Some thrillers are straightforward and some contains twists you figure out before the last turn, but this story caught me by surprise several times. Told in alternating perspectives of mother Molly and daughter Nicole this story was gripping. Molly’s family is shadowed by past trauma that leaves them damaged and lost in the things they don’t say to each other. Molly is headed home when the thought occurs to her she could just disappear and start over without the heavy depression that chokes her. As she admits she could never do that to her family, her children a man pulls over and saves her from the storm she was walking in after her car ran out of gas. Molly goes missing and it looks like she changed her mind and did decide to disappear but Nicole can’t give up.

Molly Clarke lived through a true horror. After five years of a shell of a life, she disappears. Her family is told that she purposely left them, but her daughter Nicole doesn’t quite believe that’s what happened, so she begins her own investigation.

I enjoyed that there was a full cast of characters that had fleshed out back stories and personalities. There did not seem to be anyone thrown in for the sake of having someone else to talk to.

Don’t Look For Me is a thriller that genuinely kept me guessing the entire time. I thought I had it all figured out a couple of times, but I was actually really surprised at the end. What a cool ride! This novel is well-paced and I never felt a lull where it got boring. I will be on the look out for another book by Wendy Walker.

A big thank you to NetGalley for providing this ARC for free in exchange for an honest review.

A big thank you to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for the advanced copy of this book.

Wendy Walker’s books truly represent the genre of “psychological thriller”. Don’t Look for Me introduces a compelling cast of characters dealing with anger, grief and regret. When a woman disappears, police and family must figure out whether it was intentional or a crime.

I connected with her and wanted to know how this turned out for her. The story was both tragic and twisted and definitely not a light read. It was an interesting, well paced story with quality characters. A very good and intense book.!

It is a rainy day and Molly is returning from her sons game. She runs out of gas and the station is closed. A man with a little girl stops to offer her help. After a short conversation he seems to know a lot about her life and family.
Molly is in a very fragile state. Her youngest child, Annie, was killed running in front of her mothers car. The rest of the family is dealing with guilt and sorrow.
A note is found in a hotel telling her family not to look for her. The man has kidnapped her and her daughter will not give up looking for her.
Molly has no idea who the little girl ,Alice, is and where she came from.
With Alice’s help Molly is trying to escape.
This is a real page turner and will keep you guessing.
The characters are very real.

This started off well; seemed perfectly creepy, with a woman who disappeared during a storm and got into a stranger's vehicle and I was intrigued but by about 80% into it I had lost interest and just skimmed to see what happened. The plot got more convoluted as it went on and the depressing, woe-is-me attitude of both main characters, Nic and her mother, got tiresome after awhile. They also both made incredibly stupid decisions that are hard to overlook and garner any sympathy. My library owns several books by this author and they seem to do fairly well so I think most readers of this type of fiction will enjoy this, but it just wasn't to my taste.

Molly is reeling following the accidental death of her daughter- an accident she caused. Coming home from her son’s ball game, she vanished during a storm. Her car abandoned Her husband and daughter attempt to find her. The police are not helping matters, thinking she left on her own. Meanwhile, a young girl is living in an abandoned house with her father. Her mother has also vanished. Lots of twists in this clever mystery.

After five pain-filled and difficult years, Molly is still struggling to deal with the death of her youngest child. The death of a child is every parent's worst fear, but imagine how much worse it would be if the parent was responsible for the death. Every time that Molly looks at her husband, cheers for her son's field hockey team, or tries to talk to her oldest daughter she sees accusations and blame in their eyes. Who could blame Molly if she just decided to walk away from it all? When Molly never shows up at home after her weekly visit to cheer at her son's field hockey game, everyone assumes that is exactly what happened. She must have just walked away to find a new life, or did she? Would she really leave her remaining children behind? What really happened to Molly?

I loved this fast paced domestic thriller! How well do we really know our loved ones? This book had very strong characters and the twists and turns never stopped! Loved the suspenseful story line, very nicely done!
I highly recommend this book.
Thank you NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this book.

"...when a series of actions come together to create a tragedy, that's what it's called - an accident."

When a tragic accident happens, Molly Clarke and her family's life is turned upside down. She tries to find ways to keep her family together but despite her efforts, her family life is crumbling around her. What would it be like to just leave it all behind? To walk away and never return?

