Gone Without a Trace is a new suspense novel by Mary Torjussen. Hannah Monroe is an accountant in Northwest England. She spent the day at a training course and is in a good mood because her boss implied that she will be getting a much-desired promotion to director in the fall. Hannah arrives home to find all of Matt’s, her boyfriend, belonging gone. Everything was the way it was before Matt had moved into the house. Hannah goes to call Matt and his contact information was removed from her phone along with pictures she had taken. She goes online and finds that all of his social media accounts have vanished. Hannah is shocked and confused. She thought everything was fine with their relationship. Hannah calls his phone number, but it has been disconnected. On Monday, she contacts his work to find out that he had quit a week earlier. She goes by his mother’s home to find that she moved several months prior. Hannah does not understand what is going on and starts calling area hotels looking for Matt. Hannah is neglecting her work searching for Matt. A week later Hannah receives a text from an unknown number stating, “I’m home”. Hannah is sure it is from Matt and rushes home to find the house empty. Then little things start happening at home. She comes home to find the dead flowers replaced and another time the tea kettle is hot with steam on the tiles. Is Matt behind these incidents? If not Matt, then who? Hannah is more determined to find Matt and get answers. But will she like the responses?

Gone Without a Trace sounded like a great suspense novel. I was eager to read it and was quickly let down. The novel is told from Hannah’s point-of-view, and it is soon obvious that she has an unusual as well as unreliable view point (she is also very unlikeable). I believe the story would have been better if told from the third person (narrator) perspective. Readers are subjected to every single thing that Hannah does to find Matt. I did not understand why Hannah was going to such lengths to find him. I can understand wanting answers, but she took it to another level (which is the point, but it is still odd). The pace of the book is slow in the beginning (monotonous), but picks up in the last forty percent of the book. There is finally some action and things start coming together (in a way). I give Gone Without a Trace 3 out of 5 stars. I could tell what had happened early in the book. It was obvious what had occurred and who was behind it (limited cluster of suspects and obvious clues). I do wish that the mystery had been more intricate and difficult to decipher (and a faster pace). I never felt the suspense. Gone Without a Trace was an acceptable mystery novel. I just wanted more. I wanted the hair on my arms to stand at attention and for me to be riveted. The book has potential. With a little rewriting and editing it could be superb. This is the author’s debut novel. I will be interested to read her next creation.

After a very successful day at a work conference Hannah can’t wait to get home and tell her long-term boyfriend Matt that she’s up for a promotion for work. After walking in the door, she realizes he’s not home…and neither are any of his things. All of his clothes, pictures, and belongings are gone. Hannah starts to panic and goes to call him only to realize his phone number has been deleted from her phone. When she tries to call it, she finds it’s been disconnected. All of his pictures are also gone from her phone, and his social media accounts have all been deleted. He’s also quit his job.

With no answers and no way to contact Matt, Hannah begins to spiral downward and lose her grip. She starts receiving notes and other items in her house…are they from Matt, or from someone else? Why did Matt up and leave her with no explanation?

I really loved the premise of the book and totally loved the first 30%. I can’t imagine the emotions I’d feel if I came home one day to find my significant other just gone without a trace with no explanation or reason. I really felt Hannah’s heartbreak and pain…in the beginning. Then, Hannah starts to drive me insane after about 30% in. As much as I wanted to know what happened, I had a hard time reading because Hannah was so hard to relate to. After months have gone by, she’s still so obsessed with finding Matt that she isn’t even doing her job anymore. She goes to work late and unkempt, spends all day on her computer googling Matt’s mother, former co-workers, hotels in the area, etc. in an attempt to find him. This causes her to miss deadlines, turn in incomplete work, and forget about some projects all together. For someone who prided herself on her work in the beginning of the book, I found it hard to believe that she would completely have a meltdown and let her life go to shreds because of a man. It just didn’t seem to match up. It was all she could talk about with her friends, all she could think about, and she made zero effort to start moving on with her life and get back on track. While I completely understand how heartbreaking break-ups are, there comes a point where you have to move forward.

I also struggled with the relationship between Hannah and her “best friend” Katie. Supposedly they were best friends since they were kids, but Katie was horrible to Hannah, and Hannah wasn’t great to Katie in return. They had a really unhealthy relationship that involved one upping the other, and constantly copying what the other one had. Katie was even dating one of Hannah’s ex boyfriends.

