The Missing is told in two points of view. Samantha - the mother of Edie Hudson, a teenager who disappeared years before and Frances - a woman who becomes obsessed with solving the mystery of Edie’s disappearance.

I felt like there was an awful lot of backstory at the beginning of this book. As I got further into the book, I understood why this was needed, however; it meant I found the book hard to get into.

The two points of view got confusing, especially at the start, I found it hard to remember which part was whose and it jolted me out of the story a lot. I also found it hard to distinguish between Samantha and Frances’s POV which got quite disorientating.

I loved the friendship Frances and Samantha struck up. Samantha seemed like she’d been lonely for so long, as everyone around her insists that she just needs to move on from her daughter. Frances seemed to get that that wasn’t possible for her, that she couldn’t move on until she knew what happened to her daughter.

The ending wasn’t much of a surprise - more of a ‘oh it all make sense now’ kind of ending. I wasn’t disappointed but neither was I crazy about it either. Saying that - the writing was what really shone about this book - lyrical and beautiful. It kept me reading until the end.

Frances opens a box of worms when she finds a photo of her husband William with Edie, a girl who went missing when she was 15. Was Edie William's girlfriend? What does he know? That's the question not only for Frances but also for Samantha, Edie's mom who has never gotten over the loss of her daughter. This goes back and forth in time and between Samantha and Frances, which adds to the story. You, like me, might guess some of the answers these women seek but not all of them. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. A quick read.

I really loved this novel, I love the idea of writing about a cold case. I enjoyed the flashback from past to present and found it simple to keep up with great read!

Thank you netgalley and publishers for the opportunity to read The Missing in exchange for my honest review.

This was a VERY good mystery. The author did a great job confusing the reader. This story is about a girl gone missing , and 20 years later had never been found. Is she dead? Did she run away? Who last saw her? These are all questions that we as the reader must ask ourselves. The story goes back and forth between two characters both past and present versions of themselves, which adds the the depth of the storyline.
Psychological thrillers always do a phenomenal job of misleading the reader over and over, and this story did just that. Her mother has been searching for her for twenty years with the hope that she is still alive, diffing up clues from her past and holding on to the hope that she is off somewhere living a new life. However, there are hints that she may actually have done something to her daughter that caused more than just a chip on her shoulder. I give this book high ratings, mainly because it was very well written and a difficult ending to uncover!

A suspenseful whodunnit, told in alternating flashbacks and present day scenes. I really appreciated how Edie was portrayed as a difficult child and found all the main characters to be realistic and multi-faceted.

This book was a bit too dense to be a "thriller"! Too much detail ... too much going on. If it were a bit less dense, it would have been a much more enjoyable read. All of the characters were unlikeable - including Edie who goes missing at age 15. The way it's written, you have absolutely zero empathy for her and her mother, who spends 20 years waiting for her daughter to come home.

The plot had a decent twist - but could have been so much more powerful with less verbosity.

Thank you to Daisy Pearce, Amazon Publishing UK and NetGalley for an advance copy of this book. This review was also published on Goodreads.

The Missing centres around Samantha, whose daughter Edie went missing two decades earlier. The papers said 15 year old Edie was “no angel”, it made her disappearance all to easy to ignore. When a chance encounter with Frances occurs Samantha’s hope is reignited in finding her daughter.
Frances is also compelled to find answers too, after finding a photo of her husband with the girl who went missing.
I was totally engrossed by this. I was berating myself for not being able to stay up all night to get through it in one sitting. The characters were flawed and it made them that much more real. I felt like I was right there with them, feeling their desperation for the truth. I had so many theories going through this, none of them right. The pacing was perfect, the plot unfurled beautifully and all the little details enriched the writing. This was my first Daisy Pearce book and it most certainly won’t be my last.
The Missing is available from the 9th June.
Thank you Netgalley and Amazon Publishing for my copy to review!

Thank you Netgalley for providing me a free ARC in exchange for an honest review.

The story is told from two different perspectives: Frances and Samantha. Frances is an unemployed woman who finds out her husband is cheating on her with a random woman on the internet. She is extremely disappointed that he is cheating, but more so, disappointed that the reality of her becoming a mother is slowly dwindling. Samantha's plot line takes place (mostly) about 20 years before Frances. She is the mother of a rebelious teenager, Edie. When Edie goes missing, Samantha's sanity begins to unravel. Little do Frances and Samantha know that they are both familiar with someone who can crack the case on Edie's disappearance, but it may cost them their lives.

