Member Reviews
THIS BOOK WAS AMAZING!! I was pulled in from the start and finished within a day. The different POV between mother and daughter felt so real. The twists were so well done! I didn’t know who to trust. Thank you so much for this one!
Thank you NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book as an ARC in return for a honest review. I read this book in less than 2 days. It was truly a griping thriller and mystery. The premise of a woman with a horrible past leaving home and never coming back. Molly Clarke accidentally killed her nine year old daughter five years prior. Her daughter ran into the street just as Molly was rushing home from work concerned as she could not reach her three children. Her oldest daughter Nicole was supposed to be taking care of them and did not answer her calls. What a sad sad story and then the aftermath of what followed. Molly and her husband became distant, Nicole, who was a star student started engaging in risky behaviors and was expelled from school, and her teenage son was a star athlete at a boarding school. Molly drove every other week to the boarding school, four hours each way, to see Evan play. But this last time Evan was embarassed that she was there and avoided her. When Molly left to drive home she ran out of gas, during a awful storm, and that is where the story truly takes off. Molly is picked up by a stranger and a little girl, the same age as her daughter Annie who died. Her family is looking for her but clues make it appear as if she left on her own accord. Her daughter Nicole (Nic) is persistent though and keeps looking for her mother in the strange town of Hastings with strange characters. The characters are all suspect and you really don't know who is telling the truth or not. The book kept you guessing to the end. I truly enjoyed the ride and this novel. I will not say more as do not want to give anything away. Great book! Thank you again for the opportunity to read and review.
What a ride. Molly Clark trying to hang on to her life finds herself alone on a road seemingly deserted until a strange offers a ride. Here her life changes in drastic ways. Captive she runs through the psychological turmoil of all prisoners. Time is not her friend and as time goes on she mentally is sure she isn’t missed and or loved by her family. Her daughter on a tip is looking and found the attention of Molly’s captors. This pushes all the buttons , a trait I see is the hallmark of this author. If you are a fan ,happy days. If you are new to the fold welcome. Happy reading
I love mysteries and always enjoy missing persons ones so I was excited about this novel from the description but I’m sorry to say it was a chore to get through. The story is told in alternating chapters between the mother Molly and her daughter Nic.
There is a sad family tragedy that haunts the family and is the reason it’s easy for some to believe that Molly just walked away. While the description sets up a mystery as to what really happened to Molly in reality the reader very quickly learns the truth so that part is not the mystery of the story. Unfortunately the characters are very thin and have an annoying habit of going over their woes and issues over and over which I found grating. Like Nic drinks too much and has meaningless sex because of the family tragedy which she cannot get past and the reader has to keep hearing about. At first I liked Nic’s chapters a lot more but her constant stagnation got old real quick. The tragedy is awful and brutally sad and quite hard to keep hearing about so this novel is quiet dark and sad. There are a lot of secondary characters that also have no substance and just seem like bad small town stereotypes. I regret ever bothering with this novel so I would recommend that you skip it. I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.
This book really fooled me. I was so cocky and confident that I had guessed the ending about half way through, that I already had an idea of what I was going to rate it and say in my review, but then WHAM~ I was knocked off my smug little perch. Isn't that awesome!?
There is nothing better than having an author take you on a ride and deposit you at the end satisfied and smiling.
Read it if you get the chance, you won't be disappointed!
Page turning thriller about a women's persistent search for her missing mother who the authorities insist has simply walked away from her unsatisfying situation.
This was my first Wendy Walker book and I really didn't know what to expect, but I am pleased to say this was an intriguing read and I was totally invested in this story.
Told in part from the point of view of Molly Walker, initially I wasn't sure if she was going to be a reliable narrator, particularly with her state of mind right out of the gate, but she actually was a very strong woman, despite all that had happened to her in the last five years. I really liked the way Ms. Walker kept little tidbits of information back, only having Molly reveal them at key moments.
The other point of view we get in this story comes from Molly's daughter, Nicole. She is tied to her mother in a very deep way but hates it for it, so it was fascinating to watch how she dealt with the tragedy the family faced all those years ago. She was a very flawed person, but underneath had strength and courage that she herself wasn't even away of.
There were plenty of twists in this story, the reader being led in multiple directions which kept me guessing as to who had taken her and for what reason. The introduction to the secondary characters all kept the story muddled as to who was good or not, and Nic really had her work cut out for her in trying to find her mother.
I admit I was not expecting the way this story ended, and I was hoping for a little more "happy" than what is given, but that's just my soft heart and everything played out the way it was meant to. If you're looking for a good page-turning mystery, this book is perfect for you!
This was a fantastic thrilling read! I was on the edge of my seat the whole time I was reading.