Without spoiling anything, I will also say that I wasn’t a huge fan of the ending. It seemed way too unrealistic to me, and I feel like the author was striving to hit the same note that Gone Girl did, but did so unsuccessfully in my opinion. I had a hard time believing that the reveal at the end was true. There was also a small storyline with Hannah’s co-worker Sam that I felt didn’t get tied up as well as I would have liked it to. I was left with some questions about it and I feel like the resolution there was rushed.

All in all, the story was interesting and definitely made me want to get to the end so I could figure out what happened, however because I hated the main character and found so much of the book unrealistic, this was a low 3 star rating for me. Thank you to Netgalley, Mary Torjussen, and Berkley Books for an advanced copy of the book. It was my pleasure to provide an honest review. Gone Without a Trace hits shelves on Tuesday April 18.

Hannah’s day couldn’t be better. Away on a business trip in Oxford, she’s told she’s well on her way to a big-time promotion – one that will not only mean far more money, but she’ll be the youngest director her company has ever had. The 200 miles to get home are torture, she can’t wait to see the look on Matt’s face when she tells him the exciting news…only, when she gets home, his car isn’t there. Initially she doesn’t think anything of it, after all, he had told her he might be late coming home that night. It isn’t until she walks into their house that she suspects something isn’t right: could they have been burgled?

Artwork, pieces of furniture, things are missing and what’s so odd is that what’s gone isn’t necessarily expensive, what kind of person would steal some photographs by the door when the real money is in the entryway table? It isn’t until Hannah takes a closer look that she realizes everything missing belongs to Matt. In fact, the brand-new television he bought when he moved in has been replaced by her fuzzy, old tv that has been gathering dust in storage. The bedding has been changed back to plain white sheets from long ago. Going room-to-room, Hannah realizes every trace of Matt is simply gone – and it’s not just objects, Hannah quickly discovers. His phone number has been wiped from her cell along with any photo, text, or call. It’s clear Matt left, but what Hannah wants to know is why?

Oh dear. Let’s start with the good. Gone Without a Trace was a blindingly fast read that I finished in a single sitting, despite it’s near 400-page length. I was instantly drawn into the story and, like Hannah, wanted to know what on earth happened to Matt. What could have gone so wrong that he would pull this vanishing act and make it appear as though he had never existed?

Unreliable narrators are continuing to have their moment, thanks to those huge bestsellers like Gone Girl and Girl on a Train and, for the most part, I’m okay with it – if done in a believable way. Unfortunately, Gone Without a Trace totally missed the mark to the point where, after the reveal, Hannah felt like a completely different character. Her internal monologue was different, her way of speaking wasn’t the same, this was a wildly new person presented and I couldn’t get behind it.

What really sealed the book’s fate, however, was the absolutely ridiculous reveal. I read this one during a weekend and the entire time I was doing a running commentary for (my own) Matt. As we were getting closer to the truth about what happened, we started coming up with our own theories and, I’ll admit, ours were way more believable and fitting with the story than what really went down and for that, I’m extremely disappointed. This was a novel I actually wouldn’t have finished were it not for just how quick the pace was.

I’m clearly in the minority here as Gone Without a Trace is already receiving scores of high praise and a ton of buzz. While I can certainly see where the love is coming from, I just couldn’t look past the terrible reveal or the out of nowhere personality change for Hannah’s character – she came off as a completely different person and it felt as though it was Torjussen’s way of having a ~shocking and unreliable~ narrator. No thanks. I was also left with several unanswered questions (like exactly how did Matt manage to get into Hannah’s phone to erase every. single. text? Every call? Every e-mail? His own phone number?) I’m sorry to say that this one did nothing for me.

Gone Without a Trace is Mary Torjussen’s debut novel. This psychological thriller started slow, but the twists and turns were quite unexpected and worth the wait.

The main character and narrator, Hannah, comes home with outstanding news from her most recent business trip. Unfortunately, her live-in boyfriend, James, is not present to welcome her home, and all of his belongings are gone. The eerie situation just gets creepier as the story progresses. Is James toying with her or trying to come back to Hannah? Is someone trying to drive her crazy?

Hannah’s an organized go-getter and rising star at work. This doesn’t make her completely likable to the reader or to her co-workers. Her downward spiral drew some sympathy from me, but after a while her endless obsession with finding her ex-boyfriend really did make her seem crazy. Even her best friend basically tells her to “get over it”. I didn’t get the impression that Hannah was an unreliable narrator however, that relevant perception is something you can’t usually assess until close to the end of the story. It was easy to question, along with Hannah, the strange occurrences after James left. However, it wasn’t easy to fathom why this driven woman would slack off both at work and at home.