If I'm being honest, that summary is probably more interesting than the actual book itself. I wanted to love this book so badly, but I struggled to consistently read it. I would go through spurts where I would read for 30 minutes to an hour and be totally immersed in the story line, but I never got excited to pick up the book and read it. I did enjoy Pearce's dark writing and how she was very descriptive, even grotesque at times, because it set the tone for the book. It definitely reminded me of a Lisa Jewell novel in this sense. The last 25% of the book I was totally invested and flipping pages quickly, and I was definitely shocked by the ending. The end of the novel felt the most put together.

I had difficulty with staying interested in the book because there were many time jumps and the chapters were extremely long. When my Kindle says it will take me 20 minutes to finish a chapter, I often only read one chapter, which is definitely a personal preference and not of fault of the author. The different time jumps did make it difficult to follow. There were a lot of time jumps which made it difficult to follow the plot, especially when I was unsure how Frances and Samantha were connected until about 30% of the book.

Unfortunately, because I really only liked the ending of this book, I have to give it a 2 or 2.5 out of 5 star rating.

Thank You to NetGalley and Amazon Publishing UK for this ARC!!

Teenager Edie Hudson was nobody’s little darling, which made vanishing all too easy. Two decades later, she’s been forgotten by everyone except her mother, Samantha. When she meets Frances, she at last starts to hope for answers.

Because Frances is obsessed with the mystery too, after finding a photo of her husband with the girl who disappeared.

What really happened all those years ago? And just how dangerous could it be to find out?

Initially I found the book too dense but since premise of this book really intrigued me I went on reading. I just couldn't rest until I knew what really happened to Edie. The book gets better half way through since by then the author provides us with many suspicious characters and a sense of creepiness with witchcraft!!

While the ending did not have a wow factor, it was still surprising.

Unfortunately, I agree with other reviewers who found this book a little jumpy and slow-moving. I just wasn't hooked, and that made it harder to continue reading. However, the premise of this book really intrigued me and I'd be open to reading something else by the author.

I haven't read anything before by Daisy Pearce but I will start to after enjoying this book. The book was well written and intriguing. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the copy of The Missing.

Wow, I am speechless! Told in back and forth points of view of both Samantha and Frances and also in two time periods, The Missing does such a great job at portraying the feelings and emotions of two women in two different situations. The grief Samantha is feeling is perfectly coupled with the uncertainty that Frances feels in her marriage. Both women were strong and resilient in their own ways, and I loved it.

The use of imagery in this book had no business being as good as it was. I could read a whole novel just on Daisy Pearce describing a morning sunrise. It was absolutely stunning.

The twist at the end of the book didn’t WOW me, but I didn’t care. I really really enjoyed this book and hope you’ll all give it a go when it comes out!

This book just was not for me. From the beginning I just could not get into the story - it felt very flat and forced. It didn’t hold my attention and the characters were all pretty unlikable. There weren’t any real big surprises and the ending was pretty ho-hum. I really enjoy a good mystery/thriller but this one just didn’t pass muster.

Wow! It’s going to take me a while to recover from this book - in a really, really good way!!

This story was packed with a punch and a half! I devoured it and was thinking about the story even when I didn’t have the book in my hands... and when that happens, YOU KNOW IT’S GOOD! There were so many characters involved - suspicious, crazy, and vengeful ones, and twists and turns at every chapter.

The Missing is about a rebellious 15-year-old girl named Elizabeth (Edie), who leaves home one day and never returns. Her mom, Samantha, stops at nothing, even decades later after she goes missing, to figure out what happened to her. Is she dead? Is she missing? Is she living in another town with a new family?

Meanwhile, Francis, the wife of a man that supposedly has a connection to Edie is introduced.

When Francis and Samantha accidentally meet, the two stories collide, turning it into a whirlwind of psychological craziness!
Some of the characters in the story were not likable and that’s what made me like them more. I had a genuine hate for some of them but that was the whole point in my opinion!

It was a gripping page turner that was suspenseful and fast-paced. This was my first novel written by Daisy Pearce and it definitely won’t be my last!

If you like psychological thrillers, go get this book on pre-order ASAP!

Solid story. I liked this book a lot.

I don't want to give too much away, as to keep the suspense for future readers, but this had me riding a whirlwind of theories and still managed to shock me.

The narrative is told on Samantha's and Frances' "then and now" perspectives. Their paths cross over a comon subject: Edie's (Samantha's daughter) disappearance 20 years earlier.

We have a few unique characters, their distinct traits well explored enough to peak our interest and make us suspicious of each and everyone one of them. I think the author threw some misleading hints on there, to keep us guessing. Or maybe I was just reading too much into it.

