Molly Clarke is overwrought as she drives home from her son's football game. It is the fifth anniversary of her youngest child's death. That morning, her oldest child, Nicole, told her she was a horrible mother who was responsible for Annie's death; Evan ignored her although she drove hours to see him play; and she thinks her husband is having an affair. Driving through a horrible storm, she runs outs of gas. It seems providential when a man and his daughter, the same age as Annie at the time of her death, offer her a ride.

When Molly goes missing, the search is short-lived as investigators determine she likely ran away from her life. But Nicole and Molly's husband, John, are not so sure. When Nicole receives a tip from an unknown woman, she returns to the town where Molly's car was found deserted. Admonished that the tipster is likely seeking the reward money, and battling her own demons, Nicole presses on, delving into the disappearance of a young woman named Daisy ten years earlier.

DON"T LOOK FOR ME is an excellent, page-turning suspense novel, full of surprises, but more than that, it's a story about motherhood and the bond between parents and children. At the heart of the story is Molly's fear that she's a bad parent--a concern many can relate to, even if they haven't endured the same tragedies Molly has. but when she fears she'll never again see her surviving children, she realizes the depth of her selfless caring. #DontLookForMe #NetGalley

Synopsis: One night, Molly Clarke walked away from her life. She doesn't want to be found. Or at least, that's the story. The car abandoned miles from home. The note found at a nearby hotel. The shattered family that couldn’t be put back together. They called it a “walk away.” It happens all the time. Women disappear, desperate to leave their lives behind and start over. But is that what really happened to Molly Clarke?

Review: I don't know why I didn't get to this one sooner! I have seen so many glowing reviews, and I def agree with them! I did mostly audio, and the audio is amazing! I don't want to spoil anything so I won't get into which part I liked the best, but the narrator does a fantastic job. This story alternates in between a moms view point and her daughters view point. I was a little worried about relating to the mom, as I am not one myself. But the moms view point was the view point that I found more entertaining, and I had no problem relating to it. I enjoy Wendy Walker's books, and I will definately be looking forward to her next one. This one also did a wonderful job of keeping my attention, I kept wanting to listen to find out what was going to happen next. Def give this one a read or a listen! Also check this one out, if you like suspenseful domestic thrillers and mysteries. This one also makes a great buddy read, in my opinion mysteries make the best buddy reads as you can discuss all the possible outcomes, this one was great for that.

Thank you Macmillan audio for providing me with my audio copy, and St Martins Press and Netgalley for my DRC.

Twisted and tense. Creepy and claustrophobic. Dark and disturbing. Wendy Walker has written another can’t miss thriller! Molly is alone on a dark road in the middle of a storm when she runs out of gas. Molly has been a shell of her former self ever since the death of her youngest daughter Annie, who died in a car accident. An accident Molly blames herself for. Molly is at wits end so running out of gas in the middle of the storm is the straw that breaks the camel’s back. She gets out of the car starts walking and the next day no one knows where she is. What follows is an addictive, multi layered, complicated story.

The story bounces between the perspectives of Molly and her older daughter Nicole who is looking for her. Both Molly and Nicole are well-developed, sympathetic, and flawed characters. There was a wealth of suspects in the story all of which I was suspicious of at some time or another. The tension in this story was ramped way up, I had that claustrophobic feeling throughout the book. I seriously gasped out loud a couple times while reading this book when the story took a turn I was not anticipating. Therese Plummer expertly narrates the audiobook. She gave each character the perfect voice, I was never confused as to who was narrating the story. Another excellent thriller from Miss Walker.

This book in emojis 🛣 📹 🏈 😷 ✏️ 🍎

*** Big thank you to St. Martin’s Press & Macmillan Audio for my gifted copy of this book. All opinions are my own. ***

Molly Clarke should have heeded the hurricane warnings and not driven to see her son at his boarding school. She was adamant about taking the trip on the anniversary of her younger daughter’s death. With stores closing early that evening, her car runs out of gas on the side of the road. Molly didn’t make it to her destination and nobody can find her.

A note is found in a hotel room telling Molly’s family not to look for her. While the police investigation stalls, her oldest daughter, Nicole, does not believe her mother would walk away from the family. When a tip finally arrives, Nicole decides to investigate her mother’s disappearance and won't stop until she finds her.

Don’t Look For Me is one of the scariest books that I have read. This story is a suspenseful novel with sinister characters that will make you cringe. This page-turner by Wendy Walker is also an addictive read. I cannot wait to see what this author writes next!