The story really takes off in the second half of the book. More salient information is revealed, the plot pace picks up dramatically, and her disingenuous friends and their motives became more questionable with each turn of the page. It takes Hannah too long to start questioning her co-workers’ and acquaintances’ allegiances. When she does start to ponder the loyalty of her co-workers, she is already seems so unhinged that she comes off as a crazed conspiracy theorist.

The big thrills in Gone Without a Trace come to those who patiently stick with the slow-to-start book. I didn’t see the big twist coming, and it is really mind-blowing. Ms Torjussen has written a very unique take on the disappearing-partner premise. The early plot pace warrants 2.5 stars from me, but the major story developments are a solid 5-stars. The in-between was interesting and well written, but just didn’t grab me the way more intense thrillers have previously. Overall, Gone Without a Trace is a 3.5 star read for this fan of psychological thrillers.

This seemed to start out a little slow for me and I wasn't sure how I liked the characters but then there were some great twists and turns and I really began to like this story. Make sure to keep reading because I loved the ending. I wasn't sure who to be rooting for through most of this book. I received a copy of this book from penguin random house for a fair and honest opinion that I gave of my own free will.

Alright ... where do I start with this novel? Let me begin by saying that I did not enjoy this thriller for various different reasons:

The first half of the story was boring. Hannah keeps crying and calling and making stupid mistakes. She is also fixated on Matt to the point where I felt embarrassed of her and for her. Her work starts to suffer, her friends become impatient with her, and she just can't seem to do anything but mope around and call the same number over and over again in the hopes that things are going to change.
Weird things begin to happen to her and she does nothing at all about it. She just assumes it is Matt. Okay, fine, keep that assumption, but why don't you get some video cameras placed so you can find out if it really is him? Why do you do nothing to find out how someone is getting in and out of your house and spying on you? Her lack of thinking just made me shake my head.
The twist ... it was awkward. What does that mean? It means that it took my by surprise but it was not done well. It was a sloppy twist that came out of nowhere and made no sense. Nothing from the first half of the story was indicative of this twist, and the rest of the story seemed to try to explain the twist .... which was also done unsuccessfully. It could have been done better.
The random stuff with her parents. I get that the author was trying to explain some of the psychological impact that they may have had on Hannah but it didn't work because it seemed to have just been thrown in there and not been fully developed.
The characters sucked. I hated all of them. They were not believable and they were just so unlikeable.
Overall, this novel failed for me on a lot of levels. It had bad character development, a sloppy explanation for the events, sloppy events in general, and a very awkwardly-placed, underdeveloped twist. I read it because I felt I had to but not because I enjoyed it.

Hannah is a nutcase! That is what I felt for most of the book. Her live-in boyfriend has left her and taken with him every single scrap proving that he had ever been there. First I thought maybe she had imagined him in the first place, but I was proven wrong. With his absence, Hannah spends the first 20% of the book whining and wallowing about Mark’s departure. Finally, Hannah starts to try and track Mark down with some really weird assumption that he wants to reunite with her. I am not sure where that idea came from. To make matters more confusing, she starts receiving odd phone calls and thinks someone is entering her house when she isn’t home. Again, for some reason, Hannah assumes it is Mark and that he wants to come back. Um, why would he play games like this if he had left her? I was so annoyed with Hannah’s behavior that I really couldn’t settle in and enjoy the book.

Mind = Blown. What a fantastic read. I definitely didn't see that climax and ending coming!

When Hannah returns home one day to find all traces of her boyfriend, Matt, have vanished, she is determined to figure out what has happened. While I was at times just as invested in figuring things out as Hannah was, at other times I felt frustrated with her for making what seemed to be foolish choices. Never having been in such a situation though, I can’t say how I would react, so I tried to give her the benefit of the doubt and stuck with it even when I wanted to shout at her. I’m glad I did – the resolution was just as unexpected as I had hoped it would be.

Once it gets going, the story moves along at a good pace with very little downtime, and I read it in just a couple of sittings. Hannah may not be my favorite protagonist in the recent spate of thrillers with a “twist”, but the story is an enjoyable one, and I will definitely be on the lookout for the next book from Mary Torjussen.

Hannah is having a great day! She can't wait to get home and tell her boyfriend Matt about how well she did during her training course. Her excitement is dampened when she walks in through her door and notices that everything is rearranged. It looks exactly like it did before Matt moved in. His belongings are gone and her possessions are back in their original places. His social media accounts are deleted and his phone number is disconnected. All remnants of him are gone, even the photos and text messages on her phone. It's like he never existed. After four years together, the relationship is over and she never saw it coming. Hannah was on the fast track to a promotion before Matt went missing, but it all starts to slip away as she becomes obsessed with finding him. Where could he have gone and why couldn't he have just told her it was over? While she's looking for him, it seems that someone is looking for her. Who's sending her creepy messages from an unknown number? Could it be Matt?

