thing about this book was the creepy, unsettling atmosphere that the author managed to create. It pervaded throughout everything- the plot, the characters, the setting. I like how she incorporated just enough of the paranormal into her story where it could be explained away, but there's always that doubt left in the reader's mind. While the main character wasn't terribly interesting, the supporting cast more than made up for her deficiencies.

The haunted house story is one of the oldest genres of fiction there is – think Rebecca; The Turn of the Screw – and yet, with the latest domestic thriller craze showing no signs of stopping, it’s just as popular as ever. Lexie Elliott has followed up her bestselling debut, The French Girl (reviewed here) with The Missing Years, a haunted house story about a man who may or may not be actually dead. Click on the link below to read the entire review.

The first thing that caught my eye about this book was the cover. It’s not everyday that I see a thriller cover with bright pink lettering and I thought it was unique and eye-catching!

Beyond the cover that I couldn’t take my eyes off of….I also liked the sound of the setting. An old manor house nestled in the craggy Scottish highlands…..yes please! You all know how much I love books that are atmospheric and haunting!

So I was instantly drawn to this book and wanted to see if it would be something that I would love. Elliot has written another book, The French Girl, which I seem to recall hearing about and thinking that maybe this would be a fun new author to check out. So when this one came up for review, I thought ‘why not?’

Summary

Ailsa Calder has inherited half of a house. The other half belongs to a man who disappeared without a trace twenty-seven years ago. Her father.

Leaving London behind to settle her mother’s estate, Ailsa returns to her childhood home nestled amongst the craggy peaks of the Scottish Highlands, accompanied by the half-sister she’s never taken the time to get to know.

With the past threatening to swallow her whole, she can’t escape the claustrophobic feeling that the house itself is watching her, or ignore how animals take care never to set foot within its garden.

And when Ailsa confronts the first nighttime intruder, she sees that the manor’s careless rugged beauty could cost her everything (summary from Goodreads).

Review

First of all, let’s just say that I basically read this book in like a handful of sittings. It was engaging and I couldn’t help but reach for it every time I turned around. It wasn’t that the mystery itself was fast paced….if I’m being honest, it was a bit on the slow side, but I found that I loved the writing style, the house, and atmosphere so much that I just wanted to keep reading to find out more.

I liked that this book combined a number of different things—family secrets, a missing person case, a ghost story, and the gothic. It is a book that surprised me in many ways. It was full of characterization and as a reader, I really got a sense for the characters and their purpose in the story. As I said while the mystery itself is more on the slow side, the characters keep you interested when you start to wonder why everything is taking so long to build.

I personally love gothic fiction, typically I prefer more ‘classical gothic’ and when I say that, I mean more historical gothic if that makes sense. But I was thrilled that this book was a modern gothic and there were so many things that made it a wonderful read for me in that genre alone. The Manse (the house) was a character unto itself and one of my favorite gothic troupes.

I ended up going with a 4 star review for this one. While I loved so much about this story, I also wished that the mystery wasn’t such a slow burn. I would have liked a little more pep, but on the whole it was a wonderful read and definitely worth the wait.

Steeped in small town folklore and filled with atmospheric suspense, I absolutely loved Lexie Elliott’s second novel, The Missing Years! Revolving around a decades old disappearance and an inherited house that seems to have a presence all of its own, The Missing Years was a book that I lost myself into each time I picked it up. A fantastic novel of suspense playing with the bounds of magic, legend, and how we fill in the missing pieces of our lives.

Reflection

As soon as the protagonist Ailsa Calder pulls up to the Manse, the house she half-inherited from her mother, I was drawn into the book. The Manse is somewhat gothic, but with strangely cheery décor inside—a fact that several characters comment on being “not the right way”. The Manse seems to have a story to tell. It is almost a living, breathing character in the book.

The shadow looming over the Manse and the book itself is the disappearance of Ailsa’s father nearly 3 decades earlier. Her father didn’t just disappear, he disappeared in scandal, taking an item of extreme value with him and becoming part of the town’s lore. Did he steal the item? Was he murdered for it? Was he a spy? The mystery of Ailsa’s father—the owner of the other half of the Manse—felt like a weight that pulled Ailsa into the Manse and the local town itself. Everyone in town knows the story and Ailsa finds herself returning to a place where opinions of her and her parents linger, even though they’d left long before.

From the first night Ailsa is uneasy in the Manse, though her half sister Carrie seems to feel right at home. The relationship between the sisters was such an intriguing part of the story. They are different ages and don’t know each other as adults really, since Ailsa left her mother’s home at eighteen and scarcely returned. Ailsa wants to be close with Carrie, but she isn’t sure quite how to get there. Their relationship is delicate, fragmented at the smallest misstep. I admit I wondered exactly who to side with her, since at times I found Carrie to be incredibly moody, and other times I found Ailsa to be stiff and closed off.

