Well, I hate to say it but this one felt flat.

One Year Gone's main character is Jessica Moore. She is an alcoholic who owns a bar!!! She had been happy in the little town of Bowden where everyone knows each other. She moved there with Joe, the father of her child Bronwyn (Wyn). They never married and now Joe is married with children of his own.

Jessica's life changes when her seventeen-year-old daughter goes missing after the pep rally at the high school. For a year Jessica has had no clues about the whereabouts of her daughter. The police believed her to be a runaway like so many other teenagers. Then Jessica gets a text from her daughter. She has been a hostage all this time and her capturer wears a badge.

Through the different timelines, we learned from Wyn and her secrets. Things she knows and things she hides. We are confronted with her bullies and we learned of what truly happened during the pep rally. From Jessica, we learned about the sense of loss and the desperate need to have her daughter back home.

However, all these were not enough to grab my attention or keep my enthusiasm. Worse, the ending was too unbelievable to be satisfying.

Cliffhanger: No

2/5 Fangs

A complimentary copy was provided by Lake Union Publishing via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

One Year Gone is a finely balanced family drama/suspense mystery that is told in dual timelines and from various points of view. Unlike many thrillers that try to draw your attention to exaggerated crime sequences or never-ending suspense, One Year Gone keeps you totally engrossed in the drama side as much as the thriller/suspense side.

Avery Bishop's story excels as her reader is able to connect with the mother's plight and exasperation, sympathising with her and rooting for her as she faces obstacle after obstacle as she tries to find her daughter. You'll share the tinge of hope that things will turn out for the better and feel upset at the disappointments faced along the way, each time hoping the outcome would be better than the last.

With well-developed, complicated characters and an intense, emotional plot that's full of twists and turns, this novel keeps you totally engrossed till the very last page.

Jessica’s daughter is missing. After believing her to be gone for good, she gets a message from her daughter begging for help. How far would you go to find your child? This is a story of a mother in despair . I have nightmares about this sort of thing-losing my child- so this one hits hard!

DNF @ 20%

I had high hopes for this book because it has such an intriguing premise. However, these characters are far from interesting and very hard to relate to. Also, there are too many characters to try and keep track of. I have lost interest in this book. Not for me, unfortunately.

Bronwyn Moore. Only known as Bronwyn by her parents and her birth certificate. Wyn is what her friends called her. Wyn was well known, kind of, but not what most at her school would call “popular.” She was a bit of an outcast, but desired by the mayor’s son and best friends with one of the most popular girls in school.

Best friends with the most popular girl in school, insert name here because I forgot it, whose death is overshadowed by Wyn’s disappearance. And so the story flip flops between Wyn and her mother Jessica’s point of view and the timeline of events. We get Wyn’s version the year prior in the days leading up to her disappearance and her mother's view in the present day, after one year gone.

Well, this was just not a good book. It tried. It really did.

I originally had this rated like 2.5 rounded up to 3 stars. But as I sat on it more, I realized it just wasn't good. The premise of the story...intriguing. The writing… bad. The characters.. meh. The execution… terrible. This book took the thriller genre and threw every twist imaginable at it and hoped at least one would be believable.

The book is just full of every young adult, mystery, and thriller trope you could imagine. Love triangle. Check. Teenage angst. Check. Mysterious deaths and disappearances. Check. Every single twist you could throw into one thriller. CHECK.

I usually break my reviews down into what I liked and what I didn’t like. Most times, the reason I don’t like a book is because of my own biases and I can genuinely recommend the book to someone that might enjoy it. I just can’t do it this time.

The saving grace of this book is that I was actually able to finish it. Not sure if it was more out of a “how bad can this get” motivation or truly wanting to know what happened to Wyn. However, I think this was a book version of Mystery Science Theater 3000.

One Year Gone by Avery Bishop is more of a YA genre that a women’s fiction. I usually adore and devour different timelines and POV narration but I get confused on this for some reason, I may try this again but for now its a two-star.

What an enjoyable read! One Year Gone takes you on full swing, with many twists and turns. Oh my gosh, the ending! I'm so sad I finished the book - super book hangover.

Told in dual PIV and it works well here. The story is interesting and intriguing and I wanted to know. Unfortunately the ending didn't work for me.

One Year Gone told a story of every mother's worst nightmare, and was an unstoppable read.

