Thank you Dreamscape Select - Storm Publishing for accepting my request to read and review The Lost Girls of Penzance on NetGalley.

Published: 10/05/23

Stars: 3.5

The synopsis spells it out -- a child missing from nursery school. The story tugged at my heart and left my brain alone. I'm grateful this wasn't graphic and nasty. It is a police procedural -- there are slow parts, smart sections, and different personalities. I could see this as an episode of Vera on Masterpiece Theatre.

I would recommend to mature readers.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.
Great audiobook. Had me hooked from the start and I couldn’t stop listening.
Great narrator as well.

i couldn’t help but want more from this book but it was very well paced and descriptive. i love a good crime thriller but this wasn’t giving me a edge gripping vibe

This is a good mystery. It's a detective story starting Lauren Pengelly. She is following a kidnapping of a little girl.

Many thanks to Net Galley and Dreamscape Select for an audio copy of this book for for an honest review.

I enjoyed this thriller immensely. The storyline was captivating and the narration was wonderful. My only critique is that I thought the secondary characters could have had more depth.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I thank Netgalley and the author for allowing me to review an ARC copy of this book.

I am especially thankful to Netgalley for allowing me to discover Sally Rigby, as I love this book and can't wait to read more from the author. The book was for me a very great mystery. It features two parallel investigations into the disappearance of little girls and a murder case. I really loved all of the characters, including the Ice Queen, which I think is an incredible representation of the modern ideal oof career above all, showing it in a moderately positive light and having strong reasons for her choices. If I had to deal with constant exposure to such crimes I would not want personal involvement either.
The other detectives were quite cool and I loved the dynamics between the new recruit and Lauren (aka the Ice Queen).
The culprit's motive and entanglement were quite shocking and I loved how the two cases connected. The mental instability portrayed showcased well the complexity of trauma and the terrible consequences it can have on people, especially if it stems from childhood.
I will definitely reading more from this author and highly recommend this book, as it will keep everyone on their toes for the resolution and kept me up at night with tension.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the advanced copy. This is probably one of the first crime books I've ever read and it's got me into the genre in a big way. The plot was quick-paced and gripping and I flew through this in just over a day because I needed to know how things were going to turn out. I liked the main characters although I thought a romance was building between them and then nothing really happened, but I suppose that might be coming later in the series. Overall, a very quick and easy read and I'll likely pick up the next one!

Thank you to NetGalley for the early release copy of The Lost Girls of Penzance by Sally Rigby.
This is a fast paced and exiting read with several different intertwining plots and twists. The book kept my attention and I listened in one day. The reader did a great job and I enjoyed the performance of the book.
I look forward to exploring other books by this author.

I love a good mystery! This one was set in Penzance (no pirates!) in Cornwall and kept me on the edge of my seat. It was narrated by Clare Corbett and I loved her voice and accent. She also was good at changing her voice to fit different characters.

This is the first in the new Detective Lauren Pengelly series, and it's off to a lukewarm start. Detective Matt Price has recently moved to the area and is reporting to Pengelly, even though she had no say in hiring him. And he's relocated after the sudden death of his wife, so his parents can help him raise his precocious daughter.

Overall, he's not certain about the new job, and his new boss isn't too certain about him! But on his first week at his new job, they are suddenly faced with multiple abducted children and two unearthed bodies, all in the span of just a few days.

As the start of a series, we're left with plenty to learn about Pengelly and Price, but not a lot that draws us to them. Added to that is the fact that the mystery was fairly easy to figure out.

I'm open to reading another in the series to see if it improves since the main characters did start to grow on me toward the end, but if it's as hard to connect with them in that one as it is this, I'll have to pass after that.

Thank you to Sally Rigby, Dreamscape Select and NetGalley for an advance review copy.

I am giving The Lost Girls of Penzance by Sally Rigby 2.5 stars. It was just a mediocre crime thriller. Actually, I wouldn't call it a "thriller" as there is not much "thrill". I was bored most of the time. I did not like the main character, Detective Lauren Pengelly. She has no personality. Just a person focused on her job which was dull. She is not a dynamic type of character. Matt seems to not have much emotions - he too was pretty dull. The narrator, Clare Corbett, did a great job with female adult and child voices but her male voices were indistinguishable from female voices and I was confused whose point of view I was listening to at times.