The local townspeople are such a fantastic element to the story. The Manse is in a small Scottish countryside town filled with craggy peaks, dark and menacing forest, and local lore that seems to take the place of reality at times. What’s so engaging about this book is the way the lore can never be quite discounted. As outsiders, we want to believe that there is a rational, grounded explanation for everything in the book. But the mystery of the Manse and the town lore…well I never felt like it could totally be brushed aside.

How do we fill in the missing blanks in our lives? We come up with explanations for why things occur. This happens frequently throughout the book, and is mirrored by the sections in between chapters where Ailsa herself attempts to fill in the blanks from the disappearance of her father with theories about where he has been. For why he never came for her. For the missing years…

Thank you to Berkley for my copy. Opinions are my own.

Brought to you by OBS Reviewer Jeanie

Set in the beauty of Scotland, this novel is full of suspense and intrigue with some downright frightening moments. The characters are interesting and mysteries complex. I was quickly wrapped up in the Manse, those now living in it, and their relationships with those who live in the area.

This is the first time Ailsa Calder has lived in the Manse since her father disappeared without a trace 27 years earlier. She and her mother stayed until it was clear Martin Calder was not going to return. When he disappeared, he was returning from a diamond-buying trip for the jeweler he worked for with a huge value of diamonds in his possession. It was thought he took the diamonds and ran. Mom was an artist; she spent several years taking Ailsa from place to place until marrying Pete, her second husband.

Ailsa has just inherited ½ of the Manse from her mother, recently deceased, and learns that her missing father owns the other half. Carrie, her younger stepsister, has come with her to Scotland. An actor, Carrie has a part in a play in Edinburgh and will live with Ailsa, maybe even repair their relationship.

Ailsa is a field producer for a BBC TV channel; when not traveling for work, she lives in London with her boyfriend, Jonathan Powell. He is a cultured BBC journalist twenty years her senior. They have been together for the better part of ten years. While she decides what to do with the Manse, she is on a leave of absence from work.

Things start happening. It isn’t enough that it seems the Manse is watching Ailsa. She goes downstairs for a drink that first night, and when returning upstairs, finds a man in the hall. He says he is a neighbor, Jamie McCue, who claims his sister Fiona has always been obsessed with the Manse. When there are no renters living there, she sometimes gets in and wanders the halls. Her favorite area is the master suite, which is currently Carrie’s. Jamie has often found her there when she wanders.

First things first. Get a locksmith, change the locks, and have the locksmith open the locked storage room in the attic room. The storage room contains some old painting canvases and several boxes. A newspaper is left at the front door from the time of Martin’s disappearance, with the article about his disappearance and missing diamonds boldly marked. One evening she is outside and thinks she sees someone in the storeroom. She and Carrie meet some of their neighbors at the pub, including Fiona. Carrie and Fi seem to bond quickly. Ailsa realizes Fi looks like the person she saw in the storeroom window. Animals, even Callum’s dog, refuse to go onto the Manse property. Another time they find a dead raven on the doorstep, almost posed. It disappears, then reappears, posed, in another location outdoors. Ailsa is watching Fiona’s seven-year-old son Callum at the Manse while Fi is working. As he plays upstairs, he finds bones in in the master suite under the bed. A skull appears a couple nights later. It is time to get out. Somebody is getting in somehow, and it isn’t safe for the sisters to stay there.

The characters are well defined especially through actions and conversations; I quickly began to like Ailsa. The neighbors are each interesting in their own way, especially those whose parents had been friends of her parents. None of the neighbors are who they first appear to be, including one who holds a resentment against Ailsa because of her parents. Carrie is a bit more of an enigma, even though I guessed her secret before her sister did. We also learn about Ailsa through her thoughts and her brilliance with words as she sees things such as trees and the Manse as if they had human characteristics. The most honest, straightforward person is little Callum, forthright as only a child can be.

The plot is fast-paced with a complex, fascinating mystery. Trying to understand how much of the present is a result of the past is also a consideration. The novel is well-written with excellent descriptions of the setting, giving just enough information to keep the mysteries active and suspense building. I did finally guess who the troublemaker is before Ailsa did, but there wasn’t any one thing that gave it away. Part of the motive and solution were quite surprising! I highly recommend this novel to those who appreciate intriguing, well-written mysteries coupled with family drama spanning decades and likable characters who are easy to appreciate watch change and grow.

*OBS would like to thank the publisher for supplying a free copy of this title in exchange for an honest review*

Creepy. Atmospheric. Haunting.

