Finding Sophie is a domestic thriller surrounding the disappearance of a teenage girl in a quiet community. Seventeen year old Sophie has disappeared. The police have been involved, but six weeks later the family is no closer to finding out what has happened to their daughter than they were on day one. Zara and Harry, Sophie's parents, are convinced that they know who took their daughter and they're about to do anything they can to prove it. Told in alternating POVs of Zara and Harry and in dual timelines, this thriller will keep you on the edge of your seat until the end.

Thank you to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for an advanced ecopy of this book in exchange for my honest thoughts.

It's been a little while since a book kept me up past my bedtime reading. Finding Sophie is a slow burn with some family drama elements, a little British court and police procedural, and a lot of suspense. Although a bit repetitive and therefore a little longer than needed, Imran Mahmood has given us a dual timeline that works because each chapter has us questioning ourselves, the characters, and more than once this reader asking "could you please just TALK to one another?!?"
The ending had my head spinning to say the least, and the thriller elements of this novel did not disappoint. Short chapters will please readers of James Patterson and the legal elements will appeal to readers of John Grisham and Stacey Abrams, with an extra gift for Anglophiles.

This was a heavy book because it is a parent's worst nightmare......how the main characters dealt with it was raw and honest and very touching.

✨Book Review✨
Finding Sophie by Imran Mahmood
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I really enjoyed this book. Super solid thriller told from alternating perspectives. I LOVED the author's choices in how this story unfolded and the timing of what the reader was allowed to know and when. Even though the narrators were British, I still really enjoyed the audio and loved having different readers for the two points of view. This was so well executed and is definitely one that I recommend!

To be completely honest, it took me a few months to finish this book, which is longer than I would normally give a book. I would consider it a slow burn but it definitely kept my attention and I was drawn to needing to know more. I needed to know what happened.

I enjoyed the MC’s, as a parent I understood them and sympathized with them 100%! I truly enjoyed the plot, the writing & different perspectives are one of my favorite styles so I am unsure why I couldn’t devour it.

With that being said, I absolutely loved the book. I would hands down recommend it. It was a book that even when I was not reading and though I “struggled” to read more that a few chapters at a time, I was constantly thinking about it & wanting to know what was happening and where it was going. Definitely worth the read!

Thank you NetGalley and Bantam for a copy of the book in exchange for my honest review.

I had a really hard time with this one. I found I didn’t really like any of the characters. I felt bad for the parents but all the things they did after their daughter’s disappearance just didn’t work for me. I finished it and it was just okay.

I really tried to get through this but ended up DNFing at chapter 68. This book felt very disorganized to me, it felt very rambly without really getting anywhere and it was often unclear what was going on which made it difficult to keep reading.

A couple find themselves going to every outrageous and illicit length to Finding Sophie by Imran Mahmood. Harry and Zara cannot fathom where their 17-year-old daughter fled to and if she's even alive. All but one house on their block answered their queries, and now they're sure that number 210 holds the secrets of where Sophie went. This puts them on a crazy odyssey to find out and get their own justice after they feel the police have taken the investigation too lightly.

Initially, I wasn't sure if I would enjoy this book, but I found it intriguing in the first half. You really cannot imagine what happened to Sophie yourself and what fractured this family if she truly ran away. If she didn't run away, did someone kidnap or murder her? Nothing is clear, and these two mild-mannered teachers are determined to find out without considering to cost.

Although they keep talking about the challenges they had in raising Sophie after she became a pre-teen, it seemed a little blurry to me. Once they reconcile that she must be gone and possibly died, the grief is sincerely palpable. I think the author did a great job in demonstrating how both parents encounter their own grieving moments and how it affects others in their circle. It also shows how their own relationship could fall apart because they simply cannot lean on each other, at least, in talking about their feelings.

Some of the chapters come from the perspective of Harry, others from Zara, and still others from the courtroom case where you're not exactly sure, at first, who is on trial and for what. That was somewhat interesting, but as the case dragged on, I felt less enamored with reading it. I would have loved reading a chapter from Sophie's perspective but that never came, and I think that was a missed opportunity.

