This had a lot of potential - the idyllic New England summer, the cusp of adolescence, and a sudden disappearance - but the genre is very full of options that are a little bit better than this one. Sadie Watkins, now an adult, is grieving her miscarriage. In her upset state, she begins an affair with a man that she last saw the summer that her neighbor disappeared. She begins to piece together her missing memory and her own actions. It's both a mystery and a the story of mothers and daughters. It's not great, but it's not bad either.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC of this title. I attempted to read it and was not compelled to finish.

The real-life disappearance of a girl in 1970s Connecticut sets the stage for this great summer read. Children can be amazingly cruel and I’m sure we all have our own stories of events from our childhoods (7th grade was particularly rough for me). The Longings of Wayward Girls highlights what can happen when things go too far.

Sadie Watkins has an amazing imagination, leading the neighborhood kids in many ventures including a Haunted Woods, using local legends and ghost stories as the backdrop. The disappearance of Laura Loomis 5 years earlier hangs over the children of Wintonbury, but they quickly ignore their parents’ mandates to stay out of the woods. Sadie and her best friend, Betty, bored and nostalgic for their younger years, play elaborate dress-up games, and what starts out as a harmless prank ends with another girl disappearing. Sadie also has to deal with the townspeople mistaking her for Laura due to her resemblance to the missing girl, a mother who drowns her sorrows in alcohol, and being forced to spend time with Beth, the daughter of her mother’s friend, all while harboring a crush on Beth’s brother Ray.

24 years later Sadie is married, with 2 amazing kiddos — Sylvia, who has followed in her footsteps and lives in a world of fairies and fairy tales, and Max, a happy-go-lucky four-year-old — but has just suffered the devastating stillbirth of a baby girl. When Ray walks back into her life, Sadie is caught off guard. Sadie has a pretty good life, with loving children, supportive friends and a good marriage, but losing her child, combined with unresolved issues from her childhood, leads her down an unwise path with Ray, who she finds has unresolved issues of his own related to Sadie’s mother.

The Longings of Wayward Girls flips between Sadie’s present and past, both 1974, the year of Laura’s disappearance, and 1979, when Sadie is in the throes of adolescence, and the transitions are sometimes jarring, and while I had some trouble getting into it in the beginning, the story eventually unfolds, with enough suspense to keep the reader on tenterhooks. It’s clear nothing good will come of Sadie and Betty’s prank, as well as Sadie’s relationship with Ray, and it’s also clear that something’s not right with Beth, though it’s never really revealed exactly what. The carefree childhood of the 70’s, as well as the more structured times we live in today, are both well represented.

This is an excellent effort for first-time novelist Karen Brown and I look forward to her future efforts.

Clearing off the old Netgalley ARCs that I downloaded before I knew how they would pile up.

This one might have been good had I read it back when it was written. Since then, the psychological thriller/missing person genre has exploded. And with much more compelling and well-written narratives. I appreciated the 1970s time period, but I am not a fan of infidelity in books no matter how it is justified by the characters. Some parts of this were good, but overall it didn't work well for me.

It was intriguing and different, but sloooow to get going. I feel like it would be a great film since there would be dynamic things happening in setting, scenery, etc.

I received a free copy from NetGalley. Jumping between the present and the past the main character tries to deal with her decisions in life and the disappearance of some girls in her small town in the past. Current events help her understand what happened in the past but her decisions can no longer be explained away as those of a young unknowing girl. Okay, but not a first pick.

I felt that this took way too long to get to the mystery. I was nearly halfway done and all the book had talked about was Sadie's precociousness as a child and her sex life. Neither interested me much.

I DNF'd this book I remember not liking the characters. I guess that is why I didn't come here and leave a review when I tried to read it in 2013.

A little too old to bring this book into the store but I did enjoy it. Obviously was ahead of the curve in terms of all the female centered thrillers that have been dominating the market.

This was one of those books that I enjoyed and disliked. The characters were well fleshed out. I could identify with a lot of what went on in Sadie's past as I grew up in that era. I was lucky enough to never have friends like Sadie. She was pretty but brutal. She more or less bullied people into following her. She had a rough childhood. She was cruel to those who were less fortunate, even going so far as to play a prank on a girl that she didn't like because she was "different". This girl then disappears and we don't find out until almost the end of the book what happened to her. We find that as an adult she is still making bad choices. She has two beautiful children. After experiencing a stillbirth she has difficulty moving on. Her husband just doesn't seem to understand why she can't. I kept waiting for someone in the story to find her help. Instead she has an affair with a boy from her past. This is what brings up the memories of her prank on young Francie. The book was well written. I was first intrigued by the story of a young girl who had disappeared on the way home from a friend's house. Then we learn of Francie's disappearance. I guess I was expecting the story to be more about those disappearances and maybe Sadie holding a key memory that would unlock the disappearances. We never learn what happened to the first girl and that becomes disappointing. I believe there are many out there who would thoroughly enjoy this book. I would even read more by this author as I felt she writes well. I just found myself disappointed in many aspects of this particular story.
I received a copy for review from the author. My opinions are my very own.