I was pleasantly surprised with how much I liked this one. It was quick paced and interesting. I read it in a day. Loved the family dynamics and the twists and turns along the way.

I also loved some of the minor details. The author did a good job of representing PTSD and safe use of a hand gun.

Definitely recommend!

Holly was kidnapped when she was four and held for 90+ days before she was mysteriously returned to the same park from where she had disappeared. She doesn’t remember anything about being missing and a man has been jailed for the crime for years. Now there is another girl missing with the same modus operandi, so a detective wants to talk to Holly, is the wrong man in jail?

Her love life is a mess, her Dad refuses to appoint her foreman, and her best friend Kitten is marrying someone that she doesn’t like. However, she wants to help the detective find the girl who has been missing almost as long as Holly.

The other point of view in the story is from Holly’s mother Cecily. The twist is that she’s in a coma after a mysterious accident. We learn what has been happening in Cecily’s life prior to the accident and wonder if she will wake up. The chapters fly by as Holly seems to be remembering a few details now.

The author did a great job with lots of red herrings and I suspected just about everyone in Holly’s life. I loved the premise of this one and I enjoyed the writing too, not a perfect read, but a good one.

A great read with a few twists thrown in. Overall this is a good read but I thought that it was predictable in places and rambled on a bit.

Thank you to Netgalley for my copy.

Holly was kidnapped and held for three months when she was four years old. Now, 20 years later, she's telling her story, or what she remembers of it, to help other children. Her mother, Cecily, who was suspected at the time, also has some input- she's currently in a coma from a drunk driving accident but was it? Lots of questions are raised early on here, chief among them who really took Holly and the answers, while not surprising, spool out at a satisfying pace, Thanks to Netgalley for the ARc. Well done characters and good storytelling make this a good read.

A four year old girl is kidnapped. 3 months later she is returned to the same park, with no memories. I do love a good kidnapping story but this book really dragged for me and I found it to be quite predictable. Perhaps thinking it was a thriller was a mistake on my part - nothing thrilling about it.

I would give this book a 3.5 stars if possible. I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This was my first Brandy Reeds book and I'm not sure how I feel about reading another. I was disappointed in the way the writing flowed and at times I was confused but I got through the book and the ending was somewhat better. I'm sure there are others who will thoroughly enjoy this book. 📚

I received this book in exchange for an honest review. You can purchase your copy here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B081NKYK85/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1
This book is not for the faint of heart, this is one heart wrenching book! We begin this book many years ago with a boy checking on his little sister before he went fishing. He strayed too far and his parents were on their way back from church, so he rushed back to find his sister gone. The next chapter is about Holly who was gone for three months, missing at 4 years old. Holly was kidnapped right in front of her friend Kitten. Can you imagine remembering that you lost your best friend while jumping rope- how awful! This book goes back and forth with new kidnappings and trying to solve them and how they relate to Holly’s kidnapping. Holly remembers nothing from these three months. Then there is a suspicious disappearance of someone who was driving Holly’s car. Twenty years from Holly’s disappearance, another girl goes missing in a very similar situation. This book was quite exhilarating! I enjoyed this book to its fullest!

To be honest, I did not like the book very much. It is slow, very predictable and has flat characters. They are all uninteresting and unlikable. There are other books out there with similar stories but better crafted. I had huge problems with the writing style. It is unprecise and aloof. Some things just did not run smooth. I could not connect to Holly or her mother Cecily and I did not buy Holly’s friendship to self-centered Kitten or her feelings for Matt. It is a weird story with a lot of fractions in the storytelling.

I hate to give bad reviews to books I received from the publisher but this is my honest review. I would not recommend it.

Gripping, and a bit subversive in places, you may have to suspend disbelief in places to enjoy this fully, but it's still a good, engrossing, but maybe not challenging read.
I caught the twist about 50 pages in, but I liked how it was handled. Most of the characters were good, one or two, I couldn't really empathize with, but it didn't stop me from finishing the book in two days.

Brandi Reeds has done an excellent job of creating characters that are compelling and very fully realized. Her plotting and sub plotting make the book flow and I was riveted to the pages as I just had to find out what was going to happen next. She does have some very clever twists and is an author who knows how to entertain a reader.

I recommend this book to anyone who likes a good thriller, police procedural, drama or just plain fun reading. The writing was solid, the ending was surprising and the story was very gripping. Looking forward to reading more from this author and that is the best compliment I can give.

