Another great Dee Doran story. Great characters and storylines that kept me hooked throughout. Sheila bugler never disappoints. Thanks for the opportunity to read.

Brilliant thriller what a thrilling fast paced edge of your seat read it kept guessing right until the end this is definitely worth a read

This is a really well written book. All the storyline come together for a good conclusion
The pacing is good. The plot is good. The characters are well developed

Thank you Netgalley and publisher for opportunity to read and review this arc honestly.

Before You Were Gone is the third instalment in The Eastbourne Murder Mystery series, featuring retired journalist and amateur sleuth/Private Investigator (P.I.) Dee Doran. I felt this book was well written with multiple surprises and a lot of characters to follow. Overall I did enjoy the story though and thought it was well done.

This one took awhile to get into. It felt like it didn’t have much action until about 80% in. Once it got to the climax however, it was good.

There weren’t any twists that I didn’t see coming, which was unfortunate in these circumstances since it wasn’t that thrilling. It felt like there were so many unnecessary characters in this book as well. Like what was the point of Nikki and mentioning her 1000x? And Ella and Jake? That side story (if you can call it that) added nothing to the story and I don’t see why it was included.

All of that said, the premise of the story was a good one. Definitely original. I wouldn’t personally recommend this book as it wasn’t for me.

This book was full of suspense , very well paced and had twists and turns to keep you reading. The characters were solid and the plot was great. I read this as a stand alone and loved it.

This was quite an interesting tale of the return of Elmer's sister who was presumed to be dead, only to be seen alive. Entered Dee who was called to investigate and get to the truth.
The author managed to create another solid mystery with her words, where family drama created enough suspense to keep me hooked. The story built up slowly until it reached an unexpected ending.
Quite an interesting read

The author kept the reader guessing. The plot of the story was very well written. The author really draws the reader in as you read. I felt like I was an unnamed character in the story.

After her young sister, Kitty, disappears from a beach on holiday is presumed dead by drowning, Emer struggles to come to terms with the idea that her sister is gone. Having spent the better part of her life tracking down women who remind her of Kitty, Emer enlists the help of her long lost cousin, Dee, to find out the truth about her sisters disappearance. With a dramatic hunt for answers and many twists, this book will keep you on your toes.
Though it turns out it is the third in a series, it was easy to read without having known about the previous books. I look forward to going back to the beginning on the series and reading more from the author.

Complex and complicated thriller where nobody is quite what they seem and everyone has a secret.Took along time to untangle,but characters and plot were good.

Children going missing or dying suddenly is always traumatic. Especially if you live in a small town where everyone is affected by this. Kitty drowns in an accident and then another girl goes missing. The town and the families are never the same.

Fast forward twenty years and Dee is almost a hundred percent certain a person she glimpsed at a station was her long dead, drowned sister Kitty. Scoffed at by many Dee knows what she has seen, and is adamant that her sister is alive. Joining hands with her cousin, who also wants to know where Lucy's body is buried, the two embark on an investigation which is so twisted that one never knows who is hiding what.

The story is complicated because not one person is what they seem. All seem to have hidden agendas and it is not easy to discern the truth to find the way forward. You had to focus on this story and not get sidetracked as it can get confusing but overall a good story.

Emer Doran unexpectedly sees her sister, Kitty. Very surprising since her sister drowned twenty years ago. Her body was never found and Emer has always felt she didn't die.

No one seems to believe her .. not her father who walked out on them after Kitty's accident, not her mother who wants only to control her daughter, not friends who didn't even know her sister.

Working temporarily in London, Emer reaches out to her cousin, woman Emer has never met. Dee jumps at the chance to meet and get to know her cousin ... until she asks for help. Dee doesn't know if she believes Emer or not. But as an investigative journalist, she senses a good story.

What Dee finds are lies and secrets that have been in the shadows for many years. The only people who know what happened that day twenty years ago are not talking ... and someone will make sure their secrets remain secret ... no matter what it takes .... even murder.

This is a nicely paced well-written family drama. Suspense starts slow but builds steadily leading to twists and turns that keep one compelled to keep reading. The ending was surprising, totally unexpected. The characters are solidly drawn, the plot well thought out. Although this is third in the mystery, it is easily read as a stand alone.

Many thanks to the author, Canelo Publishing, Netgalley for the digital copy of this crime fiction. Read and reviewed voluntarily, opinions expressed here are unbiased and entirely my own.