Big thanks to Netgalley and Dreamscape Select for the advanced copy of the audiobook. #netgalley #TheLostGirlsofPenzance

Thanks to Dreamscape Select/Storm Publishing, NetGalley, author Sally Rigby and narrator Clare Corbett for the opportunity to review an advance copy of this audiobook. Following the start of the beginning of Detective Matt Price on his first day working with Detective Lauren Pengelly as they have to deal with two major cases. One is concerning bones of murder victims that are unearthed on a nearby estate and the other more disturbing case is that someone is kidnapping toddler girls from local daycares. This one becomes especially personal when Matt’s daughter is one of the kidnapped girls. I look forward to this author writing more about these characters and developing these relationships. Definitely I recommend this book to anyone who enjoys thrillers.

A solid 3.5!

The mystery was very intriguing, I enjoyed the pace and the length of the book, the audiobook was amazing. Doesn’t have any gore or explicit violence. I wasn’t bored or tired of the book. Characters grow on you. There was no shocking element to it but that only makes it cozier. I wonder what will come next in the series if the plot is based on how rare murders or dissapearances are in the quiet city of Penzance…

Audiobook was graciously provided by NetGalley and Storm Publishing in exchange for an honest review.

Although I did like the narrator and the mystery in general I did find it slightly too coincidental that the 2 main mysteries happen within a small town in such a short time. Was an easy listen and definitely will listen or read the next in this new mystery series.

This book was a pleasant surprise. I don't often read the book summaries in their entirety and from the title I thought this might be geared towards the young adult audiences. Though I have read and enjoyed many books from that genre. Some of my friends rated it highly, so when I had the chance, I grabbed it. So glad I did.
The audio was fantastic.

This is set in Cornwall and it is a fantastic detective story. Well plotted, rounded characters, and the case because it concerned children, was sad but kept my attention.. was intriguing. The scenes were not terribly graphic, which was a big plus. It is also number one in a series, from Which I expect more good reads.

If you enjoy the Vera series, you will enjoy this.

Thanks to NetGalley and Storm Publishing for this ARC.
Overall this audiobook was an enjoyable listen. I enjoyed the main character development and overall story.

However, I had to remove a few stars (no spoilers):
One less star for dialogue that was pretty repetitive and odd at times and omniscient POV that was sometimes confusing via audiobook.
One less star for not enough suspects, to me the mystery part of the story was lacking.
And one less star for parts where the police/detectives did things that just seemed unrealistic. Like entering a possible crime scene and not going on guns up and scoping the area for threats.

This was a pretty standard police procedural and although it started off well, the dialogue quickly became rather stilted and unrealistic. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Thanks to NetGalley for this ARC. I enjoyed the audiobook a lot and the story too. The main characters were good, but the secondary ones were kind of underdeveloped. I liked the pace, and I plan on reading subsequent books in this series.

A grief stricken cop in a small town with an overbearing boss, missing toddlers, and a decades old set of unsolved murders—what's not to love? Add in a budding relationship between said cop and boss, and the answer is YES PLEASE! Great narration.

I enjoyed this audiobook set in Cornwall. On her return from leave, DI Lauren Pengelly finds herself rushing unexpectedly to the scene of a crime - a body has been found. However, she finds herself being refused access to the scene, because she hasn't got her ID card with her. Although she tells the unfamiliar officer who she is, he's convinced she's a reporter trying to pull a fast one - he's new on the job, and doesn't know anyone, but has been sent to the scene as the only person available. It's a bad start, Lauren has been rubbed the wrong way, and the new officer, Matt Price, is rather more vulnerable than he'd care to admit. Then, on top of what looks like a historical crime, a child goes missing and things get much more complicated - Pengelly and Price are going to have to work together, whatever their feelings.

The Cornish setting isn't particularly evident, except in that it's reflected in the accents of some of the characters - quite useful in an audiobook, where it can sometimes be difficult to know exactly who is speaking. One of the reasons I was keen to listen to it is that it's read by Clare Corbett, of whom I have a good opinion. I can be picky about narrators, and she stands out as one of the most reliable.

The two threads of the plot - missing children and the historical crime - weave together quite nicely, ramping up the tension towards the end as personal issues make things more urgent than ever. Pengelly and Price become interesting characters with enough quirks to bode well for future instalments in their partnership (I see a second is promised for next year). If, like me, you prefer murder mysteries that aren't too gritty, then this is for you. I might give some of her other series a try, but I note the words "psychological thriller" and "serial killer" are mentioned, so I suspect I'm on safer ground with this series.

Thanks to Netgalley for a review copy.