YEEEEEESSSSSSS. I read this book on a road trip and absolutely could not put it down. I found the three different points of view a bit strange at first but ultimately loved how they added to the overall story. I felt like the pace of the character development as well as the unfolding of the mystery was perfect. It kept me interested and wishing I could read more when I had to put the book down. I was absolutely not expecting the ending and thought it was such an interesting plot twist. I don't want to give anything away, so i'm gonna keep this review pretty vague and just tell you that you should read it for yourself!

Thank you to Netgalley and Atria books for this ARC in exchange for my honest review. 5 stars for sure!

Thank you to Atria Books, NetGalley, and Catherine McKenzie for this ARC. Look no further for an atmospheric and suspenseful national park thriller to add to your TBR.

“Have You Seen Her” was filled with unexpected twists, tensions between the characters, and unraveling secrets. It was easy to read; Cassie’s POV is supplemented with journal entries, Instagram posts, and media transcripts. At first, I wasn’t sure how I felt about the alternating timelines between “then” and “now”, but ended up really enjoying it as it added to the pacing and suspense of the plot. I really appreciate that the twists are not predictable! My only criticism and reason for not rating it higher is the conclusion for one of the main characters, but it leaves it open-ended for continuing the story if that is something the author wants to revisit one day. This was my first Catherine McKenzie novel, but I will be checking out more of her books in the future!

Pub date is June 27, 2023! I’d highly recommend adding this to your summer reading list!

I am always looking for thrillers with unique plots, settings, or twists. I was excited to stumble upon Have You Seen Her and see that it is set at Yosemite National Park. In fact, I stopped reading the synopsis there, at the end of the first paragraph, and immediately requested a copy. I was excited to dive into this book largely blind and hoped for a unique thriller that I have not read a version of before.

Have You Seen Her is a mystery that centers on Cassie, a woman who recently fled New York, and is again working on Yosemite National Park’s search and rescue team when a woman goes missing in eerily similar circumstances to the last time Cassie was at the park.

You may have noticed that I did not call this book a thriller, because it should definitely not be called one. If anything, it is a very slow-burn mystery. For three-quarters of the novel, we learn about Cassie, her day-to-day experiences, and other women visiting the park.

I wish I could say that the suspense helped me push through the slow plot, but there was not much suspense despite the author’s many efforts. Other than some mysterious text messages, the majority of the book slowly unfurls the past that Cassie is running from and the circumstances around a previous rescue Cassie was involved ten years prior. These are the inherent mysteries of the novel until a woman goes missing. The ending felt like it came out of absolutely nowhere.

This book does have a number of positive early reviews, but I do not share that opinion. Many of those glowing reviews mention the “stunning reveal.” I think readers are so stunned because the reveal is so incongruous with the rest of the story. There is little build up to the revelation, and it comes out of nowhere because it was not inline with the character development. Other than this dropping of the veil, there were no twists and turns.

Besides this disjointed reveal, the book did not work for several reasons. The plot was largely uneventful and dull. The buildup to the main story took much too long, and when it occurred, it was not very satisfying, just odd. For a story about a search and rescue worker, I expected (and wanted) more action and excitement. I anticipated a novel that described what the rescues were like. Instead, readers are not told about them until after they occur, and no details are provided beyond that they happened. In addition, the nonlinear timeline is not executed well. While I was able to follow it, I think a lot of readers will find it confusing. All of the characters are pretty one-dimensional and difficult to become invested in. To add to all of that, there were a lot of incorrect technical details that the average person knows.

Overall, I was disappointed by Have You Seen Her. I think the ideas the novel is based on are solid, but the execution largely failed. I would only recommend this book if you like slow-burn mysteries and being hit with a twist that comes from out of nowhere.

I have a fondness in my heart for books that take place mainly in the outdoors so this one was right up my alley! Yosemite Park is the main setting and it almost became a character of its own - beautiful but rugged and dangerous as hell.

