• 𝕭𝖔𝖔𝖐 𝕽𝖊𝖛𝖎𝖊𝖜 •
The sixth-grade class is dressed warmly in coats and gloves on this brisk October day as they prepare to visit a nearby farm. They laugh as they pet the animals and look for the ideal pumpkin for Halloween. Claire run off with her friends, the pink ribbon bouncing in her hair. But Claire is nowhere to be seen when the sun sets and the teachers assemble the kids. A detective then plays a video to the mom of  her bouncing away from the farm while holding hands with a grownup wearing a heavy coat and a low-profile hat. But who could intend to harm Emma in this manner? Is it connected to the horrible night her father passed away—the night her mom try not to think about? Can her mom finally face the past and save her?

The School Trip by Miranda Smith is a psychological thriller that deals with the worst nightmare of a mother: her child going missing. It's a gripping tale that hooks you from the very first chapter. I could finish this book in just a single sitting. I like how the author has sketched Emma's character. You can relate to her emotions and actions. The pace of the book is quite interesting. It's full of twists and turn that can give you a thrilling experience. This book could have been a full give stars if it would have given a little bit more attention in the ending. Overall, it is an engaging read that I recommend to thriller readers.

Many thanks to Netgalley and Bookouture for the ARC.

4 stars.

I really liked this book and raced through it, staying up late to get through the chapters.

I liked that the twists and turns were spread out through the book, and was pleased when i guessed one of the big twists.

Smith did a great job with the plot, and i enjoyed her writing style. However, i did find the beginning to be quite slow, and it felt like a first novel, which it is not.

I would recommend if you like quick twisty thrillers.

This was an enjoyable fast paced thriller that was easy to read in just a few days.

Local kindergarten teacher Emma is all ready to take the children on a fun-filled excursion, and made all the more fun because her daughter Claire is in kindergarten at the same school and so will also be with her.

But fun soon turns to nightmare when Claire seems to disappear literally into thin air.

Already grappling with the recent death of her husband, the thought of losing her daughter too is unbearable..

Has someone taken her? Is she hurt?

Although there were a few times I found the conversations between characters a little stilted, overall this is a really solid suspense read, and as a mother you feel that absolute fear of not knowing what has happened to your child.

Great book loved this book lot's of twists great characters good story line love this author to will be reading more from her

Emma is a school teacher and every parents worst nightmare comes true on their school trip.
After initially conducting a panic stricken search for a lost child, she finds that her own daughter has been snatched. This was a real page turner, wondering just what was going to happen. You feel the real sense of dread, hoping that they are going to find her safe and well.

Positives:
I read this book in one afternoon.
The past was fast and engaging.
The mystery was engaging and kept me fully invested until it was solved.
I could feel the main character (the mother's) emotions and distress as I was reading.

Negatives:
Sometimes I was frustrated with the main character's decisions.

This was an enjoyable read and I look forward to her next one.

A dramatic ending to a school trip causes horror all around the village, but complete panic in all the teachers. An interesting read, if a little slow moving for me.

I will post review with Waterstones

This is one of those books that you could easily finish in one sitting. It was so hard for me to put this down and focus on something else, I had to know what was going to happen next. I literally devoured this in a day, it was such a fast, thrilling, twisty story.

This book follows Emma, a single mother to a six year old daughter, who is trying to navigate her life two years after her beloved husband was killed in a car crash. She is also a dedicated teacher at her daughter, Claire’s, school. The book starts with Emma and Claire on a school trip at a pumpkin patch with the whole class. The day starts off good, but ends in disaster when Emma’s daughter goes missing, and is suspected to have been kidnapped. Emma is sure Claire wouldn’t have left with a stranger and it must have been someone she knew, so Emma is questioning everyone and everything and has no idea who she can trust.

Emma’s grief and anguish is strong and was really upsetting to follow at times but really raw and real. It really showed the impact of having a missing child and how much it tore her apart, and the lengths she would go to in order to save her daughter. This was so cleverly written and pieced together and the twist towards the end was really shocking! This was a really good mystery with some good twists, I’d highly recommend reading this!
Thank you so much to Netgalley and Bookouture for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

It’s every teacher’s worst nightmare to lose sight of a student and it’s even scarier when it’s your own child that has disappeared.

Emma loves her job as a Kindergarten teacher; she works alongside the most caring coworkers who have helped her tremendously since the death of her husband. Her daughter, Claire, is in Ms. Bailey’s Kindergarten class and Emma gets to see her little girl everyday.

Today’s field trip day! The kindergarten classes are headed to a local pumpkin patch for fun, activities, and pumpkin picking. Emma wants to spend the day with Claire but she needs to keep a close eye on her own class.

When a teacher begins panicking over a lost student, Emma desperately wants to keep an eye on her own daughter while searching for the missing child. What if her own daughter is taken from her in the moment of chaos?

Well I’m glad this Mrs. Bailey, me, read this book AFTER my kindergarten field trip to a strawberry farm…

As a parent and a teacher; I felt Emma’s desperation, her anxiety, the emptiness in the pit of her stomach when her whole life is taken away in the blink of an eye.

