Don't Look For Me by Wendy Walker What an intriguing book! Fast paced, and a definite page turner! Molly Clarke is mother of three kids until the unthinkable happens and her youngest daughter, Annie, dies from a tragic accident. Molly struggles, as does the rest of her family to carry on. One night Molly's car runs out of gas and she decides to walk away from her family...⭐ I won't say anymore, because I don't want to spoil it, but trust me... READ THIS BOOK!!! 4⭐

What a twisty & suspenseful tale with an ending I didn't see coming. I enjoyed the dual perspectives of Molly who goes missing and Nicole, the daughter searching for her mother. The backdrop of grief and trauma really helped me get a feel for Molly and Nicole as characters and made their circumstances all the more painful. The cast of characters has you constantly shifting your idea of who might be responsible for Molly's disappearance and perhaps unpopular opinion but Alice gave me the creeps. When a child comes across this creepy, you know the writing is good.

Many thanks to St. Martin's Press and Netgalley for an ARC.

I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This is a suspense with more twists and turns than a roller coaster! Somewhat verbose with appropriately flawed characters, this book will glue you to your seat from beginning until the end. Have you ever wanted to "walk away" from your life............................? Enjoy! 📚

I’m always looking for a new thriller to read and I loved the idea of this one.

I really liked Molly. She’s a good person who is struggling with grief and guilt and it was easy to root for her. There are a good amount of characters in this story, but I’m not going to say anything else about them.

Plot wise, it was fantastic. The two threads of story were a great way to show how time was progressing without it getting stale. Added bonus: it kept me guessing. I especially love that I thought I had it figured out several times.

Overall, it was an intrigued story that had my attention from the very beginning. I’ll definitely be looking into this author’s other stories.

**Huge thanks to St. Martin’s Press for providing the arc free of charge**

I received a copy of this book from NetGalley and am voluntarily leaving a review. Wow! This was a great book. There are so many things that are going on in this book. I loved the alternating narrators of Molly and Nicole. There was a general sense of hopelessness in the characters with small glimpses of hope....hope for change....hope for home....hope for family. It was a book that made me think. There were lots of characters all keeping secrets, which made it difficult to figure out who was behind it all and why. There was quite a twist to the ending too! The book was paced well and once started, I wanted to find out more keeping me reading.

Thank you, St. Martin’s Press for the ARC of Don’t Look For Me by Wendy Walker. This is a mystery thriller with the main character Molly Clarke trying to piece her life back together. Five years earlier Molly accidentally killed her daughter Anne. The entire Clarke family is having a time getting over the absence. Molly disappears after attending her son Zach’s latest game and it’s been determined a “walk away” so the case is closed and no one is trying to find her now, except her daughter, Nicole. It turns out there are many twisted minds out in the small towns and how complex the situations go.
#netgalley #Don’tLookForMe #StMartinsPress

Molly is a woman whose perfect family has shattered after the accidental death of Annie, her nine year old daughter five years ago. Molly blames herself for her death and her family have all turned away from her. Driving back from her son's school during a horrific storm, she abandons her car after it runs out of fuel in the middle of nowhere. After accepting a lift from a passing truck, she disappeared. When her clothes are found in a hotel room along with a note saying her family are better off without her, the police decide she has run away and stop looking for her.

This was a very suspenseful read told from two points of view - Molly's account of what happened to her after she left her car and her daughter Nicole's search to find her. Both are smart, resourceful and tenacious women who don't give up easily. Both threads are also great stories with unexpected twists and some very creepy characters making for a riveting and tense read with a thrilling ending. Just what a psychological thriller should be!

3.5 stars
I really like Walker's psychological suspense novels. Her creativity is gripping and I am always fascinated by the intriguing plots.
I was invested in the plot from the beginning, but the way it played out wasn't as good for me as it could have been. I wished that the author would have kept the reader in suspense a bit longer about what had happened to Molly, maybe revealing it after Nicole was into her investigation rather than from the start. It took so much of the anticipation away for me, basically the book was more about a feeling of anxiety and dread rather than unraveling what had happened to Molly.
I did like the ultimate resolution, but although there were some twists, they weren't overly surprising and I wanted to be surprised by something going on in the novel.
I could definitely appreciate the anguish the various family members felt and the way their grief manifested itself in different ways. I thought that the journeys they took--especially those of Molly and Nicole--to heal and move forward were especially poignant to me personally.
Fast-paced novel with an intriguing plot. Can't wait to see what she comes up with next.

