For me, 2023, is the year I am trying to focus on clearing my ebooks off my kindle, and even joined a few to tackle my TBR and Netgalley reading challenges. So far, they have been motivating in helping me achieve my goals. For example, this book I received this from Netgalley in 2016 and finally got around to reading it and clearing it off my shelf. This book had one of my favourite tropes - missing children. The first incident took place at the park, but Sophie was only gone for a few minutes. Now months later, Jill hasn't let her daughter out of her sight as she is afraid it will happen again. That's not the only thing that has changed, Sophie's personality is different- she is no longer the happy girl she was before the incident and her teachers have noticed a change. Jill knows something is off but can't put her finger on it, whereas her husband tells her she is overreacting. A mother knows best and knows when something's not quite right. The thing we come to learn when Sophie is taken a second time is that Jill and David aren't Sophie's biological parents and that she was adopted as an infant. Has her birth family come for her? Only Ever You flicks between past/present in the form of diary entries and storytelling as we learn about Sophie's real mother and the lead-up to her birth and then the two sides of the coin - of Jill and David being questioned for Sophie's disappearance and then the story of who has Sophie and why? Will Sophie be reunited with Jill and David or will she be lost forever?
Find out in this family drama saga that reminded me similar to authors like Jodi Picoult, Kristen Hannah, and Barbara Delinskey - Only Ever You by Rebecca Drake.

Omg......... this book was amazing I flew threw the pages with Olympic speed I was hooked from the very first page. I found it full of twists and turns threw out and it kept me on the edge of my seat all the way threw  I would defiantly recommend this book if you like a good book to keep you reading threw the night hopefully you enjoy it as much as I did

(I received a free copy of this book from Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.)

Jill Lassiter’s three-year-old daughter disappears from a playground only to return after 40 frantic minutes, but her mother’s relief is short-lived–there’s a tiny puncture mark on Sophia’s arm. When doctors can find no trace of drugs in her system, Jill accepts she’ll never know what happened, but at least her child is safe.
Except Sophia isn’t. Someone is watching the Lassiter home in an affluent Pennsylvania suburb, infiltrating the family’s personal and professional lives. While Jill struggles to balance building her photography business with parenting high-spirited Sophia, and David is distracted by pressure to make partner at his law firm, both of them are holding on in a marriage that’s already been rocked by loss.
Three months after the incident at the park, Sophia disappears again, but this time Jill and David become the focus of police and media scrutiny and suspicion. Facing every parent’s worst nightmare a second time, Jill discovers that someone doesn’t just want Sophia for her own, she wants to destroy the entire family.

I am going to start this review a little backwards. Normally, I like to focus on the positives and then any negatives afterwards. But this time I wanted to say what it was that stopped this from being a 5 star book.

The characters. Just so unlikeable. Could find any sympathy for them.

However, aside from that, this is a very tight, taut novel of psychological suspense. Every parent would understand the fear and desperation that Jill faces throughout this story. The writing is sparse - not many wasted words and, in a book less than 300 pages long, that was a no-brainer. Had to be tight, and it was. Rebecca Drake did a wonderful job of ratcheting up the tension at every turn, keeping the pages flying past - let's face it, that is exactly what we want from a thriller novel! And she delivered.


Paul
ARH

Quick review for a quick read. "Only Ever You" by Rebecca Drake is the first novel I've read in this author's bibliography. It was definitely a page turner. I found it difficult to tear myself away from this book wanting to know what happened next in the overarching mystery. The story centers around the disappearance of a girl named Sophia, causing a downward spiral on an already testy household for her parents Jill and David.

Jill is one of the narrators in this novel, and one can tell how flawed her character is from the beginning of the book. She has a hectic time as a mother and trying to make ends meet in the career she's set for herself while her husband's job keeps him away for long stretches of time and social engagements. She's at her wits end in some respects. A near miss kidnapping involving Sophia has Jill and David on high alert, but there are other secrets that keep their tentative relationship on its ends.

It's when Sophia disappears that everything falls apart. The second perspective in the novel is Bea, a woman whose identity isn't clear from the beginning, but the reader can tell she's the one who abducted Sophia. The question remains as to why. Combine that with confessional letters that are interspersed through the narrative from an unknown source, and you have the three perspectives that compose this novel. It flows very smoothly, and the tension between the characters is very palpable. There were quite a few times when I found it hard to suspend my disbelief in the way certain things happened (not so much in that they might occur as it was the WAY they occurred in succession). I suspected that someone close to Jill's family had something to do with Sophia's disappearance, but the narrative threw a number of curveball revelations, some of which did quite well in the context of the novel. But I think the number curveballs were one too many in the end, to the point where the story somewhat suffered under the weight/mass of them.

I did like the novel on the whole though, and it makes me curious to read more of Rebecca Drake's work.

Overall score: 3/5 stars.

Note: I received this as an ARC from NetGalley from the publisher.