Hannah is humiliated. Everything she thought she knew feels like a lie now. How long had he been planning this? What does it say about her that he left like this? Hannah's devastation was understandable, but she's such an exhausting character. She's a very immature 32-year-old and a total drama queen. Her closest relationship besides Matt is her best friend Katie, but they have more of a toxic rivalry than a friendship. They're constantly making subtly rude comments to each other. Katie encourages her to move on, but Hannah isn't ready for that yet. As Hannah descends into madness, little things slip that show that she's an unreliable narrator--manipulative habits, selfish thoughts. I got the feeling she was glossing over something major. She comes across as deluded and I didn't trust her perceptions at all. Sometimes we don't know how far she's fallen until someone else calls her out on it.

My biggest criticism is that Hannah's investigation is so slow. She doesn't have much to go on because Matt was extremely thorough in extricating himself from her life! Hannah tends to make logical leaps and become obsessed with easily confirmable possibilities. At the three-month mark, I was more than ready for her to get over it and move on. He obviously didn't want to be found. The pace picks up about 2/3s of the way and it was a wild ride. I actually guessed most of the reveals, except for the very last one. That twist was actually my least favorite, because the scene was oddly tensionless after everything that had happened.

What would cause someone to disappear on their partner without a trace? Hannah's story kept me turning the pages, but it didn't make my heart pound.

I wish I could say I loved this book but I can't. Unfortunately for me, the storyline felt weak and unreal. It didn't help that I found the main characters to be unlikable and the resolution of the suspense was way over the top.

In the beginning, Gone Without a Trace introduces the main female character, Hannah. Hannah is excited about receiving a possible promotion in her job. Filled with happiness she rushes home to celebrate her recognition by her boss with her boyfriend but instead, she discovers he's gone. He has left her and he has deleted all his digital life from her electronics.

Hannah is nothing but devastated by his absence. She feels lost and she begins to search for him. Her job becomes secondary. Eating and sleeping are gone from her vocabulary. She is so distraught that when weird things start happening to her, she is not sure who's behind them. Worse, she soon realizes someone is coming inside her home and leaving notes for her. She receives anonymous texts and calls. She wants to believe it's Matt behind them. This fuels her obsession with the idea of finding him. She can't think of anything else.

I'm sad Gone Without a Trace didn't turn out to be a novel which kept my interest. At the beginning, I was dying to find out what really happened with Matt's disappearance. Was there foul play? Was Matt crazy and was he playing a cruel game with Hannah? But, when the mystery was finally revealed, it left me my head spinning and questioning the choice of the twist which created so many weak points in the story.

While I appreciate the author trying to give a fresh spin to the thriller, the lack of consistency became a problem for me. It felt too unbelievable and unrealistic.

Cliffhanger: No

2/5 fangs

A complimentary copy was provided by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I was itching for a good old fashioned mystery and this fit the bill in more ways then one. The reader is pulled in right away as the story launches into our main character, Hannah, discovering that her boyfriend of a few years has up and removed himself from her life. Poof - he's simply removed himself and all of their history seems like maybe it wasn't ever real. Matt, the missing boyfriend is the first great mystery - is he real? Then there the mystery of Hannah. Just who is she, can we trust what we know?

The fact is, we don't know much about her. And throughout the entire read there was just something "off" about Hannah. She's obsessive and all too trusting. Certainly trying to find that your boyfriend has up and erased you from his life would be maddening. So it makes sense that she lets the rest of her life slide by while she tries uncover what's happened with him. That is what really made it a page turner. I found myself questioning what she's going to do with Matt if she finds him. I wondered if Hannah was disconnected from reality, and maybe the whole thing was a dream. And there is her relationship with Kate. That's another riddle. You'll wonder what motivates her as she pushes Hannah to forget about Matt.

Torjuseen does a great job stretching out the story and slowly exposing the truth. In the end, there were a few side stories/plot devices that just didn't lead anywhere for me. I suppose they are red herrings but I like to see these resolved. But I was kept interested and raced to get to the big reveal. My recommendation in mystery suspense genre.