On a stormy night returning from her son's ball game, the thought crosses Molly's mind. Then, she disappears. After a heated exchange the morning Molly vanished, her daughter Nicole wishes she could take back the hurtful words she said to her mother that very morning. Words that now cannot be taken back. Her mother was missing. After days with no leads as to her mother's whereabouts, Nic sets out to find out if her mother truly left their family not wanting to be found, or were there too many things that were just not adding up?

This was my first time reading a book by Wendy Walker and it was an extremely enjoyable read! It was chilling, suspenseful, and had me on the edge of my seat. I loved the mother and daughter's perspectives of the tragic events as they were unfolding and it kept me sucked in the entire time. I couldn't wait to turn the next page to read what happened next!

Thank you, Wendy Walker, St. Martin's Press and Netgalley for the ARC!

Molly Clarke is living with knowing that she was the cause of her daughters death. Now her husband can't even look at her and her other two children blame her. She is tempted to just walk away from it all. While making the decision, she is picked up by a stranger and her life is suddenly in jeopardy. Will everyone believe that she just walked away or will anyone come looking for her? This is a very suspenseful book that will keep you guessing on what will happen.

She blames herself for fracturing her family. A parent’s worst nightmare, the weight of guilt and the pain of loss drove Molly to run away, but is that same pain keeping her away or has something terrible happened to her? One person will not give up on her, the very person who shares the guilt, her grief and her loss.

DON’T LOOK FOR ME by Wendy Walker is dark, emotionally and mentally challenging and a terrifying twist on running away. You cannot escape the pain, but you may find that pain is only the beginning of a never ending nightmare of terror. What really happened when Molly walked away from her family? Could she really stay gone or did something happen to her that fateful night?

Chilling, dark and twisted, one woman will become a captive in a twisted game of playing house and her daughter may be the only person who believes something evil has happened.

Wendy Walker has created a powerhouse of edge-of-your-seat, gut-wrenching writing as we follow a woman consumed by grief who falls from one nightmare into another far more vile. Told in two voices, Molly and her daughter, Nicole help us become part of their minds, their worlds and their desperation. Brilliantly brittle, this will have you thinking about the events long after your finish that final page.

I received a complimentary ARC edition from St. Martin's Press! This is my honest and voluntary review.

It’s a dark and stormy night and you have run out or gas. Do you accept help from a passerby?
This mom accepted and the story begins. This story will keep you on the edge of your seat.
Definitely not predictable!!

Walker produced another enthralling read. Molly is a broken woman and her family Is shattered after the death of Annie, the youngest daughter. Molly decides to walk away one night. She gets picked up by a man and a child and vanishes. Her oldest daughter Nic comes looking for her and discovers more than she bargained for. It's a chilling read once it's revealed what's really going. The end surprised me as I wasn't expecting one character to do certain things. It's a great thriller and kept me turning the pages to find out what happened.

I have reviewed this book for New York Journal of books where it will be posted on their site the evening before the publication date.



"Don't Look for Me" by Wendy Walker
St. Martin's Press
September 15, 2020
10-1250198704
Psychological Thriller
352 Pages


A parent's worst nightmare is losing a child, but imagine if you as a parent caused your child's death? Molly Clarke, loving wife to John and mother to oldest daughter, Nicole, son Evan, and youngest Annie couldn't be happier. Residing in a small town in southern Connecticut, Molly works as a middle-school science teacher—that is until that fateful day when nine-year-old Annie dies. Nicole, (Nic for short), watching her little sister, misses her slipping out for the ice cream truck, and living on a road with a blind driveway, Molly does not notice her youngest until too late. The last she sees of Annie is her sailing over the car then lying in the street in a pool of blood. This is when life changed forever for the Clarke family.

Molly, consumed with guilt and remorse quits her job, no longer able to be around children and withdraws into a shell. Nic becomes hostile toward her, and John makes himself absent, making Molly suspecting he is having an affair. Evan no longer witness to his mother’s day-to-day sorrow, is recruited as a freshman to play football at a Massachusetts boarding school.