When Holly was 4 years old she was kidnapped, then 3 months later, she was returned to the same park she was taken from. Now 20 years later a few snippets of memory are coming back.

This book follows Holly’s quest to find out what happened to her all those years ago and to discover how much her mum knew about the circumstances surrounding Holly’s disappearance.

It kept me guessing almost to the end so I enjoyed the story. However some of the characters seemed a bit 2 dimensional.

This book was insane. It was so intense. And just the thriller I was wanting to read. It’s a big page turner. The author did an amazing job at making us suspect many characters.

Four year old Holly Gerbhardt is kidnapped. Three months later she reappears with no memory of what happened. Twenty years later, another girl goes missing in similar circumstances and detective Jason Guidry recruits Holly to help him solve it. All she has to do is try to remember.

This story is told predominantly from Holly's point of view, but it is interspersed with chapters from Holly's mother Cecily's point of view. Holly, now an adult, doesn't really know her place in the world. She doesn't quite fit in. She's tried to move on from her past but it's not that easy and she's still scarred. Her life is blighted with complicated relationships. She never had the greatest of relationships with her mother. But now Cecily is in hospital in a coma after a car accident. She's haunted by the abduction as well, and her point of view takes the form of her memories of the past as she fights for her life in the present. The pieces of the past slowly come together, some from Cecily's recollections, some from Holly, as she slowly starts to remember the things she forgot.

I expected this book to be a typical detective crime thriller, but it's more people than procedural. It's definitely more about the family secrets, relationships, and a hidden past that perhaps shouldn't be uncovered. There's a definite focus on relationships and feelings, and the detective doesn't actually feature that much in the narrative. It's very slow burn, with a long build up and then most of the action taking place in the last 3/4 of the book. Each memory throws up more questions, and I found the slow drip of memories and information really intriguing. I was kept guessing the whole way through. The plot itself is kind of wild, and trying to put together the pieces made this a fun read.

The one character I really didn't like much was Kitten. She's Holly's best friend, who witnessed her abduction as a child. She seems kind of disconnected from Holly, even at one point saying 'if I've moved past it, so can you', showing she really doesn't understand what Holly's been through. Kitten is preparing for her wedding, and I found her a bit of a bridezilla at times. Although that might be just because I don't really understand the appeal of marriage and big, perfect weddings.

Overall this book is a good read, with plenty of mysteriousness that made me want to keep reading.

Loved it!! As soon as I started reading it, I couldn't wait to find out who was behind Holly's kidnapping. I was definitely suspicious of EVERYONE. I kept thinking it had to be one of the men in Holly's life. I loved the story, characters and writing style. Kitten was the most annoying. I hated how she thought Holly being kidnapped and gone for three months was the same as her witnessing the kidnapping. Kitten was a BRIDEZILLA. How many parties does one need before the wedding???I also found it hard to give too much sympathy to Cecily. She pushed Holly and her husband away. She would rather drink and paint than spend any time with her family. She would rather talk to Paul and tell him everything than her own husband. I hated that Trevor blamed her for Holly being abducted. I definitely wasn't expecting the ending. I was sort of shocked about who was involved with all the kidnappings and the reason behind it. Loved how Holly would refer to Sterling's demon dog as Dog, because she refused to say the dog's real name.

Definitely recommend the book. It was a great mystery/thriller. I look forward to reading more books by the author.

I received a complimentary copy of this book from Lake Union Publishing through NetGalley. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

Stars: ⭐⭐⭐

PUBLICATION DAY: August 25, 2020

What happened the day I disappeared??

PLOT SUMMARY:
Holly was kidnapped as a child...she was returned to her family 94 days later, unharmed. But the time spent away is a black hole for Holly, now an adult, she still has no memories of those days and who might have taken her. A man is in jail for the crime, but when a series of young girls going missing under alarmingly similar circumstances to Holly’s own keeps occurring, they wonder if they have the right guy. Can Holly work this out before it’s too late?

PROS and CONS:
Holly can’t remember who kidnapped her...and none of the police are able to form any connections between her kidnapping and ten other missing girls in the area...it was a bit far fetched - different jurisdictions or not, you would think someone might have noticed a pattern going on.