I flew through this book in just a couple hours and I’m pretty sure my heart skipped a beat when the big twist was revealed. The author did a great job keeping readers gripped to the pages. The surprises and secrets seemed never ending and I couldn’t believe the ending.

I went to work the next day, looked at the coworkers around me and thought: do I really know the people I see and work with everyday?

I needed this psychological thriller after reading a bunch of romance novels! I was a little concerned that a kidnapping would be too much for my mother's heart but thankfully there was no torture of the child. This book had me guessing throughout who was involved in the kidnapping and I wanted to keep reading until I found out what happened.



Thanks so much to netgalley and the publisher for the arc. The opinions are my own.

Emma is a teacher and takes her class away to a pumpkin patch for a school trip. A little girl goes missing and she joins the search. Meanwhile, her own daughter is abducted...
The School Trip is a psychological thrller set in America.
Every parent can instantly identify with the fear of having a missing child. As a teaching assistant, I also understand the stress of keeping track of classes of children when out and about! Emma has every teacher and then every parent's nightmare: a lost child. Her own situation escalates when she is informed that her daughter Claire has been kidnapped.
Most of the book is written from Emma's first person perspective but there are some chapters written from the abductor's point of view which shows their past trauma and motive. There are plenty of twists as Emma has serious doubts about who she can trust. I also doubted the honesty of most of the characters and suspected everybody of being involved!
There is a strong emotional element to the book. The fear that Emma feels is balanced by the grief she has already experienced following her husband's death. I thought that the emotions felt authentic as they were well described. Set against this raw emotion is the police procedural element of routines as the investigation develops. Emma becomes increasingly frustrated with the police officer in charge for slowing things down or keeping her in the dark.
The School Trip was an intense thriller with a strong emotional thread.

This recently released a couple of weeks ago and was sent to me as an arc so I’m a little late with the review 🙈 BUT, can I just tell you how amazing this book is?! This is one of a parents worst nightmare in a book. Emma, the mom, is a teacher but she has a daughter in the same grade she teaches and they’re on a field trip. Emma is a chaperone/mom on this day. While she’s being a chaperone, her daughter gets kidnapped. This is when the rollercoaster of emotions begin. 😮‍💨 There’s so many twists and turns and keeps you reading! As a mom, this book had me on panic mode the entire time lol 😅 it’s pretty fast paced which was great and it sucks you in to every page and chapter. What I LOVED most about it, is you get the perspective of the mom, which is the main character, and the perspective of the kidnapper. 👏🏽👌🏽 But this book is mainly one person pov.

I gave it 4 stars because of personal reasons within the book. I also feel like the ending happened pretty fast and felt a little bit rushed. But the way this book had me on edge was incredible. Worth the read! Again, panic mom mode 😅

Definitely recommend this one!

Thank you netgalley for this arc! This was unputdownable 👌🏽

MS is one of my go-to authors when I check the NetGalley book list.
Whilst Miranda Smith set up a very exciting and unique story in her latest novel, The School Trip, I couldn’t help but feel that it was a little lacking, it felt like it's not her. The style, the dialogues, the "twist", it didn't feel like hers.

The final part of this story takes place over just a day and it was packed with action, but not much excitement. For me, it felt like there was something missing compared to what I'd seen in the first two novels. I’m not a fan of repetitive sentences, but I can see how the author used them to show a scene’s chaos, while maintaining a hectic pace, as the story approached the climax.

Thank you for providing me with a copy of this book.
I struggled to get into it because I keep telling myself it's not the classic MS writing style. I ruined it for myself (LOL).

The book is okay though and there are no doubt many people who would be an ideal audience for this book. But I am not one of them.

A great fast-paced read! There was so many twists and turns and I couldn’t work out who it was until it was too late!

My only gripe as a teacher is there is no way teachers would’ve waited until they were there to sort out who was responsible for which kids! There is far too much health & safety and risk-assessing involved for that!

It's easy to lose track of a child at a crowded pumpkin patch. All it takes is to turn your gaze in one direction while the little on you're watching decides to dart off the other way. The sense of panic and guilt is immediate, even if you're sure that everything is going to turn out just fine. In this book, things aren't fine, and the author does an amazing job of building the tension.

Before one of the students goes missing, Emma is already feeling stressed and guilty. Her own daughter, Claire, is on the school trip, wanting one on one time even though Emma is working and has to keep a watchful eye on a number of children. She's promised that they'll spend time together at the end of the day. Then a little girl gets lost. She's quickly found, but in the confusion, Emma's own daughter goes missing and isn't quickly found.

I really enjoyed the read, even if I wasn't completely satisfied by the ending.

★★★★ 4.5 stars

You looked away for a moment...And then she was gone...