Molly Clarke's family has been destroyed by a tragic accident that led to the death of Annie, their youngest daughter. Now, Molly runs out of gas near the small town of Hastings during a wicked storm. Molly's decision to abandon her car and accept a ride with a man with a small girl endangers her life. When the police track her credit card usage to a casino hotel and find a handwritten note from Molly, they abandon the search for the missing woman. But Nicole, Molly's eldest daughter, returns to Hastings in a determined hunt for the truth while Molly tries to find a way to escape her imprisonment with the mystery girl and Alice, the young girl.

This was a creepy, psychological thriller about how grief, loss, obsession and love can cause people to make perverse decisions.

I received an eARC from Netgalley and St. Martin's Press with no requirements for a review. I voluntarily read this book and provided this review.

Molly Clarke is gone. She simply walked away. There’s a note and an abandoned car but is there more to the story?

I was hooked on this book from page one. The setting is incredibly eerie and I couldn’t get enough. A huge storm in a run down, middle of nowhere town is the last place I want to get stuck in the dark. This was only the start and the tone never eased up.

This is so much more than a thriller. It’s the story of what happens when you lose a child. The guilt, the grief, and the remaining relationships. It looks at the ways that affects both the parents and children still alive. Can you continue living life as before or do you lose yourself when you lose your child?

As always, I have the hardest time reviewing thrillers! I want to tell you how much I loved this haunting book but I also don’t want to ruin ANYTHING! I will say, endings can often make or break a thriller for me and this ending was perfection in my eyes. I’m still thinking about it.

This is my third book by Wendy Walker and have to say, my new favorite.

I could not put it down. This was breathtaking, fast-paced, addictive, the twists, and no predictable at all. A very unique plot, and relatable and flowed characters. In my opinion, Wendy's best work yet.

I recommend Don't Look For Me 100% not only to fans of Wendy's previous work but also if you enjoy thriller/suspense stories.

Thank you St. Martin's Press and Netgalley for the free advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

I received an ARC copy of this book from Net Galley in exchange for my honest opinion of it. This book is basically told in parts by Molly and her daughter Nicole aka Nic. Molly goes to watch her son, Evan, play football at his college every other Thursday. She follows the same route coming home through Hastings. Right before she reaches a gas station in Hastings on her way home, which is during a horrible storm, she runs out of gas. A man and his daughter offer her a ride in his truck. She realizes that once she gets to his house, he is not going to take her to town. After investigations are done regarding Molly missing, her daughter decides to come to Hastings to look for her. Molly ends up becoming a "mommy" to the little girl living at the house. There are so many characters involved in this story that had me question if they were liars or legitimate people, including police officers. I enjoyed this book, the characters were easy to like and it did have some surprising twists.

Sometimes you come across a book and that you want to read in one sitting. You are annoyed when you have to stop reading to make dinner, or take a shower, or go to sleep. THIS IS THAT BOOK.

Molly Clarke is in a rough spot. Her youngest daughter has died and her relationships with her husband and other children are strained. One day while driving home from her son's boarding school, she runs out of gas during a terrible storm...and disappears. Or does she? A few days later a note is found supposedly written by Molly telling her family not to look for her. The police label the incident "a walk away". But her oldest daughter Nicole refuses to stop looking. She is wracked by guilt at the way things were left between them and she refuses to accept the notion that her mother simply walked away from her life. Two weeks after her mother's disappearance Nicole returns to the small town of Hastings to follow up on a lead.

This novel is so fast-paced and I actually felt my job drop at the end. There is no shortage of suspicious characters and the small town of Hastings has that glorious creepy Texas Chainsaw/Bates Motel/ every partly abandoned, desolate, hopeless small town ever vibe. The theme of entrapment and the idea of who and what can trap a person run throughout the novel. Don't Look for Me also explores identity and how identity is created and what the markers are for showcasing who you are. I loved Emma in the Night but honestly I love Don't Look For Me even more. This novel is probably one of my favorite thrillers this year.

Doesn't everyone have a day like the one that started Molly's nightmare?
Loved this book! Great mystery - with a great story and perfect ending!

Don't look for me is one of those books that grabs your attention straightaway and you just have to continue reading compulsively until you reach the end. It had everything: complex family dynamics, intense emotions (grief, anger, guilt), flawed characters (the story is told from two points of view which complement each other marvellously) and a smart, well thought out plot.
Wendy Walker's writing kept me on the edge of my seat, but it is not all about twists, however surprising they were.. There was a lot of emotional depth and it was impossible not to emapathise with the characters.
One of my favourite reads this year. Highly recommended to anybody who enjoys a well-written psychological thriller.
Thank you to NetGalley and St.Martin's Press for the review copy provided in exchange for an honest opinion.

Thank you @stmartinspress for sharing a copy of Don’t Look For Me by Wendy Walker for review on @netgalley. Don’t Look For Me is available in bookstores tomorrow.

