The beginning is weird to me. Like people are being weird about the star quarterback being connected to a murder but everyone is acting like they do not know him or they do not know his girlfriend. Where do these people live? In my town if someone goes missing everyone knows everyone connected to the case. There would be no "is that Josh? Isn't his girlfriend dead?" I mean I get that he transferred but there is no way he would be able to play football and get a new girlfriend here. People would not let him live it down. We have nicknames and lore for perfectly innocent people here. If you're a little weird, people are going to be watching you.
I am 40 years old and if the high school had a teenager go missing/die even my old self would know "josh." He would never escape scrutiny.

I am glad it all works out in the end though.

Loved this book! The only thing stopping me from giving this 5 stars is that I found the first half to be a bit draggy. I loved Ellie and really thought the whole time that Josh was going to be some type of bad guy. The twist did surprise me. This was the first book I have read by this author but I’ll give some more a try for sure!

Seventeen-year-old Ellie was last seen at a party with her boyfriend, star quarterback Josh, before she went missing…

Twenty years later, Ellie has rebuilt her life. The man who ruined it is behind bars. He can't hurt her now. But as Ellie leaves her therapy group, a face she hasn't seen in decades appears before her. Josh, her high school boyfriend, is back in town.

As they reconnect after years apart, trying to make sense of their shared trauma, a few streets away, Ellie's seventeen-year-old daughter Jess vanishes.

The Girl in the Basement starts like a YA thriller (think, Good Girl's Guide to Murder), with a heavy emphasis on Ellie's teenage life, new boyfriend and his slightly dodgy father. I really enjoyed this section of the book - slightly slow but enough to keep it interesting before it really ramped up with a death, a missing father, a car that has been tampered with and Ellie's kidnapping. The actual kidnapping was a very small portion of the book, and while the description made it seem like it would feature more heavily, I do think it was done well and didn't need to drag on.

We then move to Ellie as an adult, she has a 17 year old daughter and her high school beau is back in town. I loved the reunion of the two, the relationship between Ellie and her daughter and thought the book got super exciting in the later sections once Jess had gone missing. A few twists and turns, some faces from the past and the help of a Private Investigator ( I LOVE books with PI's - I love the additional element they can provide that a stock standard cop can't). I thought it was exciting, flowed nicely and had a great ending.

A nice wee beach read thriller.

I was intrigued by the premise of this book but I couldn’t get into it. It felt a lot like a YA book and the writing felt juvenile. I couldn’t really connect with any of the characters, even Ellie. They felt very one dimensional. It also didn’t make a lot of sense at times. Overall it was a bit of a miss for me.

I loved this so much!! This book had it all!! Murder, suicide, abuse, kidnapping and much more. This was a page turner from page one! I read it in a day, couldn’t put it down. HS football stand out Josh is accused, and ultimately cleared, of his gf’s murder. Shortly after, he and his parents move to a new town with the hopes of starting over. No matter how hard he tries his past seems to stick with him. Will history repeat itself or will Josh outrun the darkness that follows him and make his way to the NFL?
I received this as an arc from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This read more like a YA Thriller in my opinion. A big portion of the book was set during Ellie's high school years. Given the synopsis, I assumed more time would be spent on her and her daughter's disappearance, but both were a small portion of the book. While the beginning chapters did allow the reader insight into Josh and his family dynamics, I felt Ellie's kidnapping was not the focus and went by quickly.

The Epilogue was of Ellie in the basement.

Chapters 1-13 were of 6 months before Ellie's kidnapping. The focus is heavy on her high school life, the high school football team, and her romance with Josh.

Chapter 14-15 is back in the basement. Chapter 15 she escapes.

Then the timeline jumps ahead 20 years starting at Chapter 16.

It wasn't until chapter 19 that Ellie's daughter was taken (70% into the book). Jess's kidnapping is never told from her perspective, so we don't have any chapters about what occurs when she is taken and after.

The remaining chapters are of Ellie's journey in trying to find her daughter.

There is a lot of focus throughout the book of Ellie and Josh's relationship. So it almost reads also like a thriller romance.

It is a short read- only 216 pages according to the NetGalley ARC (Goodreads lists it at 283 pages). I do feel like this story could've been stretched out further to 350 pages or so to add more suspense and depth to the plot.

I feel like YA readers will love this book and connect with it since there is so much focus on high school years/life. There is definitely a target audience for this book, but I don't feel like it's adult.