I'm not sure about the laws in England, but my eyes glazed over at times when legal speak was brought into the case. I used to write for a legal marketing firm, but those passages could not hold my interest. They were way too dry except in the beginning where you were trying to decipher who was being tried and for what.

The ending was pretty out of left field although it was somewhat interesting. I felt it was rendered as fully as it could be, so it wasn't necessarily a shock but a confusing misdirection. It was an easy enough read but dull in some places. It had potential, and I was hoping it was more of a thriller or suspense novel, but it leaned more on the courtroom drama side, which I didn't love.

Thank you to the publisher for an advanced copy of this book! It was a really propulsive read and I did not expect the ending. After she's begun to act out, Sophie disappears, and her parents are distraught. Both parents must wonder if they actually knew their only child. The different ways they handle her disappearance pushes them apart. Grief flows through every page of this exploration of what happens when parents are pushed to their breaking point. This story is half set during a trial, and half during the parents' hunt for Sophie. We also get to see the perspectives of both parents. I enjoyed how the different components were woven together!

The cover intrigued me the most with this book. I had heard good things about this one and was thankful to read it! I'm now interested in Imran's other novels.

When their seventeen year old daughter disappears, her parents Harry and Zaraare distraught. This book takes us through all the risks they will take to find her. They don't know if she is dead or alive. The detective assigned is not listening to them. What are these parents to do?

This book held my interest most of the time. It was easy to figure out for me which is why i gave it four stars. I would read another book by this author.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.
I’m not always a big fan of missing child books but this one was very good. Well written and held my interest. It also didn’t seem to be the typical missing child thriller since it involved a teenager and not a young child or baby.
Held my interest and I liked the characters.

This is a terrific can't stop page turning,,can't wait to see how it comes out kind of novel.
Couple with a single child discover that their child, Sophie is gone. They do all the things a parent would do. Talk to friends, neighbors. Constantly ask the police about progress., knock on doors, hang fliers with offers of rewards.
This isn't enough, it is not helping . So they dig in deeper. Unfortunately they each do this on their own in an effort to protect the other one.
then, each of them, unbeknownst to the other, proceed to execute a plan that should solve the crime and find Sophie.....which leads to a trial.

who did what, when and why? Was it thee thing that solved it?

great read, keeps you on your toes.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for allowing me this ARC. I recommend .

How far would you go to find your missing teenage daughter? In Finding Sophie by Imran Mahmood, Harry and Zara King are pushed to and over the brink as they become increasingly frustrated by the lack of official progress in the case of their 17-year-old daughter's mysterious disappearance. As they investigate for themselves, they become increasingly desperate and their marriage shows signs of the strain. Told in a dual timeline from the perspectives of Harry and Zara in alternating chapters, this book put me on edge from the very beginning, as I questioned how far I would go if my daughter was missing and I felt like the police weren't looking very hard to find her.

I found the most disconcerting aspect of the book to be the courtroom scenes that were included in the present timeline. It was clear that someone was on trial for murder, assumed to be Harry, yet not clear who the victim was or if Harry was guilty. All of it was revealed before the end of the book, and I thought the resolution was quite a surprise albeit not shocking. This is a very well plotted, suspenseful mystery/thriller, and a very enjoyable read.

Perhaps the best aspect of the novel is the look at how the marriage relationship of Harry and Zara changed while under the stress of looking for and worrying about their daughter. It made me question how far I would go in similar circumstances, and whether my own relationships could survive the strain.

I listened to the audio version of the book, with the narration by Lydia Bakelmun and Oliver Hembrough. It as an excellent narration, with the actors creating the right amount of stress and tension for their characters. Highly recommend!

Thank you to Netgalley and Random House Ballantine for the digital copy of Finding Sophie by Imran Mahmood. The opinions in this review are my own.

Sophie is the teenage daughter of two teachers, Harry and Zara, and she’s missing. She began to distance herself from her parents right before her disappearance and one of their last interactions leaves them both haunted and reeling. Six weeks after her disappearance, Harry and Zara are both still determined to find her, each deep in their own grief and exhausting all resources to find any clues as to her whereabouts. This novel focuses on the heartbreak and range of emotions that parents experience in this situation, and the lengths that they’ll go to in order to find their children.