Don’t Look For Me starts with Molly on her way home from her son’s football game during a hurricane. She runs out of gas but the station is all boarded up for the storm. She never makes it back home.
Don’t Look For Me is told in two perspectives, Molly from the storm on and then her daughter Nic, starting two weeks into her mother’s disappearance. A note was found suggesting her mother ran away so the police have stopped investigating but Nic knows her mother would never do that.

It did take a while to get used to the perspective and timeline jumps but once I did, I was all in trying to figure out the mystery. I won’t share too many details because you’ll want the surprise but the mother’s storyline is wild and definitely my favourite. Nic’s side was less so for me so I found myself skimming her bits to get back to Molly. I would suggest you read it just for her side. I held my breath through some of it, especially near the end.

Very solid thriller and you’ll never guess how it turns out. I am forever guessing how books will end but this one has a great twist or two. It’s creepy and suspenseful, perfect for your fall reading list!

I received a free electronic ARC of this spine-chilling novel from Netgalley, Wendy Walker, and St. Martin's Press. Thank you all for sharing your hard work with me. I have read this novel of my own volition, and this review reflects my honest opinion of this work. Wendy Walker writes a novel with tight, fast action, empathetic protagonists, and deeply felt emotions. It is a look at and exposure of the 'walk away' disappearances of women, questioning the veracity of that case closure and the sins behind it. Yes, it does happen - once in a blue moon. All those other women were taken and/or killed and buried deep. We do not see Molly's husband John nor her college-bound son Evan, but they too play a roll in this tale.

It is nigh on to impossible to tell the good guys from the bad guys in "Don't Look For Me". The characters are all a little bit of both and it doesn't really shake out until the very end though we will be fairly sure it is one or the other one early on. I love a tale that keeps you guessing...

We see the action from the viewpoint of the mother, Molly, or her 20-year-old daughter Nicole. The Clarke family, is still in crisis following the accidental death of the youngest child, nine-year-old Annie, five years ago to the day. The Clarke's are perhaps easier to manipulate than would be the average family, and though most are in or have been in counseling the guilt and angst stirred up by that death are still there in every waking moment and some of the sleeping ones as well.

Our scene of the crime is a tiny village on Route 7, Hastings, Connecticut, one of the old industrial hubs of the eastern seaboard, a town with a slowly dying population since the last major employer shut down their pharmaceutical plant. Hastings is isolated from major thoroughfares to and from the larger east coast cities. There is no other traffic on old two-lane Route 7, and her normal mid-trip stop when visiting her son's college, the Gas and Go, is unexpectedly closed. The weather is dicey, with a category four hurricane in the offing. And Molly is running out of gas...

Chilling, menacing, and incredibly riveting!

Don’t Look for Me is a character-driven, thrill ride that takes you to Hastings, Connecticut and into the lives of Molly Clarke, a mother consumed with grief who ran out of gas two weeks ago and has yet to be been seen from again, and her twenty-one-year-old daughter Nicole, who after receiving what seems to be a viable tip decides to investigate and search for her missing mother herself.

The writing is complex and taut. The characterization is spot on with a cast of characters that are raw, distressed, and consumed. And the plot told from dual perspectives and using a back-and-forth style ratchets up the tension and suspense as it quickly unravels into an eerie tale of familial drama, obsession, kidnapping, desperation, guilt, tragedy, violence, murder, and the messy, complex bonds that exist between family members.

Overall, Don’t Look for Me is a without a doubt a masterfully plotted, clever, twisty page-turner that keeps you on the edge of your seat from the very first page and ultimately leaves you surprised, shocked, and thoroughly entertained.

Molly Clarke still carries guilt over the death of her youngest child five years ago. On the way back from her son’s football game, she gets caught in a hurricane and is picked up by some strangers. Thirteen days later, her daughter Nicole has returned to Hastings, trying to figure out what happened to her mother. There was a note that said Molly left her family, but Nic can’t believe it. While Molly is trying to figure out how to escape her captor, Nic tries to figure out where her mother is and if she’s alive, though everyone in town seems to have secrets.

A very suspenseful story that kept me reading.

This book really gave me the creeps! I’m certain that was Wendy Walker’s intention. A woman goes missing on a dark stormy night. Did she walk away from her life or was she taken against her will? Is she alive or dead? Walker gives us just enough information to make us really nervous readers. Some pretty freakishly nasty characters here. But some good people too. A few twists and turns along the way made it a page turner.

