Missing in Flight by Audrey J. Cole is a heart-pounding thriller that follows Makayla Rossi as she endures the unthinkable. During a transatlantic flight, her infant son, Liam, vanishes without a trace. With no witnesses and the plane already in the air, Makayla is forced to confront suspicion and doubt while desperately searching for her child. As the clock ticks, she must unravel a complex web of secrets and lies to bring Liam home safely.

I had a great time with this novel. Will be looking for more from Audrey J. Cole. Solid 4 out of 5 stars...

read if you like:
✈️ plane thrillers
👶🏻 missing children books
💁🏻‍♀️ psychological thrillers

summary:
WOW I loved this book. I’m a big fan of thrillers on planes — FALLING, HOSTAGE, THE LAST FLIGHT, and this one was just as good. It’s a story that follows Makayla Rossi, who is flying from Anchorage to New York, when she heads to the bathroom and returns to find her baby, Liam, gone. She frantically searches the entire plane for him to no avail, and before long, the flight attendants and other passengers start to question Makayla’s own sanity. As her fear and desperation grow as the plane approaches New York, she know she needs to find him before it’s too late.

The story alternates between the POV’s of Makayla, her husband Jack in New York, a first officer, and a detective on the ground investigating the case. Some of the central themes include a mother’s unwavering commitment to her child and society's tendency to label those who passionately defend their beliefs as crazy. Through the shifting POVs, we gain deep insights into several characters, revealing a common thread among them: their willingness to sacrifice for their loved ones. I found myself deeply connected to their struggles, especially through the experiences of Makayla, the flight attendants, and the pilots.

This is an incredibly quick read, and I found myself finishing it while watching the Olympics! There are several red herrings throughout and the only reason I didn’t give this a 10 is because I thought the ending could have been a LITTLE bit more satisfying! But the characters made this such a gripping page turner.

If you want to dig into the depths of human fear and the power of maternal instinct, check this book out when it releases on January 7! Thank you to Thomas & Mercer and Net Galley for the ARC!

There is something about locked room thrillers that gets me and inside an airplane flying across Canada is as pretty locked room as it gets! I found this book fast-paced and fairly twisty.

I liked the multiple perspectives. I don’t tend to love police procedural books so those chapters weren’t my favorite, but they didn’t ruin the book for me.

If you want a book with a very realistic plot, this is not for you! It absolutely had far-fetched moments throughout, but I was able to look past that and found it enjoyable.

4⭐️s!

Thank you to NetGalley and Thomas & Mercer for an ARC of this novel.

"𝑯𝒂𝒔 𝒂𝒏𝒚𝒐𝒏𝒆 𝒔𝒆𝒆𝒏 𝒎𝒚 𝒔𝒐𝒏? 𝑴𝒚 𝒃𝒂𝒃𝒚. 𝑰 𝒋𝒖𝒔𝒕 𝒘𝒆𝒏𝒕 𝒕𝒐 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒃𝒂𝒕𝒉𝒓𝒐𝒐𝒎, 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒉𝒆'𝒔 𝒈𝒐𝒏𝒆."

If you're looking for a wild locked room thriller, you can't get any more locked down than an airplane that's in flight.

Makayla Rossi is on a long flight from Anchorage to New York. Every flight attendant is busy, and she has to use the bathroom. The problem is her son is sleeping, and she knows if she wakes him up, it will be an even longer flight for everyone else on board forced to listen to his wails. In desperation, she turns to a seatmate, and when the woman nods her approval, Makayla races to the bathroom, gone only a few minutes. When she returns, however, a pillow is in the bassinet, but her son is gone.

How does a baby go missing at 30,000 feet? A desperate search begins that quickly devolves into suspicions about Makayla's mental state. After all, no one ever remembers seeing a baby, only the baby carrier that Makayla wore that shielded him from view. Even worse, one of the passengers recognizes her as the subject of a documentary about her mother, a woman in the entertainment industry who suffered from temporary amnesia and had a distressing episode while on air. Suddenly, the atmosphere changes, and it becomes more about trying to placate Makayla's growing hysteria than it does looking for her son.

The only thing Makayla can think of is that her baby was targeted because her husband is a high-profile banker who was recently featured in Forbes Magazine. But logic tells her that no one can kidnap a baby from a plane in flight and hide it somewhere where it won't be heard.

While you will have to suspend disbelief somewhat, this was a highly entertaining thriller with an intense, frenetic pace that had me constantly whispering, "what the f*ck" to myself over and over. Thank you to NetGalley and Thomas and Mercer Publishing for the early copy. At the time this review was written, this title is expected to release on January 7, 2025.

From USA Today bestselling author Audrey J. Cole comes a harrowing thriller about a woman faced with the unthinkable, when her infant goes missing aboard a plane to New York.
Great book!! Very different! I thoroughly enjoyed reading this one! This book had suspense, intrigue, action, murder, mystery, secrets, a great who done it and some crazy twists and turns! The storyline was very interesting and kept me glued to my kindle! I highly recommend reading this book! Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for sharing this book with me!