The novel alternates between the events happening six weeks after Sophie’s disappearance and a court trial that begins months later. Throughout both timelines, the reader pieces together the events of the initial disappearance and the snowball of events that happen after that.

This novel started out really strong for me. I enjoyed the perspectives of Harry and Zara, and how it opens the eyes of the reader to all that parents feel in the midst of losing a child. However, I do feel like the pacing dragged during the courtroom timeline towards the middle and end of the book. I really wanted to know what happened to Sophie and found myself skimming the courtroom sections towards the end. Once I found out what happened to Sophie, I had mixed feelings. Without giving too much away, the ending just left me with questions.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House - Ballantine for this eARC, in exchange for my honest review.

✨I was given a copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review✨

"Finding Sophie" begins with Zara and Harry King grappling with the disappearance of their teenage daughter, Sophie. Weeks have passed, and the police have no leads, leaving the Kings to navigate their grief and heartache. The depiction of their fractured marital relationship was particularly well done and added depth to the story.

From the outset, a rather wild tale unfolds, maintaining suspense until the final page. While this mystery had its strengths, it felt a bit slow-paced for me. The narrative really only picked up during the last few chapters, especially around the trial. Despite this, it was a compelling exploration of the lengths a parent would go to find their missing child.

The ending, however, left me wanting more, as we never got to hear Sophie's side of the story. It felt like an important piece was missing. Nonetheless, "Finding Sophie" is a solid read for fans of mystery and family drama.

Professionals writing in their area of expertise tend to produce one of two qualities of novel: either a granular slog that's more textbook than story, or a well-developed narrative that tackles the "what ifs" that authors of other professions couldn't. Fortunately, FINDING SOPHIE is the latter: molding Imran Mahmood's legal knowledge into a multifaceted mystery that explores parenthood, grief, and a vast morally grey arena.

The narrative passes back and forth between Harry and Zara King, parents of missing teenager Sophie King. They're both absolutely sure they know who has their daughter—the mysterious man in house number 201—but it seems like the police don't care nearly as much as they do. The Kings explore faith, the occult, and their own past actions as they attempt to find Sophie; but doing so will require admitting some difficult truths about her and themselves. Eventually, their actions cascade into the downright criminal, leading to the core of the novel.

The trial scenes interspersed with the Kings' past actions never feel daunting, and cleverly use the Kings themselves as an excuse to explain legal terminology. Mahmood allows his legal knowledge to shine by pinning all the courtroom drama on one unconventional gambit, and that aspect alone would make this a fascinating read.

But where FINDING SOPHIE really excels is in its examination of the Kings. The title refers to so much more than the literal hunt for a missing girl. Sophie is a cipher at the middle of this mystery. To her parents, she is a pure but misguided child who loves her stuffed animals and for whom rebellion is inconceivable. But as more information about Sophie emerges, we start to see her clearly through her parents' own fragmented view: a girl who felt trapped, who longed to be free, and who sought acceptance wherever she could when she didn't find it at home. It's a beautiful and tense narrative from beginning to end.

What I loved about this book:
1. Felt the description of the parent's pain and desperation was well written - the writing was well done when it came to their thoughts and feelings.
2. Ending was good!

What I wished was different:

1. The slow burn in a thriller can only go on so long!
2. I didn't like the jumping around in the timeline.
3. The parents were not likable characters before their daughter went missing so while I felt their pain - I didn't like them! 

Thank you to Bantam and Net Galley for the ARC in exchange for my review.)

This book had a lot of features I enjoy in a thriller - alternating perspectives, unpredictable twist, and easy to like (or hate) characters. The story did go in a direction I wasn't expecting, but I felt it lost a little momentum in the last half of the story. Overall, this was an enjoyable and entertaining read!

Finding Sophie is a heart wrenching story of missing 17 year old Sophie. The story unfolds through alternating first person accounts from the perspective of her parents Harry and Zara. Well written, with plenty of twists and turns.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the advanced electronic ARC.