There are plenty of suspects to consider, so the ending isn’t obvious. I wasn’t crazy about the plot device where Holly would speak out loud to her coma induced mother, even when she was nowhere near her, and whom she never seemed to like at all until she wasn’t available. But it was a good way to include the mother’s point of view in the story.

There are plenty of twists and turns, perhaps a few too many. And it was probably just me, but I found the timeline to be a bit confusing.

YES or NO:
It’s a MAYBE from me - it’s an interesting case of missing girls, but perhaps the execution could use a bit more refinement.

3 Stars

Great book with plenty of twists and turns and the story keeps you guessing right up until the very end.

I opened this book up on a Wednesday night, and by Thursday evening I was already sitting down to my computer to write a review. I read it that quick. The Day I Disappeared is the definition of a page-turner; I found it almost impossible to put down.

This book follows Holly Gebhardt, who was abducted and later inexplicably returned after three long months, all at the young age of four years old. The book takes place 20 years after those events, as Holly tries to remember what happened to her during those life-changing months she can’t recall (a mixed result of PTSD and drug-induced inebriation during that period of time). Both her and the police have reason to believe her kidnapper is still at large, even though a man was arrested and charged with her abduction many years prior. But if her abductor is still out there, that means Holly herself is not as safe as she once thought…

Dispersed within Holly’s story are small narrations told from the perspective of her mother, Cecily, as she thinks back on her own life surrounding Holly’s abduction, both before and after she goes missing, while she remains comatose in the hospital after suffering an almost-fatal car accident cliff-side.

The plot line itself is slightly predictable, though still incredibly engaging. And even though the final reveal was not particularly surprising, it was still very satisfying. I found I couldn’t stop reading until I had figured out the truth once and for all, even if it was just to confirm my suspicions regarding the true culprit were correct.

Reed’s writing style and pacing throughout the story kept me fully captivated until the very end. The characters were well-developed and the storyline mostly believable. Even with such dark subject matter as this, I found myself flying through this book thanks to its easy and engaging narration, and would seriously recommend it to anyone looking for a fast-paced thriller to fill their summer evenings.

Thank you to the publisher, Lake Union Publishing, and NetGalley for providing me an e-ARC of this book. All thoughts are my own.

The story is about Holly Adryenne Gebhardt who was kidnapped when she was five years old while playing at the park with her best friend. Three months later, she was returned to the same park unscathed but was left with an arrow-shaped scar on her left forearm. An innocent man was convicted and the case was considered closed. Holly and her parents moved on and her mom, Cecily, prayed that her daughter will continue not to remember any events related to the ordeal her daughter suffered.

Her mother suffers from depression since before the abduction due to marital and parental issues that she succumbed herself to alcohol addiction. She has become obsessive and overprotective of Holly since after she was returned.

Twenty years later, another five-year-old girl is missing. Holly was approached by Detective Jason Guidry and thinks that she can help solve the mystery of the 10 abducted girls. Now at twenty-five, Holly can’t still recall any events related to her abduction but only had occasional fragments of memories which she finds frustrating thinking that another little girl's life is at stake.

Holly's mom was in a car accident and is currently in a comatose state. Holly thinks her mom can help put the pieces together.

The novel was narrated in two points of view. One of Holly’s and one of her mom’s, Cecily. I love how Cecily was well described as a mother. Her parenting failures and her failures as a wife. Issues would have been solved if she had only the guts to face them. One issue I have is with her best friend Kitten, who I find a bit off-putting and was only concerned about her upcoming wedding.

I enjoyed reading this novel although it was an effort for me to understand Holly’s predicaments at the beginning of the story; about her choices in life and about what happened to her when she was kidnapped. Good to know that her PSTD was succinctly explained near the end. I thought that the antagonist was completely predictable due to the clues given at the beginning of the story. Almost all the male characters are considered suspects and the revelation at the end surprised me.

I’m grateful to the author, to the publisher, and to Netgalley for allowing me to read and review the eARC of this suspenseful thriller novel. If you love mystery and an engaging thriller, I recommend this novel to you!

Thank you for giving my the opportunity to read this book. I am really enjoying this book and so far I would recommend it to others! I will update my review once I am finished the book.

Thank you for giving my the opportunity to read this book.

I really enjoyed reading this. It had twists and turns and kept me hooked until the end. Characters were believable and the storyline was good.

Well done! A great read.