Lexie Elliot Will completely transport you to this Erie Scottish house with her descriptive writing. I could feel the cold and contempt seeping from the house. The house has a life of its own and is probably the most dynamic character in the book. This is a slow burner that combines mystery, suspense, and magical realism.

Ailsa inherits a house, well half a house. The other half belongs to her father who she has not seen for over 20 years. Unable to sell the house until her father is found, or pronounced dead; Ailsa moves into the house along with her half sister Carrie. It doesn’t take Ailsa Long to figure out the house has a mind and a heartbeat of its own. Not only that she discovers a intruder in the house her very first night there. Then things start appearing and disappearing, noises are heard and there is that feeling of being watched at all times. A dead fox at the door, fire alarms going off, and the flies... oh the flies! Just thinking about the flies gives me the heebie-jeebies! So is the house friend or foe? Is it warning her or scaring her off?

For the most part I really liked this book it was so atmospheric and evocative. However some parts were extremely slow. Also as much as I enjoyed the magical realism element of this book, I wish it had been explored a little more in depth. Time folding? I was left with a few questions I would have liked answered. I recommend this to people who enjoy descriptive writing, a slower burn, and a touch of magic.

*** many thanks to Berkley for my copy of this book ***

Alisa inherits an old Scottish Manor from her mother’s estate and goes to stay there with her younger sister. The catch is she can’t sell the Manor without the permission of her father; however, he has gone missing and hasn’t been seen in years. The manor is in the middle of nowhere and though Alisa has some memories of her time there as a child she doesn’t remember a lot. She starts to feel like strange things are happening- first a neighbor is in her house but then she starts to feel like the house is watching in. Is the house haunted? Has something happened here in the past that is trying to make itself known? Is Alisa imagining things? This was an interesting book with a different premise than many books I’ve read in the past. It’s a mystery and a bit creepy. At times I did feel like it lulled but it was enjoyable overall. Thank you to Netgalley and Berkley Publishing Group for an ARC copy in exchange for an honest review.

3.5 stars
Ailsa Calder has invited her sister to live with her. I loved that she opened her heart and her home to a sister that she hasn’t had a good relationship with for quite some time. Things start happening when they move into the house that is in the middle of nowhere. These things only seem to happen to Ailsa and she isn’t sure if she is going crazy or if she someone is trying to chase her away from the house she just inherited. I wondered if something was haunting the house, was someone setting it up to scare Ailsa away, what was going on.

The writing was good, it was not a quick read. I found it easy to put the book down and walk away but I was always pulled back to picking it up. The characters were not easy to connect with, I think there was too much history that wasn’t told between them to be able to connect with them. Both sisters seemed to keep their guard up and keep their hearts protected.

I was excited to see how it would all come together. The ending surprised me, yet looking back I can see how it ended as it did. Overall, I enjoyed the story. I liked the setting, and the characters kept it all interesting.

Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier is one of my top 10 books, so when I saw this book by Lexie Elliott, it sounded like an atmospheric gothic novel in a similar vein.  I also was attracted to the book because it is set in the Scottish Highlands.  This book turned out to be some of that but also combined other genres including mystery, supernatural, and psychological thriller.  As a result, a lot going on.

What I did like about the book was that she really created a creepy, mysterious atmosphere, but she lost me with the suggestion that there could be a supernatural element at play. The main character, Ailsa, always had the feeling the house was watching her or animals were afraid to come onto the property, giving the impression of a supernatural element for the house.  I just have trouble buying into any supernatural kinds of stuff.

There were two kinds of mysteries at play, too, which I liked.  First, there was the mystery of what happened to Ailsa's father, and could he still be alive or was he dead?  The second mystery was just what was really going on with the house.

There were a fair number of characters in the book who were fleshed out well, but I also had trouble with one who seemed to have issues with time like there was some mysterious other dimension with time at play.

Finally, although I did enjoy the book, I felt that too much time was spent with repetitive types of occurrences which slowed the pace of the book too much for me.  I think the book could have been edited to make it a better flowing and tighter-paced book which would have built the suspense more for me.

One minor thing that bugged me for some reason and wouldn't probably bug anyone else is that the house was always referred to as "the Manse."  A manse is a house provided by a church for its church leader.  This house had not been a manse for over a hundred years so that just seemed odd to me that they were still calling it that. Had I not spent most of my childhood living in a manse, that probably wouldn't have been a factor. I doubt that whoever bought the last manse we lived in still called it a manse.

I did not get a chance to read her first book, The French Girl, which was well-received.  I do think I will give it a try.  I just think I may have had the wrong expectations up front for this book, and wasn't for me.  There are indeed others who have given it glowing reviews, so it could be the book for you if you like all of the genres it covers.

Thank you to Netgalley for an advanced copy for an honest review.