I enjoyed Emma in the Night, but this book is now my favorite Wendy Walker book. I didn't anticipate what happened next, which always makes me happy.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for this ARC in exchange for my honest review. This is the thriller we all need in our lives. Wendy Walker knows how to keep your heart beating at top speed, your blood pumping and on the tip of your toes.

Molly Clarke doesn't think she's a very good mother. A horrible accident took one of her children from her, but forever changed her relationship with her oldest daughter, Nicole, who feels the guilt her mother does. They both grieve but they both feel guilty. Molly thinks maybe her remaining children and husband are better off without her, until she finds out for certain that is not the case when she accepts a ride from a stranger during a storm and isn't allowed to return home. Everyone assumes she just walked away from her life, even the police. But her daughter Nicole knows she would never leave them behind and she promised she won't come home until she can bring her mother with her. Who can she trust to help her when everyone has already turned their back?

This book will keep you on the total edge of your seat. Your head will spin and you won't be able to figure out who's side you're on, who you can trust and what is the truth. The book jumps back and forth between Nicole and Molly's POV - one captive and one searching. Wendy Walker does an incredible job of whiting her characters, their surroundings and their feelings that you feel like you're watching the book unfold in front of you. Do yourself a favour and pick this book up on September 15th!

This book was really good! It was well paced, witha good mystery and distinguishable characters. I loved Molly's resourcefulness and how she didn't let anything Mick did stop her for long. I also find myself wanting to know more about what happens to the characters after the novel is over - does everyone recover and leave happy, mostly whole lives? I think it's a mark of a great story when you can't get the characters out of your head after the book is over. 4 stars!

Never run out of gas on a lonely stretch of Route 7 where it passes through the neglected and abandoned industrial places in New England. Does she want to stay or disappear from her family? The subject is open for debate. She has many reasons to want to escape the cruelty, but she thinks maybe she deserves their scorn and harsh words. Maybe this is her penance. Molly believes she is not a good mother. A confluence of events in a miniscule amount of time, an accident, a tragedy, and life as she knew it is over. Things are going to get much worse. Survival is on the table and her odds are not good. She is scared, terrified, she is dealing with a monster.

It was breathtaking how Wendy Walker turned one misstep into a nightmare of sheer horror. This is an unputdownable tale of loss, betrayal, treachery, psychological manipulation and ultimately redemption.

A perfect ending thought: “There are so many shades of gray that sometimes I feel life is one long, beautiful, cloudy day.”

Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for a copy.

What happened to Molly Clarke? Carrying the guilt over the death of her daughter did she simply choose to walk away from her life and the family who blames her? Or did she come to a more sinister end.

As you all know I love when books jump between different points of view, and this one goes back and forth between Molly and her daughter Nic, who believes that there is something more to the story than her mother simply walking away from her life.

As I have been OBSESSED with Crime Junkie lately I have to say I loved the idea of exploring a book that's about a woman who could have merely chosen to step out on her life. But as we come to find there is so much more to the story.

This book is twisty and turning, making you want to guess what really happened and hoping that Nic is able to come to terms with her mother's disappearance. Although I was able to figure out one of the main "whodunits" of the story that didn't change the fact that I really enjoyed this book. It's the first by Wendy Walker for me but I'm excited to see what else she's written.

This is the perfect book to cuddle up with by the fire, a cup of tea in your hand and the wind howling outside.

Wendy Walker's new novel, Don't Look for Me, is a unique psychological thriller with a strong focus on the relationship between mother and child. I found the beginning and the end to be fantastic, although the middle dragged a bit for me. A couple of the twists I did see coming, but there were a definite few that took me by complete surprise!! I enjoyed reading the parallel timelines as well and watching the story unfold from both Nic and her mother's point of view.

A dark stormy night, a mom wanting an escape from it all and now she's missing. Did she just walk away? How easy is it for someone to just disappear? WOW I didn't see any of that coming! Just when I thought I had everything figured out one twist after another is revealed. This is the first book I've read by this author but for sure not the last!