After leaving her old life behind under secretive circumstances and heading back to her hometown of Mammoth Lakes, California, Cassie Peters rejoins Yosemite Search and Rescue after a case from 10 years ago drove her away. It is a dual timeline and we get a glimpse into her old life in the before chapters, a few months before the events in the present.

The story isn't just told from Cassies point of view either, there's alternating POVs between Cassie, Jada - an instagram influencer on a trip with her boyfriend, and Petal - a young girl living with her much older girlfriend who journals all that she sees in the park. Chapters alternate between Jada's instagram posts, Petal's journal entries and Cassie. All three have secrets and things they're running from that tie them together.

I loved the book but found it a little slow to start which is the reason for the 4 star rating but overall I would say this book has definitely made me a Catherine Mckenzie fan!

Many thanks to Atria Books, Catherine Mckenzie and Netgalley for this ARC.

This book begins with our main character, Cassie, leaving her abusive husband, Kevin. Cassie is a rock climber who once worked for the Yosemite National Park’s Search and Rescue Team (the SAR). After meeting Kevin, she started living in New York City and lost herself. She asks her old boss, Jenny, if she can come back to Yosemite for the summer. Not only will it give her money to live off of while figuring out what she wants her new life to be, but it will also keep her very secluded.

Cassie is welcomed back, and work begins. There is always someone twisting an ankle, wandering off course, or worse, and the season is busy. It becomes even more difficult when a couple of Instagrammers named Jada and Jim arrive. Jada has an encounter with a bear, and her reckless actions make her go viral. Soon after, the pair go missing, and it’s up to the SAR team to find them.

This complication sends Cassie spiraling, as the exact thing happened ten years prior. While working a rescue mission for a couple that had gone missing, she found the person she was looking for. Unfortunately, that person had succumbed to the elements and Cassie always felt that she was partly responsible for not finding her in time. Now, as her team is searching for Jada and Jim, she’s slowly becoming defeated and worried that history is repeating itself.

This book started off slowly, but it did start to pick up as it went on - the synopsis (and my review) make this sound more like a mystery, but the ending completely blindsided me! This ended up being a mystery/thriller, that does deal heavily with domestic violence (there’s a reason Cassie left her husband to hide in the woods). This ended up being quite entertaining - a solid four stars!

(Thank you to Atria Books, Catherine McKenzie, and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for my review. This book is slated to be released on June 27, 2023.)

This book was an adventure. It kept me interested the whole time, I didn’t see the ending coming which is my favorite thing is a mystery or suspenseful story.

I've been putting off this review for a couple of weeks because I don't really know what to say about the book. I liked it well enough up until about the 60% mark, at which point I found myself struggling to pick it back up and get to the end. It started to stress me out because I wanted to review it, since I received an ARC, but I also wanted to DNF it. There were a lot of other books I wanted to read more.

But I did eventually finish it, and...I don't know, y'all. I'm the outlier, as usual. It has pretty good ratings so far and I just. Did not like it that much. I don't have great reasons for this, it just started to feel like a slog to me and I stopped caring what the big reveal was going to be well before I got to it.

And the reveal? It's pretty fun, honestly, and bumped the rating up to a 3.5, but ultimately I had to round down. I think it just unfolded too slowly for my liking, and there wasn't enough mystery to sustain my interest. All the stuff with the bear and the Instagram posts didn't do anything for me, and I knew there was something up with Petal long before we got to it, so her diary entries didn't even work the way they were probably supposed to. I also don't particularly need romance in my thrillers, dysfunctional or otherwise, so I wasn't into that aspect of the story.