I was soooo wrong about where this was going most of the time. A good mystery for sure.

Thanks NetGalley and Amazon Publishing UK, for sending me this ARC in exchange for my honest review!

Firstly, thank you to NetGalley and Amazon Publishing UK for an Advanced Release Copy in exchange for my unbiased review.

For the first few chapters I was turning the pages quickly and eagerly, both stories sounded so intriguing and promised a decent thriller that I was so excited to read and interested as to how the two stories will connect. I was really connected to the mothers experience and heartbreak and I thought the content was very relevant with the marriage troubles, I can imagine that this type of issue is becoming more common each day.

However I feel that it lost its way. Whilst the two stories did come together and in an interesting way, I felt that the novel became too heavily focused on the first story and the heat surrounding the marriage troubles fizzled away, which was I thought was quite exciting as the character began investigating to begin with. That could have been built up and held out for longer with more thoughts on her emotions, I thought. There were moments where I felt that this was becoming a bit of a YA story so far as the rattlesnakes were involved and it was never quite explored as to why these girls had the hold they did on their teachers and parents. It just sounded like kids getting away with what they wanted to without any consequence.

I found myself quite irritated at one characters comment about them being ‘lactose intolerant’ - it added absolutely nothing to the story and I didn’t understand (as someone that is) what it was meant to convey about the character and why the author put it there. The character was literally just arranging to meet for coffee.

The ending was unrealistic in line with the rest of the story in my opinion, I personally think the wrong characters were chosen. There were many red herrings in the novel and I didn’t expect the ending to be as it was (and the chase was a good element) but I didn’t believe that the people involved where to blame and I didn’t buy the reason why.

Overall, I felt it was a bit of an average read. It’s a shame because I felt it was on the right path but just took some turns that didn’t work.

While this dragged at times, I enjoyed it. It had me guessing right up to the end about who the killer was & why they did it.

Thanks to Amazon Publishing UK & NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

With thanks to Netgalley and Amazon for this ARC in exchange for an open and honest review.

Divorced mother of one Samantha Hudson struggled to get on with her troubled teenage daughter Edie After a violent row with her mother. Edie mysteriously disappeared in a cemetery. Despite a police investigation Edie was never seen again.

Twenty years later therapist Frances Thorn found a picture of Edie and her husband William as teenagers. She became intrigued when William's brother begged her not to tell William she had seen the picture. Frances tracked down a school friend of Edie who mentioned that William was Edie`s ex boyfriend. She then described the night Edie vanished in the cemetery.

When Samantha found out Frances was asking about Edie she was initially suspicious. However she was soon won over when she discovered Frances was now married to William.

The plot were beautifully descriptive and I could imagine myself in that dark graveyard. The story was told from Samantha twenty years earlier and Samantha and Frances in the present.

The plot was a slow burner with a hint of menace at times. Although I enjoyed the story it left me with unanswered questions which annoyed me. For instance I don't want to reveal any spoilers but it was never revealed how Frances turned her life around and became a therapist.

I think this was a promising debut book and I look forward to reading more from Daisy Pearce in the future.

Thank you Netgalley for sharing this book with me.
This book took me a while to get into the story. I found the beginning very confusing. It started to get interesting after half the book and then it was impossible to stop reading. Very interesting the development of the story.

This was an interesting mystery but reading it fell a little flat for me. Though the storyline was good, I just had trouble getting into it and I couldn't put my finger on why. It took me a while to finish it because I wasn't motivated to pick it back up. It centers on Samantha, whose 15-yr-old daughter Edie went missing 18 years ago. Samantha is still searching for answers, but doesn't get a ton of support from those around her. Enter Frances, the wife of the guy who was dating Edie at the time; Frances stumbles upon a picture of Edie and wants to find out more. Frances and Samantha end up forming an unlikely friendship, and eventually figure out what happened all those years ago.

I felt sorry for Samantha but was somewhat frustrated that after all of these years, she was still asking the same questions- I wanted her to either move on or at least find new ways to investigate what happened. There were also things that she never fully looked into until Frances came along, which seemed hard to believe when her entire being revolved around figuring out what happened to her daughter. Frances, on the other hand, was someone I never really felt like I got to know- I think I liked her but didn't feel like I understood her. .

The ending was a surprise and was pretty action packed when the mystery is solved. The pace of the book picked up greatly at that point.

All in all, I like being surprised and thought the ending of this book was good, but didn't fully immerse myself in this book.

Thanks to Netgalley for providing me a copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.