Buckle up and enjoy the read!
This one wasn't for me. While I appreciate the twist on our usual domestic suspense, we still hit several of the tropes that make me roll my eyes: dead-child-as-a-plot-device, cheating spouse, guilt by miscommunication, and the "functioning" alcoholic. Mother and daughter have almost identical narrative styles, which is something that I assume will be handled gracefully with very different audiobook narrators, but since I read the print book, my only clue to which character I was following was whether it was in first or second person.
I also... Got bored in the middle. I read the book in three sittings and the second (and honestly the third too) was just... Not exciting, not engaging. A friend who had already read the book said "oh, just think of [main character] as just eyes you use to gather clues" - well, that's not exactly encouraging! The "big reveal" came too early and caused the last act to drag. And both characters were very whiny.
Okay, all that sounds super negative. I will say this: unique premise in a saturated genre; Walker has a crisp and direct writing style that keeps you turning pages; and the child is super creepy.
Thanks to NetGalley and to the publisher for the ARC, which I received in exchange for my honest review. Don't Look for Me is an engaging and heartbreaking exploration of one of the most powerful human emotions, guilt. After a terrible accident destroys her family, Molly Harper is but a shell of her former self. After years of dealing with the grief and heartache caused by her actions, Molly disappears leaving her car abandoned. Did Molly simply walk away from a life she could no longer bear to lead or is there more than meets the eye?
Told from the perspective of both Molly and the daughter who goes in search of her, this book is taunt and emotional throughout. There are some twists and turns and the book was not predictable, which I enjoyed. Just when you think you know where this story is going, author Wendy Walker, delivers a bombshell. I don't want to give away any spoilers so you should definitely check out this fast paced psychological thriller for yourself!
Don’t Look For Me is a suspenseful, psychological thriller that will leave you up at night, just to see what happens.
Molly Clarke has gone through one of the hardest things a parent can go through in life and unfortunately just hasn’t recovered yet. It doesn’t help that her family hates her for what happened. On the way home from her son’s football game, where he totally ignored her, she disappears. A couple of days later a note is found telling the family she is not coming back. Her family searches for her and they can’t find any evidence that an accident happened or where she might have gone. Out of the blue, a woman calls and says they saw a woman on the side of the road, fitting Molly’s description, getting into a dark colored truck. Molly’s daughter Nicole goes back to the small town where her mom went missing to try and find out where she went.
With alternating chapters of Molly and Nicole’s point of view, we see what is happening with Molly and we witness Nicole doing everything she can to put the pieces together. Can she put the pieces together before time runs out or before she too goes missing?
This is a heart-pounding, action-packed, unique story that will have you on the edge of your seat as the pieces come together for both Nicole and Molly. It is a genuinely disturbing family drama that shows obsession, child abuse, and the secrets people in a small town keep quiet. This is an amazingly written story that is unputdownable. I highly recommend.
Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for sharing this incredible ARC with me.
OMG if you love thrillers but have not read any of this authors books READ THIS ONE NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This is the best thriller I have read all year and I read ALOT of thrillers!!!!!!!!!!! I thought I had it figured out but then got a total look of utter shock on my face when it was revealed. This author writes so you are reading and trying to figure it out the whole book but you don't. That is the make of a fantastic writer in my opinion.
This was so gripping I stayed up until after midnight to finish it!
Molly Clarke doesn't want to be found. Her family life is in shambles, there's nothing good to come home to, so she just disappears one night during a bad storm. Police investigate, but it's just another case of an unstable woman making a break for it, case closed, right? But her daughter Nic gets another tip on her mom and dives headfirst back into this case and is convinced her mom wouldn't abandon them, no matter how bad things get. But there isn't anyone Nic can trust it seems, and time might be running out for both her and her mom...
It's hard to review this without giving too much away but just know my heart was pounding as I was reading this. This story is full of twists and surprises and just when you think you know how it's all going to end, you'll find yourself once again shocked!
Thank you to St. Martin's Press for my copy.
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?
My Thoughts: On Day One, we see Molly Clarke driving in the rain, thinking about the sadness of her life: her losses, her remaining two children who seem to wish she weren’t there at all, and the emptiness of her marriage.
She has just left her son Evan’s game at school and watched him look away from her, dismiss her, pretend she wasn’t there.
Driving toward home, she keeps going, as if she has no destiny. And then she runs out of gas on a stretch of road. She sees a gas station 30 feet away, but as she walks toward it, she realizes it is boarded up. Empty. Like her life.
When a truck drives by with what she thinks is a man and his daughter, and they pull over, offering her a ride, she doesn’t really hesitate…
What then begins is a nightmare.
Will Molly ever go home again? The man takes her to a house instead of the police station where she wanted to go. He makes empty promises about phoning for help…and she is soon a prisoner.