I really hate being entirely negative about books, especially ones I thought would be a perfect fit for me, and it's not necessarily warranted here because there were good things. That's why I gave it 3 stars despite my complaints. I love a good escaping from an abuser narrative, and the threatening texts were a nice touch that kept a certain amount of tension building throughout. I was also pretty invested in the Cameron and Chris subplot, which is both a plus and a minus because the big secret about that was not that satisfying to me when it came. I enjoyed the interactions between the search and rescue crew, the parties they had and the ways they got on each other's nerves and seeing how relationships evolved over the summer. If this had just been a book about a woman rediscovering herself after abuse through working there for the summer, I would have been more into it. It was the thriller aspect that just didn't hit. There weren't enough thrills, and that's not a complaint I often have. I love meandering character studies, but this wasn't really that either.

Your mileage may vary, so I still recommend giving it a try if you like revenge stories and thrillers with major misdirections in them, and especially if you enjoy stories that take place largely outdoors. I did also like that part of it, the time the characters spend climbing and hiking and wandering around in the woods, and the scene where Cassie and Ben went to the cave to search for clues was very suspenseful and I was stressed.

I'm glad I finally finished the book and this review so I can read other things without it looming over me. I wish I had liked it more, but that's how it goes sometimes, and even though it wasn't exactly right for me, I know it will find its readers. It's well written and the characters are realistically flawed in the way I like.

Thank you to NetGalley and Atria Books for providing me a free copy of this book for review purposes.

Cassie has fled her abusive husband in NYC and returned to Yosemite as a search and rescue worker. As she starts the job again, a case she worked ten years continues to haunt her. Will her past catch up to her when people start disappearing again?

I really enjoyed the unique setting of this book. I didn’t know much about search and rescue teams and it was really interesting to read about them. I also liked the dual timeline and the incorporation of the diary entries and instagram posts. The first half was a little slow but once it picked up I couldn’t put it down! I found all the twists genuinely surprising and it kept my attention right through until the end.

Book: Have You Seen Her?
Author: Catherine McKenzie
Genre: Thriller
Publication Date: June 27
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Thank you to NetGalley and Atria Books for the ARC in exchange for my honest review!!
Cassie has fled her abusive husband in NYC and returned to Yosemite as a search and rescue worker. As she starts the job again, a case she worked ten years continues to haunt her. Will her past catch up to her when people start disappearing again?

I really enjoyed the unique setting of this book. I didn’t know much about search and rescue teams and it was really interesting to read about them. I also liked the dual timeline and the incorporation of the diary entries and instagram posts. The first half was a little slow but once it picked up I couldn’t put it down! I found all the twists genuinely surprising and it kept my attention right through until the end.

Thank you to NetGalley and Atria Books for the ARC in exchange for my honest review!!

Not McKenzie's Strongest Work, Still A Solid Read. I suppose this is how you know when an author is truly good overall - when they can have a book that is rather far from their best, and still create a mostly compelling tale from it. Here, it almost seems like McKenzie is phoning it in. Clearly, *something* happened here, but that is for her to know and we readers to simply move on from. :)

The book itself is both interesting and yet slow. There is enough of the mechanics built in to move the plot along and to ratchet up the mystery and tension before a wild curve late in the book that very nearly gives a sense of whiplash, and there is even room here for a sequel, should McKenzie choose to go that route. There is a lot of telling what happens rather than showing what happens, and yet McKenzie overall makes this work within the space of this tale and how she is telling it.

If you're a fan of Yosemite National Park and/ or want to vicariously live a summer there, this may be of interest. If you're interested in learning something about the volunteer search and rescue teams that spend summers in some of these parks, this may be of interest. And if you're a long time fan of McKenzie, this will absolutely be of interest. But for anyone else, I actually recommend reading almost any of McKenzie's *prior* works first, to see how good she is and build some trust first. *Then* come into this book with that trust, and hopefully it works out for you. I know it did for me, as I'm still looking forward to the next one. Recommended.

HAVE YOU SEEN HER review 🗻

Thriller/Mystery - 3 ⭐️

Cassie Peters escapes her secretive New York life to begin working again with Yosemite Search and Rescue, where a decade old case she previously worked on comes back to haunt her. Will her past catch up to her?

