Two Little Girls started out with a bang, metaphorically.

Kirsty and Lisa were in that age where they defied anything their parents said and relied on each other's words. Lisa was the liar and Kirsty the follower. When Lisa gone missing after a fight, Kirsty thought she gave it all to help the police to find her. Years later, Kirsty tried to reveal what really happened to Lisa.

I was excited at first when I read TLG. I texted my friend that finally, an arc to keep me company!

I really love the way Frances Vick portrayed the voices of Lisa and Kirsty. So much that I hope some newcomers didn't come along.

It would be perfect if the book was filled with Kirsty's attempt in being amateur investigator and trying to question the people involved, now that she was adult and understand better.

I lost my excitement in the middle with the spiritual mumbo jumbo, although I got why it should be there. But it kinda ruined the mood? Or maybe I'm spoiled with many psychological thrillers that has a mystery in it.

The story picked up near the last quarter part, but the dullness remained.

Kudos to the author for being PC because digging deeper, there were various up to date topics mentioned through Kirsty's understanding.

A bit sad that she became a dormant character.

Thank you #NetGalley for an advanced copy of #TwoLittleGirls!

Hmm... I’m not quite sure about my thoughts on this book. I felt like the beginning and end were fast-paced and kept my interest but the middle dragged a bit for me. If I hadn’t been 60% into the book, I probably would’ve stopped reading it. However, because of the unexpected direction the ending took I am glad I decided to finish it. To me, the biggest takeaway from this book is realizing how manipulative some people can be. From the cops investigating Lisa’s disappearance to Kirsty’s sister to Angela’s mother, it makes you question the honesty of those around you. Without giving away any spoilers, one of the characters completely shocked me in regards to how manipulative they were!! Really makes you wonder about the people in your life...

Two Little Girls by Frances Vick was a great story! It was the first book I read by the author and I really enjoyed her work. I thought she did a phenomenal job blending the innocence of the children with the disturbed minds of adults around them.

The two little girls, Lisa and Kirsty, are best friends, but they are completely different from one another. Where Kirsty is impressionable and looks up to Lisa, Lisa is a liar and likes to distort the truth.

After Lisa goes missing, Kirsty has to help the police in their investigation, but when she tells them what they want and maybe put an innocent boy in prison, the reader has to wonder how police can coerce people into making false statements.

This was a quick and easy read and it had me turning pages until the very end, which was not what I expected at all. It didn't leave a moment for me to get bored. I will be reading more from the author in the future.

Thank you to Bookouture for the ARC. As always, my reviews are my honest and unbiased opinions.

Two school friends of which one meets a tragic end. An awful miscarriage of justice occurs. Many years later Kirsty is drawn into looking further into the history and whether she really did tell the right story. A deluge of characters all of whom seem to be a bit murky and hiding something. The story dragged a little at time but made up for it with a good ending.

Thank you NetGalley for the digital ARC of Two Little Girls by Frances Vick. In this story Lisa and Kirsty are best friends. Lisa has a habit of lying about everything and anything. When Lisa is discovered to be missing one day Kirsty is questioned by police. Although it is Kirsty's statement that helps lead to an arrest, Kirsty is unsettled about that. This story kept my interest until about halfway through the book and then I began to lose interest in it.

Two Little Girls by Frances Vick was a book that I was really enjoying until about halfway through. It seems to completely change direction and slowed the story down. I struggled with the second half of the story and the ending. Overall it was an OK read - I didn't hate it but I did not love it as much as I thought I would in the beginning. I was hoping for more.

The two little girls are gest friends Lisa and Kirsty in 1984. They do everything together and plan to keep doing so. Lisa is prone to over exaggerating stories and telling blatant lies. This makes it difficult for Kirsty to know what is real and what isn't. Then Lisa goes missing one afternoon after school - Kirsty is scared and tells the police some of Lisa's stories about the lodges staying with them. Then one of the lodgers is arrested for the murder of Lisa. 30 years later Kirsty is still struggling with her friends death and has never really believed that the right man was convicted. She starts looking into the day she went missing again and finds out many things she did not know as a child.