Though this horrendous incident happens, Molly loves her family and wishes she could win Nic and John back. Once close, Nic now only displays disdain and disgust for Molly, though little Annie's death wasn't intentional. And Molly makes the eight-hour round-trip to Evan's school twice a month to watch his games. As she leaves again to visit him—though he clearly shows he does not want her there—she wonders what would happen if she decided to disappear. Would anyone even miss her?

Evan knowing Molly is there ignores her and walks right by her as she waits for him. Hurt and disappointed, she heads for home. All the way, her mind churns over her argument with Nic and how her daughter screamed her hatred of her. About an hour from home, she realizes her gauge shows empty, and with a category-four hurricane threatening, she must stop and fill the tank.

Her car stalls about 30 feet from a Gas ’n’ Go in the small town of Hastings Pass. As she rushes out of the car, hoping to get help, the heavens open and she gets soaked. To her dismay, the station is boarded up, presumably anticipating the bad weather. What can she do now? With no choice, she walks toward town hoping to find shelter.

"The rain comes suddenly. The blanket covering the sky is now a broken dam. It's dark but I can still see the writing on a cardboard sign. Closed for the storm!

"I stop and let the rain wash over me as I stare at these words.

"Evan, Nicole, John. I am a burden to them now because they don't love me. Because they can't love me.

"It's been five years to this very day that they stopped.

"Five years since Annie died.

"Five years since she ran into the road.

"Five years since I struck her with my car. Since I killed her.

"Tears, rain, wind. I walk a few paces to the intersection, to the pavement and dirt riding over hills, and the deal with cornstalks in fields that go on and no. Not another car in sight.

"The hurricane is a category four. That's what they said on the radio. I remember the voices now. I remember the name of this town. Hastings. I have driven into the eye of the storm. I hear the mantra in my head. Don't give up. I feel the weight of my guilt like a rock I hold above my head. How I fight to keep it from falling. I think now that maybe it's time. Maybe I can just let it fall.

"Maybe I can just walk away.

"These words bring a sudden, jarring euphoria.

"Walk away. Just walk away."

And this is what she does. As she walks toward what she hopes is the center of town, a truck comes behind her, which she flags down. A man with a little blonde girl (blonde, like Annie and about the same age) stops to pick her up. Relieved, she hops into the cab and out of the torrential rain.

The man tells her everything is shut down due to the storm and as they drive, Molly sees a sign for the Hastings Inn, thinking he'll let her off there, but he informs her it, too, is closed like everything else in town. Getting a little spooked, she wonders if she can trust this man. She introduces herself, but he doesn’t respond. The child says her name is Alice and laughs, saying the man, whom Molly presumes is her dad, is Mickey Mouse. The man again does not respond.

Molly considers jumping out of the moving truck, mistrusting him, but the doors are child-proof locked. After many twists and turns, they head up a long driveway into the forest, and Alice proclaims they're home. What will happen to her now?

It is disconcerting when they come upon a locked gate, and Molly notices a barbed-wire fence surrounding the property. The man states the power is out, yet he appears friendly as he escorts her to a guest room offering towels and a bed for the night along with some clothing she perceives must belong to his wife or an ex-wife. Molly panics, discovering she left her phone in her car. She wants to call John to come for her. The man says cell service is sketchy in the woods then he assures her he'll take her into town in the morning. With no other choice, she prepares to spend the night.

When Molly does not arrive home, John and Nic go to Hastings to search for her and learn Molly allegedly left a note on hotel stationery stating:

"My beloved family, I am so very sorry. I couldn't make it home, and then I thought maybe you are better off without me. I pray you don't look for me. I pray for your happiness. Signed, Molly Clarke"

They cannot believe she would leave them; and after several days, Nic goes back to Hastings. Though John hires a private investigator, Nic refuses to sit around doing nothing. Her life upended with Annie's death and now with Molly unaccounted for, she feels guilty. Loathing Molly for her little sister's death, Nic let her schoolwork suffer, and she started drinking and sleeping around. Her well-planned future went on the skids, and after the horrid things she said to her mother before she left, she desperately needs to find her and make amends.

Days pass as Nic chases down leads. No one gives her answers, and she questions everyone, even a woman reported to have seen her. Then she hears about a woman who went missing years ago. Could there be a link between them?