This was a good read! As someone who grew up going to @yosemitenps multiple times a year, I loved seeing the familiar landmarks played out in a novel. 🥾However, I found the duel timeline to be confusing at certain points. I also felt the story dragged a bit at points. The ending was unexpected so that picked it back up for me. Some content probably could have been cut to keep the novel engaging throughout.

If you’re in the mood for a twisty thriller in a nature setting, I’d suggest this book when it publishes on 6/27/23! 🌞Thank you NetGalley and Atria Books for this eARC in exchange for my honest review.

What a ride! I can always count on Catherine McKenzie to take me on a twisty, fast-paced adventure, and Have You Seen Her is no exception. The Yosemite setting adds to the atmospheric nature of this cat-and-mouse story of three women coming together unexpectedly during a summer of climbing, hiking and adventure. Written with alternating timelines, bringing the past quickly together into the present moment, added to the suspense. Interspersing Petal’s diary entries, and news coverage of missing hikers helped to fill in gaps, and keep the story moving along at a rapid pace. I read this book, cover to cover, in 10 hours, and loved every minute of it! Highly recommend this book for that quick summer thriller to keep you company on the beach!

Many thanks to NetGalley and Atria Books for providing me with an eARC, and to Simon and Schuster Canada for sending a physical ARC, in exchange for my honest review. Out June 27, 2023.

Cassie has escaped, and there's no looking back now. She's running from her life in New York, with her "perfect" husband (who isn't quite so perfect) and has melted back into the wilderness of Yosemite National Park, where she is back to working for Search and Rescue like she did many years ago. Haunted by some rescues she worked in the past, she throws herself into the work, but it's not that easy. She's drawn into more drama when two young girls go missing. Told in dual timelines, the story weaves the past with the present.

This was a good thriller that came together for a great ending but I have to confess the timelines were confusing for me. I wasn't sure if that was the author's intent. If the timelines had been more coherent I would have enjoyed the ending much more.

I LOVED the Yosemite setting. It's so fun to read about a place you've visited! I'm not a rock climber, but I visited a few years ago to hike Half Dome and a few other trails. I absolutely adored reading Cassie's hiking scenes, especially trails I recognized from my own visit to the park.

The mystery is interesting with great lead-up. I was hooked from the start and couldn't wait to discover who the "her" in the title referred to. There are some flash-forwards to present day, but most of the story is told a few months in the past. The flash-forward chapters were just enough to tease the direction the story was going to take, but I didn't guess the twist at all.

The reveal was satisfying, although I do wish we got to see a bit more of the aftermath of the events that occurred.

I would definitely recommend this thriller to hikers or anyone who enjoyed Breathless or The Last To Vanish.

Cassie has fled an abusive husband and returns to her past career working with the Search and Rescue team at Yosemite National Park. There, she crosses paths with Jada, who is chronicling her cross-country Airstream road trip on Instagram, and Petal, who lives nearby with her much older girlfriend. When a couple goes missing in the park with an eerie similarity to a tragedy from Cassie’s past, it seems like history is repeating itself, and the consequences are devastating for all three women.

Yosemite has never felt as deadly as it does in this atmospheric thriller! Catherine McKenzie does an outstanding job of developing an ominous setting and storyline with really interesting characters. This slow burn suspense is told mainly from Cassie’s perspective, but we get to know Jada through her social media posts and Petal through her diary entries, which is really effective. I love that the ending is a major shocker and completely unexpected!

Many thanks to NetGalley and Atria Books for providing me an advance copy of this book.

Thank you to netgalley and the publishers for the opportunity to read this book.

Good read- the ending surprised me, I was t expecting it.