Meanwhile, back home, Molly’s daughter Nicole is searching for her. She doesn’t believe that her mom just walked away, and too many pieces of the story don’t make sense.
We watch the tale unfold between Nicole and Molly, back and forth in alternating narratives.
Who is the man holding Molly hostage? Why are the police and other residents of the small town of Hastings where Molly’s car and supposed “note” were found telling tales that don’t make sense? Is it a conspiracy? Or is it even more dark and evil?
I kept trying to figure out who the players were and how they connected to Molly and Nicole, so as the answers began to come, I was breathless with anticipation. Don’t Look for Me was a brilliant 5 star read.
***My e-ARC came from the publisher via NetGalley
I haven’t read a thriller this propulsive and exciting in quite some time. Wendy Walker is a new author to me, but I certainly will be reading more from her in the future. This novel had me on the edge of my seat. The point of views alternate between a mother and daughter caught in a web of thrilling twists. I highly recommend this thriller.
What a fantastic thriller! Great twists, lots of emotions, full of suspense, and a shocking ending. I could not put this down or wait to see how it was all going to play out. This story keeps you guessing and glued to the paged until the end.
Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for an ARC of this book! Release date - September 15, 2020
I really really enjoyed this book. One thing I especially loved about it that made it stand out from other missing person thrillers is that the whole time Nic is searching for her Molly, her mom, and wondering what happened to her, we actually have alternating chapters from Molly’s perspective. So the reader knows exactly when Nic is pursuing a wrong lead and that made the search that much more intense. Molly’s chapters also had such a high creep factor, especially Alice, the creepy kid who may or may not be in on the kidnapping plot.
I really loved the mystery. I was constantly guessing who was responsible for Molly’s kidnapping, everyone in this little town seemed suspicious. I wasn’t shocked by everything that was revealed but I really liked the way it all played out.
All in all this is a great thriller with little to no trigger warnings, while still being exciting, creepy, and super tense. I was sometimes on the edge of my seat waiting to see what was going to happen. Some aspects of the ending definitely surprised me and it did not all go the way I was predicting. I’m a fan of Wendy Walker for sure and I can’t wait to see what she writes next.
This is my second book by Wendy Walker. I definitely need to put her on my must read author list. This one is a twisty, wild ride. Molly and her daughter, Nic, are thrust into a town peopled with some really creepy characters. Who can Nic trust in her quest to find her mother? It took until the end of the book for it to become clear who was the truly evil one. I didn’t guess and then, of course, there was a final twist that blew my mind. Loved it!
Oooooh boy!! If you’re looking for fun and twisty, look no further! This is Wendy Walker’s best yet!
Riddled with guilt over a horrible accident five years ago, Molly Clarke feels like a stain on her family and completely unloved and unwelcome - in her opinion, for good reason. Stopping for gas in a small town, she decides her family might be better off if she doesn’t come home - so she abandons her car and takes off walking down a dark road in the middle of a storm. But when she changes her mind, things take a sinister turn.
*Stefan voice* This book has everything: a creepy town, mysterious disappearances, guilt for dayssss, an ominous fence, zero characters you can trust, a creepy child, “a woman with nowhere to turnnnnnn.” (If you get that reference, you are my best friend)
This is an excellent thriller. There is no one you can trust, and the twists just keep 👏🏻 on 👏🏻 coming 👏🏻. Wendy Walker did a fantastic job creating tension and a spooky atmosphere, and the pacing was so so good, all things that can really make or break a thriller. The psychological claustrophobia and guilt is palpable and so stressful, and just when you think you have everything figured out - BAM! 💥 Ya don’t!
An absolute must-read for thriller lovers! 4.5 stars rounded up
As an avid fan of Wendy Walker; ALL IS NOT FORGOTTEN, EMMA IN THE NIGHT and THE GOOD SISTER amongst my favorites I was anticipating a good read and I was not disappointed.
Nicole arrives in the town of Hastings to investigate her mother Molly’s disappearance on a stormy night. Her mother’s car was found abandoned with no trace of her. Everyone believes Nicole’s mom, Molly walked away from her life and her family as the result of grief and guilt after a family tragedy. Nicole does not believe it for a minute and is determined to find out the truth.
The reader is privy to what happened to Molly as we follow her ordeal and Nicole’s investigation and search in alternating chapters. Ms. Walker does a great job with alternating chapters and keeps you on the edge of your seat waiting for the chapters to converge.
The mother/daughter bond is strong in this book and makes you cheer for Molly and Nicole as the strive to protect each other.
If you enjoy a psychological thriller do not hesitate to pick this book up; Ms. Walker does not disappoint.