⭐⭐⭐⭐
Don't look for me
Wendy Walker

I really wanted to give this book 5 stars but one thing at the end ruined the thriller, in my opinion. The twists don't really give you that "wow" feeling but it is close to it. This book caught my attention from the very first page and I saw myself not wanting to put it down. It was promising, creepy and intense. The characters were very well written and I really enjoyed the creepy way that the character Alice (a 9 years old girl) finished some of the chapters like ("don't get lost in the woods.. that's how my first mommy died") and it gave me goosebumps! I was so into this book that I didn't want to put it down. I thought this would be my favorite thriller of the year and I liked most of the twists until a person comes back into the scene from nowhere and then the thriller becomes a dramatic Mexican novel (I love Mexican novels, but not as a twist of a thriller!). So this person just shows up and then everything makes no sense! This part ruined the thriller. If that person hadn't came back, the book would have an interesting ending, it would make sense and it definitely would be a 5 stars book! Overall, this book is definitely a page turning, intense and creepy. It involves family dramas, lost of a child, kidnaping, teenagers, guilt, secrets and lies. 4 stars.

This is my first book by Wendy Walker. I received a free digital copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

Don't Look for Me by Wendy Walker
(Available 9/15/2020)
I am sure you have seen this book floating around social media. Let me tell you it deserves all the hype.
Believable story line, characters with depth, twists and turns that will make you say, "just one more chapter!"

What I Liked:
❤The main character, a mom who is trying to hold it all together for her family, will do anything for her children even after the tragic loss of her youngest.
❤ The setting: a secret house in the woods with a barbed wire fence around the property. Perfect creepy location.
❤ The fierce daughter who will stop at nothing to find her mom 💪

What I disliked: nothing. It was a great thriller that keeps you guessing until the end!

This is the first book I have read by this author I will be looking for more!

I started reading this novel right at bedtime. I’ll admit that this wasn’t one of my wisest decisions. This is definitely not the type of story to relax your mind and bring you down a few notches in anticipation of a much-needed slumber. I read this book late into the night, deciding to read one more chapter, which quickly turned into another…and another. I love a good thriller, but what I wasn’t expecting was the high level of creep factor that this novel had (I loved it even more). My heart was pounding, I was chilled to the bone, and I was glued to the pages. Who needs sleep?

What happened to Molly Clarke? That’s what her family wants to find out. After going to watch her son’s football game, Molly never returned home. They found her car, a note left at a hotel, and ruled it as a probable “walk away.” She may have been the ideal type to walk away, however, walking away from her life and her family wasn’t really the type of wife and mother that she was, but who could really blame her if she had walked away from it all? Her family had suffered the unthinkable, she was filled with grief, her relationships were damaged, to what seemed as, beyond repair, and perhaps her family would be better off without her. But despite their fractured relationship, Nicole, Molly’s daughter, couldn’t give up the search for her mother.

The story is told in alternating chapters from Molly and Nicole’s perspectives. This back and forth worked well, providing the reader with the perfect level of suspense. I was equally intrigued by both of these character’s perspectives and felt that it pulled me deeper and deeper into the story.

The setting of the story couldn’t have been better. The backwoods-y, isolated, desolate, struggling little community where everyone knows everyone else’s business was the ideal backdrop for this eerie novel. I’ve driven through towns like this on road trips with my own family, the little burgs that make you wonder where the townsfolk shop, what they do for a living, and what makes them stay.

Don’t Look For Me is a fast-paced, clever, edge-of-your-seat thriller that kept me guessing. I highly recommend this book to any reader who enjoys a psychological thriller. It was a spine-tingling ride from beginning to end. I will definitely be looking for more books by Wendy Walker!

*5 Stars

When Molly's car is found abandoned, her phone left behind, a note written in a shaky hand, and a hotel room booked, it seems like a situation where she walked away from the fractured family that was barely holding together. A possible sighting brings her daughter Nicole back to the site of her disappearance, insisting on finding out the truth about her mother.

The Clarke family is a wealthy one in upstate New York, but it doesn't stop them from having tragedy prior to Molly's disappearance. The death of her youngest daughter led to the fracturing of the rest of them. Molly was desperate to hang onto the two children she had left, her husband started taking off, her son Evan left for college and ignored her visits, and her daughter Nicole blew off her senior year of high school to drink and pick up random men to try to fill the hole that grief carved into her. The heart of this novel is Molly and Nicole, and the two and a half weeks since the disappearance.

Grief is a powerful thing, and there are lies aplenty in the small town where Molly ran out of gas. It's difficult to tell who is the bad guy when they all have ulterior motives and no one wants to tell Nicole the truth. She tries her best to dig through the area in spite of this, and it's a testament of love to her mother and the family she used to have before her younger sister's death. Nicole is determined to discover the truth, no matter what; her brother and father are pretty much background noise against the happenings in this small town. I felt really bad for both Molly and Nicole, caught up in a plot much bigger than they possibly could have been aware of. There are quite a few secrets revealed over the course of the novel, and the very end of it packs still more. The entire novel is tightly plotted and emotionally driven, right until the very last page.