Thanks to Bookouture and Netgalley for my advanced copy of this book to read. All opinions are my own and are in no way biased.

Intense and captivating. This book is a wild ride of suspense and mystery. It was the first book I have read from this author, and it will not be the last. It was fast paced and had a good rhythm , it head my attention through every chapter. Thank you Netgalley for the opportunity to read this book.

#twolittlegirls
#netgalley

The premise of Two Little Girls is very intriguing, and the intro hooked me straight away. In 1985, the lives of two young school friends, Lisa and Kirsty, and their families are changed forever when Lisa goes missing.
Lisa, who before her disappearance was prone to over-exaggerating and telling lies, had told Kirsty about the lodgers who lived in their house, and when the police get hold of this information, they press the quiet, traumatised Kirsty to give them more and more answers, answers that aren't entirely true, but when pressed by the police, Kirsty has little choice but to agree...

When one of the lodgers is arrested for the murder of Lisa, the newly-broken community begins to put the horrible event behind them. But thirty years later, Lisa is sure that she's made a mistake and returns to try and discover the truth about Lisa's murder once and for all.

Reviewing thrillers is often difficult for me, as I so want to go into the details to explain my rating but don't want to risk any spoilers. But I'll try my best.

Okay, so the premise is fantastic. It's what pulled me towards this novel, along with the brilliant cover. Immediately this book is gripping. It's chilling, and so well-written that I wanted to spend the day doing nothing but reading until I knew who killed Lisa. However, for me this book was slightly disappointing, only because it seemed to drift off into something entirely different in the second half. The author introduces a psychic into the story, and from there the story seems to distract from the initial premise and becomes slightly bogged down with family drama and additional characters.

Don't get me wrong, I am a huge fan of books with a supernatural element. I love them, and often seek them out intentionally. But it just felt slightly out of place in this book. The characters brought in later seemed to pull me away from the more gripping plot. Perhaps it's just my personal opinion; at the beginning of the book, when the lodger, Tokki, is accused of Lisa's murder, Lisa lies about things, which is understandable given the pressure from the police, her quiet nature and her age. Yet there is a big, burning issue here - someone else was accused of Lisa's murder. I wanted the author to delve deeper into this, perhaps focus more on the repercussions of lying, of the pressure from police that made Kirsty fabricate her testimony.

Two Little Girls is a good read, and I did enjoy it up until the second half. I'd definitely read more from this author in the future, I just feel that this one wasn't for me.

I read this book just before I got the revised edition through but will review as if the words had been changed in my copy.
An interesting concept and fairly realistic that a ten year old would go along more with a suggestion of what she saw than the truth of what she saw but then when she grew up I would have expected more remorse from her.
I found the book a bit repetitive and not very gripping. One I wante£ to finish though but just not all that thrilling.

When Kirsty is 10-years-old, her best friend, Lisa, goes missing. After a shoddy police investigation, a young Muslim student gives a (false?) confession and Lisa is ruled dead. No body is ever found. 3 decades later and Kirsty returns to the town where she lost her best friend, and starts to uncover some dark, twisted truths no one sees coming.

I received and eARC from NetGalley for review. Not gonna lie, the first half of this book I was convinced I knew the outcome. I was convinced this was going to be your average, trying-too-hard thriller. Hot damn was I wrong! I’m very hesitant to say much more about this book as I think going into it blind is best, but I will say that you should strap yourself in for that last half, cause I guarantee you won’t leave your seat till you finish the book! One criticism I would give is the use of unnecessarily capitalising sentences - it was bearable at first but by the tenth time I was over it. There is also some strong (unneeded) language used at times but I understand this has been corrected by the publisher. Now for some of my favourite quotes! These are all from the start of the book (in the interest of not wanting to give away more than I’ve already said).