It is my understanding that this is a new/newer genre for this author. After reading this, I wouldn't hesitate any to try another book of his in the future under this genre.

Where to begin… this book had some really great moments. The dialogue was good and the characters were relatable (except maybe for the star football player). But overall this was a hard one to give more than 3 stars to. The story was pretty far fetched and it seemed like the author didn’t know who to make the “bad guy” until midway through.
Not something I’m going to recommend.

The girl in the basement is a quick read of only 283 pages. Its a story about teenage girl named Ellie who falls in love with football player Josh. But Josh has a past which will involve Ellie as their relationship furthers.
After twenty years her daughter faces similar incident which happened with Ellie.
Though the name of the book is “The girl in the basement “, there is no much scene involving the basement.
The ending us good but the real culprit is easily identifiable. Overall its a good read.
I would also like to thank NetGalley and Storm publishers for giving me this ARC.

While I enjoyed this book it wasn’t what I expected it would be. It started out slow and took quite awhile to pick up. The first half of the book I thought I was reading a YA story. I did enjoy the author's writing style and character development. The other books that I have read by this author I have enjoyed more than this one. If you like thrillers with a twist you’ll enjoy this one. Fast read.

The story revolves around Ellie and her boyfriend Josh. Even though Josh has been cleared of any wrongdoing in the murder of his previous girlfriend, he still lives under a cloud of suspicion, making the reader wonder if he did it. There are many twists and turns throughout the story. The ending wasn’t what i expected.

I would recommend this book to YA readers. Thanks to NetGalley and Storm Publishing for an advanced copy of this story.

Does lightening strike twice, sometimes it does. In this book it seems too. Phoebe meets a boy and everything surrounding him seems to go wrong and then her life is forever changed. 20 years pass and he’s back and things go wrong again! Great read. I very much enjoyed this book!

An enjoyable, quick read for a thriller! I found myself switching my guess as far as who the culprit was in this novel multiple times while reading. I never did figure it out until the very last twist was revealed. Such a great job done with the characterization throughout that I was even rooting for the bad guys at times lol!

Ellie is dating the new high school quarterback who just so happens to be practically famous but soon she goes missing at a party and held captive in a basement, but by who? By determination and grit she escapes, however 20 years later her daughter goes missing and the quarterback mysteriously appears in her life again. Is it all just a coincidence or is something more sinister going on?

This is a great starter thriller for someone looking to get into the genre but would also be an enjoyable read for those familiar with it already. Great work on Dempsey's part!

I was very intrigued by the cover, title, and synopsis of this book. I immediately wanted to read this. However, this book fell flat for me. I feel there was a disconnect between the synopsis and the content of the book. I expected more about the girl in the basement and unfortunately there was very little. I had to double check I was reading the correct book.
Perhaps updating the synopsis will give readers a better idea of what this book is about.

The Girl in the Basement by Eoin Dempsey is about Ellie who was kidnapped as a teenager. Twenty years later a person close to the case comes back into town and they reconnect. Suddenly Ellie´s teenage daughter is missing and Ellie goes on a hunt to find her.

When i read the blurb of this book I was really excited, but when I started reading I was a bit disappointed. It took around 50% of the book to return to the present timeline, the first half was about Ellie´s teen years and her relationship she was constantly hesitant about. In my opinion a lot of the chapters were a bit unessecary to the plot and everything was surface level. I was missing some depth in a lot of things.

If I remember correctly it is listed as a Mystery&Thriller and I would add YA before that since so much of this book is following the 17 year old main character.

I have decided to rate this book 2 stars.

For me the grl in the basement started of quite slow and seemed quite predictable, so much so Idid jump part of it but I found the second half was a bit better and had a few unexpected twists.

ARC Review..

Eion Dempsey is a fantastic writer and storyteller. While there were a few things I saw coming, I was definitely shocked a time or two when certain things were revealed. From the nostalgia of feeling like you're in high school again to the heart-pounding excitement while trying to figure out who did what, this book was impossible to put down. If you love a good psychological thriller, football, and detective work, this book will quickly become one of your favorites.