This was a solid, atmospheric story with some great twists toward the end. More of a suspense than a thriller, and while it didn't blow me away, it definitely kept me interested. (Trigger warning for domestic abuse)
*
Cassie has fled her home in NYC to Mammoth Lakes, CA, working a Yosemite Search  & Rescue, a post she had 10 years earlier that ended in tragedy. Now, things seem to be going well for her, until people start disappearing and her past catches up with her. 
*
I really liked the setting of this, out in Yosemite, where there doesn't have to be someone or something nefarious for things to go very badly. I also liked the range of characters -  some are likeable and some are not, but they're all very different. And I enjoyed the flashbacks and flashforwards, and how the story unfolded kept me wanting more.
*
I think I would have rated it higher if it'd moved a bit quicker, it was very slow burn and while I enjoyed reading it, I wasn't necessarily gripped by it. But the ending was fun, and gives you something to think about, assumptions you make about people!

Many thanks to Atria Books and Net Galley for the advanced reader copy of “Have You Seen Her” by Catherine McKenzie set to be released on June 27, 2023.

Mammoth native Cassie has crafted quite the life for herself in New York after leaving home, changing her name, and never looking back—she lives in a sprawling apartment, goes to an upscale yoga studio, and is married to a successful man. There’s only one problem—he’s abusive. After leaving him in secret, she returns back home and takes a job on the search and rescue (SAR) team at Yosemite National Park. Only, this wasn’t her first time working on SAR. Her first task is to search for a missing couple, eerily similar to a search she conducted of her hometown golden couple 10 years prior. Will she find the lost duo? Will her abusive husband find her? Does the past always repeat itself? We follow Cassie as her story intertwines with two other park goers, Jada and Petal. But how are they connected?

With the remote, national park backdrop, the nomadic life of Jada and Petal, and the influence of social media, this thriller seems to draw inspiration from the Petito and Laundrie investigation that occurred in Grand Teton National Park.

Cassie Peters is on the run from her abusive husband. She decides that returning to her former life as a Yosemite Search and Rescue worker is the best place to hide! But is it? Is she in more danger in the vast Yosemite Park? When other campers begin disappearing, Cassie is part of the search...a familiar task for her but the last time she was part of the search for a missing person, the story did not have a happy ending! And, Cassie knows her husband is closing in on her location!! Where does the most danger lie? In her husband or another evil entity at play?

Have You Seen Her is told based on current events in where you realize that someone has died and it's most likely Cassie's husband and that she has killed him and over the most recent summer months leading up to current. I was hooked from the first pages, the story progressed quickly and kept my attention throughout! I wasn't overwhelmed by the ending but I was surprised. Overall, a good summer read with lots of twists, turns and thrills!

Thank you Netgalley and Atria Books for this e-ARC in exchange for an honest review!

NetGalley Review — my rating ⭐️⭐️/5

“Have You Seen Her” by Catherine McKenzie is a mystery surrounding 3 women: Cassie, Petal, and Jada. The story takes place in the past and present. Cassie is a member of the Yosemite Search & Rescue team. Petal is a quiet and quirky flower child. Jada is a spirited, animal-loving influencer. They all have dark secrets and their lives intersect at Yosemite National Park one summer.

I wanted to like this. It was just so dry and I wasn’t invested in the characters or the outcomes. I did decide to up it a bit because the twist really did save this book.

Have You Seen Her is set to be published on June 27, 2023! Big thanks to Atria Books for the ARC!

#arc #netgalley #haveyouseenher

What a story! Catherine McKenzie is very skilled at keeping me glued to the pages. I barely did anything else for the past several days except read this book!

The characterization is extremely well done. While I felt drawn to the people in the story, and came to like most of them, there were surprises. There are often those little bits of a person's motivations and inner thoughts that most of us don't always know about people we don't have extremely close ties too. So while there were some shocking turns in the story--it's not really unbelievable, and McKenzie takes advantage of our not knowing, until things really start to become clear. Well played!

The descriptions of settings and what it would be like to have a job in Search and rescue were also beautifully described. I never thought about what such a position would be like, and reading this book opened a new world to me.

I loved this book and can't wait to read more from this author!