Before You Were Gone is the third instalment in The Eastbourne Murder Mystery series, featuring retired journalist and amateur sleuth/Private Investigator (P.I.) Dee Doran. The story begins with Emer Doran, Dee’s cousin, on board a busy tube train in London on the last day of her holiday as she makes her way back to her hotel to collect her luggage and head to the airport. She had initially been in The Big Smoke for a job interview but her mother, Ursula, had once again managed to make her daughter feel inferior and self-conscious and claimed the only reason Emer had ventured to London in the first place was to try to win back ex-fiancée Nikki, who had walked out on her instantly obliterating their wedding plans. Occupying a space by the door she let's the powerful vocals of Lana Del Rey take her away from the sea of bodies and the heat emanating from them. As the tube winds it's way slowly to Victoria, Emer catches a glance of a bleach-blonde woman reading a book and wearing a stunning hand-painted silk dress. When she looks up from her book, it takes Emer's breath away completely; the woman puts her book away and alights the train but with endlessly whirring memories and joyous nostalgia overshadowing everything else at that moment, Emer follows the woman off the train despite it not being even close to her stop. The woman looks the spitting image of Emer's seemingly deceased sister Kitty, who she was told died in an accident - now twenty three years ago. She has an overwhelming feeling that this IS Kitty rather than just someone who resembles her immensely so she continues to follow her.

Emer realises the girl walks with quite a faint limp, that can be explained by Kitty's tumble and resultant broken leg from a pony at the fair when she was a mere four years old. We fast forward to two months later, Dee is returning to the nineteenth century, candlelit Gordon's Wine Bar on London's Embankment despite it holding many conflicting memories for her. She had often spent a wicked night there with close friends and ex-husband, Billy; actually it was where they had their first ever date together. After taking the wrong tube, Emer eventually turns up at her table and introduces herself. The meeting had been a consequence of an email Emer sent last week hoping Dee, as a sort of P.I., would lend her expertise to a case of apparent family secrets, love, loss, lies, deceit and revenge. Emer also discloses the sighting of Kitty on the tube not long ago. Can Emer and Dee discover the fate of Kitty and what actually happened to her when they had only ever been told that she had died after a tragic drowning? The family weren't even able to mourn the body, given there wasn't one, after the drowning occurred in the ocean and her body was never found. This is a compulsive, captivating and mystery-filled read with large and explosive family secrets at its heart. I found it fast-paced with great characters in both Emer and Dee who will stop at nothing to finally discover the truth after decades of silence, cover-ups and betrayal. I particularly enjoyed that it was not only full of intrigue and intensity but emotion too and it proves just how lying to your family about something large will always come to the surface and hurt them in the end. A deeply twisty and enthralling unravelling of one family's lifelong hidden skeletons and the quest to put them right. Highly recommended.

There are elements of this work this reader enjoyed, the knowing nods to the difficulty of writing that Dee has is Bugler putting herself on the page for example and it is so rare to see a middle-aged woman be present in the centre of a narrative with all her worries there to help define her and not be defined by them.

However, unfortunately the narrative and plot was too convoluted and confusing on occasion and when reading on the kindle found it hard to grasp who was who, and who was telling the truth.

Not as strong an entry in the series as previous releases especially When The Dead Speak, yet Bugler has so much nous at her disposal as well as the ever interesting Dee that another book cannot be too far away.

I loved this story. I loved the characters and the plot. I read this book in one sitting. I got totally caught up in everything and wanted to know what had happened to Kitty. The whole story is very well written and a page turner throughout.

Thank you to NetGalley for my copy.

Thanks Netgalley for allowing me to read this book. Emer's sister Kitty drowned more than 20 years ago. Her body was never found. Emer was on a train in London and recognizes a woman who looks like Kitty. Emer begins to question everything that happened then. This book kept me on the the edge of my seat.

Emer's family fell apart 20 years ago when her sister Kitty drowned at the beach. Except did she? Her body was never found . Emer is in London for a job interview when she spots someone she's convinced is Kitty but the woman flees from her. Dee, Emer's cousin, is an investigative journalist and she, almost against her better judgement, agrees to look into the case. Things aren't as clear cut as anyone would like- there are secrets, lies, politics, and, sadly, a murder. This moves back and forth in time (a lot) and between Emer, Dee, and Kitty, How reliable is Emer's memory? What really happened to Kitty's friend? This is nicely twisty and if you're frustrated in the first pages, know that it will add come together. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. No spoilers from me!

would like to thank netgalley and the publisher for letting me read this book

a confusing start to a storyline that goes backwards and forwards in time and also other peoples perspectives, and it wasnt until half way through that i realised what was going on and that some of the characters i had seen before in previous books...

once i got the hang of the storyline and who what and where i could then understand it and its quite a compelling story...

a young girl is missing presumed drowned...

but years later the younger sister is in london and spots her dead sister on the tube and from there the story leaps around....

INTENSEFUL fast- paced crime thriller with great characterization, well written with lots of intrigue & superb storyline. I have purchased all her books in this series. RECOMMEND all. Thanks to NetGalley & Canelo for this ARC in return for my honest review.

Amazing story with so many twists, really didn't know what was going on and who was honest and who less so.... Absolutely gripping from start to finish!