Nic hooks up with police office Jared Reyes, who offers to help her. She stays at the local inn and spots a nearby property surrounded by barbed-wire fencing. Reyes informs her it used to belong to a cooperation and had planned to turn it into a mental hospital, but the place is vacant. Believing Molly is still alive, Nic wants to search it, though he says the utilities were shut off long ago, dissuading her from her from going there.

Meanwhile, "Mickey Mouse" who Molly calls Mick, sequesters her in this rundown house. Trying to escape causes her to be locked in her room. She befriends Alice, asking questions the child won't answer. Is she this man's daughter or did he kidnap her, too?

Chapters segue between Molly and Nic, describing their hair-raising events: Molly trapped by what she feels is a madman who's playing with her before he will kill her, and Nic chasing through leads not knowing who to trust, yet getting caught in a sinister web. The suspense and unexplained answers cause hackles to rise prompting up to the unexpected and shocking conclusion. "Don't Look for Me" is truly spine-tingling!

Don’t Look for Me is a thriller that had me guessing until the end! The characters are well-developed and it is interesting to see how each family member resolves a family drama that happened 5 years before because of the current situation in the novel. The pace is steady throughout the book and picks up at the end. Very well written and entertaining to the conclusion.

Wow! Great book! First book I have read by this author and I loved it! Suspenseful read from beginning to end. Until the “bad guy” was revealed, really didn’t expect that twist. I would definitely recommend this book. I received an advance reader copy of this book but that did not have any impact whatsoever on my opinion of this book! I don't like to post spoilers so I try to only post "generic" comments. This book is well worth the time you will spend reading it.

Molly Clarke’s life is changed after a tragic accident. One stormy night after she runs out of gas, she momentarily thinks about walking away and starting over. What will happen when she actually disappears and everyone thinks she just walked away?

Don’t Look For Me was an emotional roller coaster. At times, I had to take a break from reading because it was so heart wrecking. I loved how the story was told from two points of view and switched between Molly and her daughter. Throughout the book, I considered that all of the male characters were guilty at one point or another. It was full of so many twists and surprises in the best way. I haven’t been reading many thrillers lately but this one definitely pulled me back in.

If you want spoilers about this book …. well read around… I feel like everyone else has told the story which is disappointing as this book is definitvely worth reading without pre-concise ideas.

Wendy Walker is a great writer, i feel though that she cast similar storylines of a shattered main character who disappears after having survived a dramatic event, leaving behing broken family ties. Comes around a second protagonist, a family member improvising herself an investigator, following clues and bad advice to find the main character again.
Yes the circumstances are a little different from Wendy Walker previous books ( “The night Before” and “All is not forgotten”) but the structure i reckon very similar.

More suspense than thriller “Dont Look for me” is engaging. Wendy Walker uses the alternating POV of the protagonist and of the investigator.
Unfortunately the perpetrator gets figured out half way through the book, however the storyline keeps the reader engaged to unveil the reasons behind the act. The account is well written and keep the reader committed to the end of the book.
I personally found the end a little too sweet and too well tied together.
‘Dont look for me” is definitively a suspenseful page turner. A great choice for a summer/pool read.

Thank You St Martin Press and Wendy Walker for the ARC in exchange for my unbiaised review. I really appreciate the opportunity.

This was a pretty fast-paced story of a wife & mother who disappears one night into a storm & her daughter’s search to find her. It has dual narrators, the mother & the daughter, & it goes back & forth giving you glimpses of both characters’ psyches as they struggle to deal with both a past tragedy & the present. I didn’t particularly care for the mother’s voice, but the daughter’s was better—hers just felt more realistic. I was going to give it 3 stars but I rounded up for a twist that I so didn’t see coming—it literally made me gasp!

Holy mother of plot twists! If I could choose three words to describe this book it would be Captivating, Anticipating, and a Page-Turner. I have been guessing at what happened to Molly, who took her? And through all of my guessing, I thought that this book was going to be predictable, it was not at all. I was on the edge of my seat throughout the book and almost stayed up all night finishing this book.

Don't Look For Me by Wendy Walker made me want more of the story. What happens following the conclusion?! This thriller went beyond my expectations. I was sucked in after the first chapter. I fell in love with the characters and the story of grief the family went through. I believe this is going to be a best seller for Wendy Walker.

Thank you Wendy Walker, St. Martins Press, and NetGalley for letting me read an ARC of this book for an honest review.