“[Kirsty’s] been under Lisa’s shadow for such a long time that when (and if) anyone thinks of Kirsty, they think first of Lisa. It’s been like that for a long time, and it will carry on being that way, even after Lisa is declared dead.”

“The police failed to protect Kirsty, not from malice but from ineptitude; they were simply out of their depth. But that’s an explanation, not an excuse.”

“It no longer mattered that she was as much a child as the missing girl. Being missing afforded you a respect that being alive, and stubbornly silent, didn’t.”

Two Little Girls tells the story of Lisa and Kirsty. They are Best Friends Forever. At least, they are until the day Lisa disappears. It’s 1985 and Kirsty, afraid for her friend and traumatized by her disappearance, helps provide evidence to put the killer behind bars. The killer even gives a confession. So why, ten years later, is Kirsty still haunted by the thought that she made a terrible mistake?

spoiler free: I really wanted to love this one, because I was so captivated by the premise of the novel and the first third of the book. The author wrote a compelling, chilling, and questionable friendship between two young girls. The first third of the book explored their warped friendship through a child’s POV and it was eerie.

I loved how from the very beginning we were introduced to the theme of real vs. fake. Lisa told so many lies that we were left, alongside Kirsty, to wonder what was real after all? I was excited to see how the author was going to play off this theme when exploring how time distorts memory and how the line between real and fake becomes blurrier as time marches on.

It was really the latter half of the book that fell flat for me. I just could not buy that Kirsty was so unconcerned that she potentially put away an innocent man on a murder charge. I kept wanting her to wake up with some drive or intensity to uncover the truth. That never really happened. Instead, Kirsty was pulled along throughout the book until the truth literately fell into her lap. This was unsatisfying.

Further, I felt like the author missed an opportunity to really play up the theme of memory distortion. There were some moments where Kirsty potentially misremembered aspects of her childhood, but she pretty much stood firm on what she saw as a child. I felt like the novel would have been so much stronger (and quite honestly Kirsty’s attitude more believable) if she were constantly questioning what she truly saw back then.

Instead, we were left with the (pretty much) absolute truth of her memory and this caused there to be so few characters to pick from when questioning who the murderer was. There was a minor red herring, but this was hardly strong enough to mislead the reader. Instead, the ending felt obvious and inevitable, which never bodes well for suspense/mystery.

Overall, this was a 2/5 for me. (I did not enjoy the book overall, but there was some aspects that were ok).

Was happy to receive a new copy of the book, in which certain words were omitted. With that new info, I needed to updated my review.
This book is a very chilling read, 4-5 stars easily. It has many twists and turns and is written in a fashion that really makes it unique and creepy to read. I loved that there was so much emphasis on how much something you encounter as a child, can truly hold back and shape your life as an adult, because I’m a firm believer this takes place. A twisty, chilling, thriller with some amazing shocks, sure to blow you away.
Will be letting Chapter Chatter Pub members know it’s a great thriller, and fellow thriller lovers should definitely give it a chance! Would also really like to thank publisher and author for really valuing the feedback received, I would rate bookouture as one of my top ten publishers and highly recommend any of their books in the different genre, because they truly listen to their readers!!

A great read. It kept me captivated throughout. A good plot twist at the end! I feel that there could have been more suspense added at times but I would certainly recommend it on my book group for others to read.

Kirsty & Lisa are best friends. When they are 10 years old, Lisa disappears. Kirsty is traumatized, scared & feeling a little guilty. There is a confession from a man, but Kirsty is afraid she was pushed to provide evidence.
Kirsty grows up & leaves town, but ends up moving back. She is determined to find out the truth about what happened the day her best friend vanished.

Although the story-line was ok, this book was really slow & repetitive. I'm not a quitter, but it did take me a very long time to finish this book.