I honestly started this book thinking I'd read a few pages before I got my day started, ended up reading half the book before I could make myself put it down, got back to it and was finished before bed. The chapters are those short bits with alternating points-of-view, the kind that keep you going, and going, and going.

I really didn't know what happened to the MCs daughter until the very end. The twists kept me guessing and kept me going. I was shocked and appalled (in a good way) by the big reveal. This book was full of truly twisted characters.

Great, fast read. Perfect for a lazy afternoon.

Not the most thrilling read but a good ending and some twists that were fairly unexpected. I felt like Jessica the main character was very similar to lots of other thriller main character. I’m longing for just an ordinary detective who only becomes interesting because of the plot of the book.

Sometimes teenagers run away, that is what the police told Jessica when her 17-year-old daughter, Wyn, just disappears.

I loved this thriller like no other, it had me hanging onto the pages for dear life while I tried to piece together as to what is going on and where her daughter could be. You need to get your hands on this one.

Thank you to the publisher for an opportunity to read One Year Gone. Unfortunately this book just had difficulties keeping my attention. I kept putting down and wasn’t as excited to get back to it as I would have liked.

Usually toward the end of a thriller/mystery can guess who the killer was. This was not the case. I was shocked, then shocked again. So many twists at the end had me second guessing everything til the last chapter!

One Year Gone has multiple time lines, multiple POVs, and just everything you need in a thriller to keep you on the edge of your seat. I don’t think anyone will guess the ending.

Surprise ending—totally unexpected! I found myself wanting to read the “Jessica NOW” chapters the most, and skimmed through back story chapters to get back to the current events that were unfolding.
Advanced reader copy courtesy of the publishers at NetGalley for review.

One Year Gone started off with a bang but then kind of went off the rails. The plot was interesting, the conclusion just kind of “meh”. It was dark and twisty, with just enough to keep me reading. However, I am SO over the unreliable female narrator with an alcohol problem trope in thrillers. In this thriller, it detracted from the plot and didn’t add anything of substance. It was unnecessary and frankly, too overdone. My thanks to the publisher for the advance reader in exchange for my honest review.

I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this book. Not a genre I am drawn to but the tension over Wynn's disappearance drew me in as did the anguished frustration of her mother Jessica. Not knowing who to trust or what was behind her disappearance was tense and it was a good read.

Right now all I can say is wow! This book had my attention all the way through! I couldn't put it down.

Wyn is Jessica's and Joe's daughter who simply disappears one night. Joe now has another wife and family, but he and Jessica still talk about their daughter and Jessica calls him for support at times. One night Jessica gets a text from Wyn in the middle of the night a year after she's been gone. The messages last a minute or so but Jessica doesn't learn much and then the messages end.

There are so many suspects in this story! I kept thinking of who did what. If one of them had taken/kidnapped Wyn or if she had run away and then something happened. I don't want to say too much but I definitely was looking at so many people to be the culprit(s) of what I thought had happened.

I loved this one and thought the mystery and suspense were both incredibly done.

I'd like to thank NetGalley and Lake Union Publishing for an e-ARC of this book for my opinion, which I have given honestly.

#OneYearGone #NetGalley

This was an interesting read. While it was fast paced, I think it was about 75 pages to long. The twist was good but kind of predictable. I didn't live this one but I also didn't hate it.

I kept stop/starting this book, as the beginning was a bit of a slow burner, meaning that I struggled to invest myself into this, However, despite the beginning, this definitely picks up pace towards the end but I found I was reading to reach the conclusion, rather than being gripped by the storyline and the characters.

As a massive thriller fan, I was left quite disappointed, as this seemed to have something lacking, but I can't put my finger on what it is. This is an average read in my own personal opinion. The conclusion was not expected but was a little too far-fetched for it to be classified as "shocking." The twists within the plot were quite predictable and I would say there are definitely better thrillers on the market. at the moment. The synopsis does a great job at selling this book, but unfortunately, I found the writing to be quite deflating.

Despite the flaws, it has not discouraged me from reading other work by this author, This is the first time I have read anything by Avery Bishop, so feel it's too soon to make decisions on whether her writing style is for me.

I’m an avid thriller reader, and the synopsis for this one had me quite excited. Unfortunately it fell flat for me and was pretty average. I didn’t find any of the characters very likable and thought some things were too far fetched.