I read this book in one afternoon. It's THAT good! My third read by Miranda Smith, THE SCHOOL TRIP is just as thrilling and just as compelling as "Not My Mother" which I just loved. Of course, as soon as it mentioned a missing child I knew this would be right up my alley...and it was. It was everything I love about missing children tropes and thensome. What is even more impressive is that the entire story (bar the final chapter) takes place in one single day. How can an author do that and keep things interesting? Who cares? She did!

Emma is a widowed mother to six year old Claire and a kindergarten teacher. And although she is busy trying to remain present for her daughter, today is a special day for the school where she teaches as it's a field trip day. Most of the childrens' parents have come along to act as chaperone but those who couldn't remained in groups of two or three with their teachers. The teachers have planned things to the nth degree. Security is solid. What could possibly go wrong?

Of course, Claire had hoped to be spending the day solely with her mum at the Pumpkin Patch farm and isn't at all impressed to be having to share her with other students whose parents couldn't come on the school trip. But Claire's attention is soon diverted with the promise of feeding the animals and playing on the ten foot slide and play equipment the farm have. Tantrum diverted.

The past two years have been tough for Emma. Having been on extended maternity leave during Claire's early years, she returned to work to find juggling motherhood and a full time job was not as easy as she'd first thought. And then just as she was trying to find her footing in both camps, her husband David is killed in a car accident leaving her to raise their daughter alone. To make matters worse, Emma and David had been arguing the day of his death and she has never forgiven herself for it. Now Claire is all she has left.

Now Emma is busy navigating the field trip and allocating chaperones with children before heading off to enjoy the day. Claire is busy with her friends, calling out to her mum every so often which Emma obliges. Despite this, she still seems to be having a wonderful time.

And then every teacher's worst nightmare happens...a child goes missing. The farm is placed into lockdown and the police are called as Emma assists in searching for the missing girl. After a couple of hours, the child is thankfully located in the middle of a cornfield maze, sobbing and scared. Everyone is relieved as news spreads that the little girl has been found. Police release the scene and parents begin to leave the farm with their children. But relief is shortlived because while Emma was out searching for the missing child, her own daughter went missing. Frantic, she asks Sarah, her friend and colleague, where Claire is but Sarah can only respond tearfully that she only took her eyes off her for a second. But a second is all it takes.

But the day is almost at an end and night is drawing in, meaning they are now losing daylight. If Claire is out there, she will be in the dark and frightened. But the owner of the farm reassures her that all sections of the farm are now closed so she won't be anywhere on the property. So where is she? And then police discover park footage of Claire leaving with an unknown person. A stranger. But Claire wouldn't have left with a stranger...so who is it that lead her child out of the park?

It's every parent's worst nightmare - your child going missing. And the author brings the reader to the forefront of the investigation as police search for missing Claire. Emma is placed in the spotlight as the media speculate a neglectful mother leaving her child in the care of another at the time she disappeared which only serves to infuriate her further. Why aren't the police updating them with the facts instead of wasting time. Then soon Emma discovers some of those closest to her aren't at all who they appear to be and she begins to wonder just who can she trust? Any one of them could have Claire. Everyone seems to be lying so who can she trust?

The story unfolds through Emma's perspective as well as the first person narrative of the kidnapper and their unhinged "plan". I did question some of Emma's decisions but as I'm not a mother I guess I can't fully comprehend her reasoning behind her behaviour which seemed a little unhinged herself. But the mystery itself was thrilling, emotive and made for addictive reading. There are plenty of suspects to sift through but the real surprise was who. I really didn't see that coming...but it so made perfect sense.

Overall, THE SCHOOL TRIP is a real pageturner and perfect for fans of domestic suspense and anyone who loves a good missing child trope.

I would like to thank #MirandaSmith, #Netgalley and #Bookouture for an ARC of #TheSchoolTrip in exchange for an honest review.

This review appears on my blog at https://stinathebookaholic.blogspot.com/.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the e-ARC of this book.

Losing a student on a field trip is every teacher's worst nightmare. Have that student be your own child, and most teachers can't think of anything worse. This thriller was engaging, and a quick read.

#MirandaSmith is a #mustread author for me. All of her books I’ve read have been incredible!

The School Trip captured me from the first page! I pictured the setting from memories of field trips with my little girl and immediately felt the gut punch! This one’s a good one from the first page to the last!

Thank you, Miranda Smith, Bookouture & Netgalley for my copy! All opinions are my own.

Interesting and kept me invested. A few twists and turns, although nothing that fully shocked me. You slowly start to see how the main characters loses faith in everyone she is surrounded by one by one. Emotional and well paced, I didn’t want to put this one down!

The School Trip, by Miranda Smith

What a brilliantly gripping and twisty read!

Anyone who is a parent knows the feeling of losing sight of your child, even for a moment. As a single Mum, Emma is extra protective of her daughter and when she is kidnapped on a school trip, she is distraught, especially as the Police refuse to let her get involved in searching for Claire.

Emma has a close circle of friends, amongst her work colleagues, but when all of them seem to be telling lies to protect their own involvement, she doesn’t know who to trust.

4 ⭐️ Thanks to Netgalley, the author and the publisher for an ARC in return for an honest review.