Two Little Girls took is a twisted journey between past and present. In 1984, Kristy experienced tragedy and her family left the small town to heal - but now Kristy has moved back and attempts to solve the long buried mystery to help her finally heal for good.
This was a great book that kept me guessing! I'm usually pretty good at figuring out the mystery before the end, but just when I thought I had it figured out it pivoted again. Really suspenseful read!
Thanks to Frances Vick, Bookouture and NetGalley for the ARC of this book.

At first, I was really into this book, but that quickly dissipated well before even a quarter of the way in. It just wasn’t gripping or thrilling. I feel the author filled pages with repetitive lacking descriptions, and hung over certain topics that were just uninteresting and irrelevant, which caused me to merely scan pages, not really caring what was going on because it wasn’t interesting anymore.

Although the ending was a surprise, it still fell flat. I was hoping for much more from this novel, but in the end, it failed to be that of a good, sturdy, edge-of-your-seat psychological thriller.

Thank you Netgalley and Bookouture for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Two Little Girls - Pub Date 4/17/2019

I love a good thriller, especially psychological, but this one falls short.

Two 10 year old best friends get into a fight while walking home from school. Kirsty storms off home and Lisa is left behind in the park, never to be seen again. What follows is a 30 year journey to discover the truth.

The first thing that shocked me about this book were the completely unnecessary racial slurs. There are at least 4 or 5 uses that should be edited out immediately. The second disappointing factor are the seemingly random characters that don’t appear at all in the first half of the book, but who have all of the answers about what happened in the last 50 pages. It didn’t work for me.

Thank you to NetGalley for an advanced copy of this book.

Although this took me far longer than it ever should have to read, it was not for lack of a plot or issues with the characters. In fact, I found myself thinking about this book often and wondering just what exactly had happened to Lisa. It had me hooked, but it wasn't one I was able to devour like I normally would or would have even liked to. It's almost as if I had to keep putting it down to process it all and begin to think about the possibilities before I could allow myself to continue.

However, everything that I thought was a possibility ended up being false and I truly didn't see those last few chapters coming. They took me by surprise at first and I wasn't sure I was happy with the sudden twist until it got a little further along, when I started to fully understand it and appreciate it. The twist felt so sudden and it wasn't what I was preparing myself for so I felt a little shocked and taken aback. I even went through and reread the initial scene over and over again, sure I was missing something. I felt like it couldn't be believable until I forged on and it suddenly fell in place and was clear as day.

I also love how this got me thinking about the power of the mind. While I do believe that there are people like Angela out there, I also believe there are many more like Sylvia. It makes me you wonder what you ever truly can believe and who is constantly manipulating for their own good. The explanations for everything really put this book and real life into perspective,
like how Angela described Sylvia's reading and how it was so easy to use and create the issues, to the unsuspecting person, making them dependent and a believer.

This book was honestly so good. I'm glad I got to enjoy it and I will definitely be reading Vick again! Thank you!

I enjoyed this book but it wasn’t my favorite. The subtitle says this is a gripping thriller but I didn’t get that. It was an enjoyable read but I found it to be quite predictable. When Kirsty’s best friend Lisa goes missing as a child, Kirsty implicates Lisa’s family’s renter as the killer. He goes to jail and Kirsty is left wondering if he truly was at fault. Even though I found the story to be a little predictable, like many thrillers lately, I did enjoy the psychic aspect to the story. Overall, this was a decent read and pretty quick to get through. I didn’t find myself picking it up as often, but still enjoyable.

Thanks to #netgalley for the advance copy!

- [ ] Two Little Girls is a gripping thriller that gathers momentum and keeps you hooked to the end. Starting in 1985, Kirsty and Lisa are best friends until Lisa Cook disappears. Kirsty is traumatise and gives evidence that puts the Cook’s lodger behind bars but what if Kirsty made a mistake? Moving on to present day Kirsty moves back to he home town and is determined to fins out the truth. A great read that I can highly recommend. Thank you to NetGalley, Bookouture and the author for the chance to review.