Missing In Flight by Audrey J. Cole is a propulsive read that you will stuggle to put down once started. The narrative grabs hold immediately and does not let go for the duration of a nerve-shredding ride.

Makayla Rossi is returning to New York with her infant son, Liam, following a visit with her father in Anchorage. An urgent need for the lavatory forces her to make a quick decision. Surely Liam will be fine if she leaves him for just a few moments, and the girl across the aisle did agree to keep an eye on him. She will only be away for a minute, after all. But upon returning to her seat, Makayla is horrified to find Liam missing, and the race is on to find her precious son before it is too late.

I love Ms Cole's writing, and always find myself completely immersed in well-crafted, often diabolical, plotlines. In this latest, the author clearly asserts her knowledge of the intricacies of aviation, and the novel is all the better for it. 4.5 stars

Many thanks to NetGalley and Thomas & Mercer for an ARC.

Missing in Flight by new to me author A.J. Cole, published by Thomas & Mercer, is a fst paced, complex story that had me in knots.
The heroine is on a plane, leaves her baby boy alone while going to the restroom. So what could go wrong?? Every little thing of course.
I read the blurb, the raving reviews of preview books and was intrigued. Then I started reading and was disappointed. I mean who in green earth's name leaves his baby alone and goes strolling across the plane, taking time to remove eyeliner and macara from her faces and then goes strolling back to her seat?? No, no, no way. I just can't connect with such hanebüchen logic.

The story follows Makayla , a mother who, when she attends the lavatories on a plane, discovers her baby (Liam) - who was sleeping soundly and supposedly watched over by a nearby passenger - is missing.

The story is multi-perspective which I enjoyed and believed the author did effectively, it was definitely fast paced and a quick read (I finished it in a few hours!)

The ending was much more bizarre than I anticipated but I did enjoy the book overall - definite need to suspend disbelief at certain parts of the novel if you have any knowledge of aviation, but otherwise an easy and engaging read

When a mother and her infant son board a plane for a cross-country flight from Alaska to New York, everything seems routine. When Makayla, the mother, needs to go to the bathroom, she asks a nearby passenger if she'll watch the sleeping baby for her. When she returns, she's alarmed to find the baby's carrier is empty. A frantic search for baby Liam results with the panicked mother and flight attendants searching between the seats and even in the overhead bins for the missing baby. When he's not found, they get the pilots to radio ahead and the FBI is contacted. They go to speak with the baby's father and discover he is a high-flying finance manager who has recently been profiled on a national magazine about all of the money he invests for clients. Everyone is sure it's a kidnapping for ransom. But just about everyone is hiding something and before the plane lands, there will be plenty of drama.

This story was really full of twists and turns. We don't know who to trust and of course, the puzzle of how a baby can go missing on a flight ramps up the tension. I can see this being an edge-of=your-seat film! While Makala is behind annoying at times, her determination to find her missing son gives the story a human touch.

I really really enjoyed this !!
The mind blowing guessing game with so many
Twist you start to second guess your self.
I whole heartedly felt for Makayla I could feel her pain through her chapters at one point I wanted to call the plane to kick off that’s how connected I felt to the characters like it was so real.
I read this in a day as there was no way I was putting it down!!
Brilliant book you get so many different characters point of view which I loved and it was easy to follow! I find myself wanting to know more about Tina.
I loved the red herrings the twists the uniqueness would definitely want this as a movie!!
an amazing thrilling intense book I completely enjoyed

What an interesting plot for a thriller. I wasn’t sure where this book was going to go considering the details in the description. This book had me biting my nails. i couldn’t turn the pages fast enough.

[arc review]
Thank you to NetGalley and Thomas & Mercer for providing an arc in exchange for an honest review.
Missing In Flight releases January 7, 2025

On a direct flight from Anchorage to New York, Makayla’s three-month-old baby goes missing during the two minutes it takes her to use the lavatory. The obvious thought is that he was kidnapped, but as the crew and passengers tirelessly search the plane with no baby in sight, individuals start questioning whether there was even a baby to begin with.
With a wealthy husband featured in Forbes, and a late mother with a rare amnesia disorder, it’s a race to figure out what truly happened, all while thousands of miles in the air.

This was tense and fast-paced. I loved the use of multi-pov and how we got to see the action first hand both on the plane and from the ground with the FBI intelligence analyst.
There were some things that were far-fetched, like the man in the condo and the saw, but overall, this hit the mark as a pulse-pounding thriller.

I’d recommend this for fans of T.J. Newman.

This book was giving Freida McFadden, and I do not like Freida McFadden. Everything just seemed way too unbelievable and rushed.

On a flight to New York, Makayla asks a passenger to watch her baby while she uses the toilet. When she returns to her seat, he is nowhere to be found. Welcome to the plane ride from hell.

This book kept me on the edge of my seat and I was so invested in the plot that I finished it in one sitting. Although there were parts of it that were far-fetched, I still enjoyed it overall as it was everything you would want in a thriller.