Wendy Walker does not disappoint fans of suspense thrillers with her latest release. Once I got invested in mom Molly and daughter Nic, this one was hard to put down. After a horrific accident and the ensuing survivor's guilt, the chain of events that lead to a kidnapping enfold at the perfect pace. Be prepared to commit yourself to this one, tell your friends and family you'll speak to them again when you've finished!

Don't Look For Me by Wendy Walker is a fantastic thriller that will keep you up all night as you race to finish it. Molly Clarke ran out of gas and attempted to walk to a nearby gas station to get help. However, she ends up making a life-altering decision that leads to her disappearance. Her daughter is on a mission to discover what happened to her mother on a dark and stormy night. Read and enjoy!

Don't Look for Me was a great read by Wendy Walker. Molly decided to walk away from her life and doesn't want to be found or that's how it seems. Her car was abandoned miles away from her home and she left a note at a nearby hotel. It seems as if she disappeared and left her family behind. I can't wait to read more by Wendy Walker.

I received an ARC for an honest review. Thank you to them & the publisher.
I loved this book. It was so good I didn’t want it to end. It was gut wrenching & had me on the edge of my seat. The pain & suffering the family went through made you want to comfort them. My jaw dropped open when the culprit was revealed. I didn’t guess that person at all. This book is a page turner & I would high,y recommend it .i will leave a review on other sites as well.

This is the third of Wendy Walker’s psychological thrillers that I’ve read and I feel like with each book, the way she crafts her stories gets better and better. Oftentimes with this genre, it can be quite difficult to come up with a fresh story that doesn’t feel like it’s been done before, but with her books, Walker consistently manages to come up with a story that is not only unique, but also creative as well as intricately plotted. What also stands out with her works is that there is substance to the story in the form of specific issues that are being grappled with in society or sometimes a moral dilemma that there is usually no resolution for. A lot of thrillers simply entertain and end up being forgettable afterwards – but Walker’s books (the 3 I’ve read so far at least) all ended up giving me “food for thought” on certain issues, which is actually what I hope to get from all my reading experiences.

This time around, with Don’t Look For Me, Walker presents us with another strong but flawed female protagonist in Molly Clarke, whose family is still shattered by a tragedy that occurred 5 years ago. After a particularly devastating argument with her eldest daughter Nichole, Molly decides to make the 4 hour drive across town to visit her son Evan at his school. On her way home, she is caught in the middle of a storm with her car dangerously low on gas. Hours later, her car would be found abandoned by the side of the road, with her cell phone left in the charging dock. A few days later, a note would be found at a nearby hotel – a note signed by Molly, containing an apology to her family and requesting that they don’t look for her. Based on this, the case is closed, with the assumption that Molly decided to “walk away” from the aftermath of a tragedy that made her life no longer worth living. All efforts to find her are stopped and her family is advised that this type of thing happens all the time, and that they should find a way to move on with their lives. But did Molly Clarke really just “walk away” to start a new life, not wanting to be found? Or is there something more sinister at play?

Through an alternating timeline -- starting with Molly on the day she disappeared, then 2 weeks later from her daughter Nichole’s perspective – the premise drew me in from the getgo and from there, I found this one hard to put down. Of course, I don’t want to say too much, since the rule of thumb is always to go into these suspense / thriller novels knowing as little as possible. With that in mind, this review will be deliberately brief and vague. One thing I do want to mention is that this story was definitely well-plotted and suspenseful, but in more of a “slow-burn” rather than “action-packed” manner (though this didn’t prevent me from wanting to turn the pages and find out what was coming next). Also, unlike many of the suspense / thrillers I’ve read lately, this one actually kept me guessing from beginning to end, which meant I wasn’t able to figure out the culprit or how things would pan out in the end – definitely a good thing, since a thriller that is “easy to figure out” takes all the “fun” out of reading it. With all that said though, while the “big reveal” at the end was definitely surprising and not at all what I thought it would be, it wasn’t the “jaw-dropping, shocking twist” type of reveal that I had been expecting – in fact, it actually felt a bit anti-climactic for some reason, at least to me. Regardless though, this was still overall a great read. Wendy Walker is absolutely on my short list of “go-to” authors now in terms of psychological thrillers and I look forward to seeing what she has in store for us next. Meanwhile though, I need to find time to squeeze in her backlist books at some point – hopefully sooner rather than later.

Received ARC from St. Martin’s Press via NetGalley.