The book kinda started out a bit slow but just over the 50% mark it does start to speed up and gets way better. If you are a football fan this story has a lot of football references.
A story about a teenager who falls in love with the new boy who has an unfortunate past. And then goes to 20 years later and the story takes a fast turn. It does read a bit like a YA thriller. But it’s an interesting read. If you just want something easy that will keep you turning the page I definitely recommend reading this

unfortunately it's a slow start and it only really picked up about halfway through the book.
In the end I would say it's an enjoyable easy read which has suspense and intrigue

The synopsis of this may have been intriguing, but the execution was very poorly done. In fact it takes until the 59% mark (yes I went back and looked) to jump forward to present day. Which might not have been a problem if the first part of the book hadn't been bogged down with way too many unnecessary details surrounding football, and the mundane day to day of two high school students. I didn't care about their relationship, and honestly, I found it a bit silly that despite all of her misgivings about Josh, their relationship, and his family, she still refused to break up with him even though at times it seemed like she really wanted to. I never felt like we got inside her head enough to understand her motivations, especially when at one point she claims to be in fear for her life.

Also, who goes to a party with their boyfriend who was suspected of murdering his last girlfriend at a different party (although similar circumstances), especially when as I said before she had serious misgivings and fears about him). I understand that there needed to be some build-up so that we got to see just what kind of person Josh's father was and what their relationship was like, but it dragged down the storyline too much, making it easy to set the book to the side and go do something else.

I thought things were picking up once Ellie was kidnapped, as I found the interactions between her and "the voiceless one" as she called them to draw me in. I wondered what their end game was, while also admiring Ellie's determination in figuring out a way out of her predicament (although it's interesting that her kidnapper claimed to be watching her at all times, but did nothing about her finding a potential escape route). Sadly, their interactions only lasted for a short time before things were set in motion and Ellie was able to escape and be rescued.

Cue the time jump where we meet a now grown Ellie who is running a support group for women who are survivors, as well as working as a real estate agent and being a single mom of a 17 year old girl. One day, seemingly out of the blue, she is approached by none other than Josh, you know her ex-boyfriend? They hit it off and start spending time together, once again Ellie has some misgivings, but pushes them aside in order to explore what is between them. And then Jess goes missing.

And the story goes off the rails. Because even though Ellie calls the police, it would seem they have no idea what happened to Jess. In fact, after the press conference where we are told they were "wading through all the tips that had come in", we never see the police involved again. Ellie hires a private investigator, who is only slightly better at his job, but seems to have absolutely no qualms about bringing Ellie with him to interview people, or sending her and Josh off alone into potentially dangerous situations. During one instance of this, Ellie and Josh run into something they both recognize (although where they know the person from neither can put their finger on), and yet it doesn't seem to dawn on them at all that this could be a person from their past. There were a few times when Ellie suggests going to the police with what they know, only to be told they have "nothing but a hunch" and need more "concrete information."

All of the running around and investigating on their own eventually leads them to a suspect. The truth comes out, stuff happens, and everything is wrapped up with a tidy little bow. And yes, it happens about that quick once they realize who they are looking for. Again, a disappointment for me as a reader. I was really hoping we would get some chapters from Jess' point of view so we could see her interactions with her kidnapper, and if what was said would mirror anything from her mother's time in captivity.

At the end of the day, this for me felt less like an adult thriller novel, and one geared more for young adults. Maybe that had something to do with the first half of it being spent more on a teenage Ellie and Josh, their relationship, high school drama, football games. However, I do believe there will be an audience for this book that will enjoy it more than I did.

DISCLAIMER: I received a complimentary copy of this novel from the publisher. This has not affected my review in any way. All thoughts and opinions expressed in this review are 100% my own.

Thank you Netgalley and Storm Publishing for an early copy. This review is my honest opinion.
For much of the first half of the book, I thought I was reading a YA suspense book.
Talented quarterback Josh has transferred to a new high school in his senior year and falls for Emily, pretty, quiet and an A student. Soon rumors run rampant in the school that the ex-girlfriend of Josh was murdered. Then Ellie disappears. Has she been murdered too?
The story picks up twenty years later and picks up it does. A good mystery with a twist I didn’t see coming.

The title of this book had me immediately intrigued as I love any kidnapping/abduction stories. Ellie was kidnapped as a teen and now 20 years later her daughter has been taken! We’re left wondering who it could be as her kidnapper is in prison!

This was a very easy read, a book you will finish quickly. It’s separated into Ellie as a teen and current day. I didn’t see the end coming. Whoever is responsible will surprise you for sure!