This book had me clueless. I was so invested in finding Matt that I couldn’t follow the clues to find out why he left or who was stalking Hannah. I felt sorry for Hannah, there were times I thought she was going to make herself crazy. Without giving away the story, I will mention that there are so many characters that were not trustable that I knew that Hannah should not trust anyone yet everyone needs friends and support in a situation like she was going through.

I am trying very hard not to giveaway anything…and there is so much to giveaway. The twists, the turns, the ups and down were all so gripping. While reading I could feel there might be more to the story yet I couldn’t wrap my head around what it could be. The clues were given, the outcome hinted at, yet I missed it. This is not a bad thing that I missed it, for me it made me read the book longer, faster, and without stopping to get the answers that I wanted.

Gone Without A Trace is a psychological thriller that I recommend reading.

Filled with secrets, lies, and a shocking ending, GONE WITHOUT A TRACE is one of those books that you think is going to go one place, takes a left turn, and ends up catching you completely off guard. Mary Torjussen unravels the story in such a way that slowly pulls you in. Without realizing it, you are utterly absorbed in Hannah’s life, her obsessions, and all the deeply flawed characters playing their parts in this thriller. The twists, turns, and reveals not only add to the suspense, but they also add to the psychological component which makes the story even richer.

I will be honest, that about half way through the book, I wasn’t sure what I thought of it. However, I decided to stick with it and I am glad that I did. Trust me when I say that this is a book you should not put down. The end is the reward.

This book throws you into the action in chapter one when Hannah comes home to find her boyfriend not just gone but like he'd never been there. Everything in her house has been replaced - just like it was before he was even there. Every picture, every glass, everything of his is completely gone and Hannah begins to unravel.

At the beginning I was holding my breath a bit. Just where had Matt gone? Why had he left in such a fashion? And then when the creep factor ramps up and Hannah starts getting phone calls and messages I couldn't wait to find out just what was going on. For probably the first third I was intrigued and at times holding my breath as the tension mounted. And then it kind of plateaued. I mean creepy stuff was still happening and Hannah was basically falling completely but nothing changed. It didn't feel like anything new came to light or any progress was made in figuring out what was going on. Despite the continually ramped up tension the story itself dragged until the last quarter of the book. As well I got frustrated with Hannah as it seemed like she was essentially just chasing her tail and wringing her hands for quite some time. I wanted her to do something ANYTHING other than self sabotage which seemed to be mostly what she was doing.

Despite my issues with the book I did enjoy the read. The last twists and turns were definitely not something I saw coming and it's fun to be surprised. I thought Torjussen did a good job with pulling me into the story quickly even though she did lose me in the middle. She's definitely an author I'll keep a look out for in the future.

I absolutely love the idea behind this one, can you even imagine coming home to a house and seeing literally no sign that your significant other had ever been there?! That’s exactly what happens to Hannah, almost from the minute she steps foot through her front door she knows something is wrong. All of Matt’s things are gone, and when she starts trying to figure out where he is, it seems like he’s simply vanished into thin air. His social media profiles are all gone, he quit his job, and his phone number is no longer active. This is one of my favorite type of reads, one where I keep asking myself, what in the world is going on?!?

Hannah was a very complex, deeply flawed character, the type that always interests me. She wasn’t very likable, but something about her drew me in. As she searches for Matt, she becomes a woman possessed and slowly begins to spiral out of control. She behaves extremely erratically, and the part that really sent a chill up my spine is that she doesn’t even realize the way she is behaving is abnormal. Every aspect of her life starts to fall apart, her job gets put into jeopardy, her friendship with her lifelong best friend Katie gets strained, her whole world starts to fall apart the day Matt leaves.

Torjussen lead me on a complicated maze and her writing was so full of subtlety and tension. Several times she alluded to suspicious behavior from Matt, but she never elaborates, making the story all the more intriguing. She also casually makes mention of a darkness in Hannah’s past, but she never shows her hand, just faint whispers that make you uneasy.

This starts off a bit on the slow side but it more than makes up for it in the end when the pacing turns frantic and the suspense mounts. The last twenty five percent was filled with an onslaught of plot twists that left my mouth hanging open in shock. I do think this will divide readers as it is a little bit out there, but I loved it. When I say divide readers, I’m thinking of books like Behind Her Eyes and The Girl Before but I loved both of those, so if you did as well, I think you’ll like this one too. I can’t forget to mention the ending, nothing pleases me more than a strong ending and this one was chilling and oh so satisfying.

Will post a spotlight on April 11th at the Dew. http://dewonthekudzu.com

Hannah Monroe has everything she ever wanted. She enjoys her work and her career is on the rise. She's paying down her mortgage on her own home. And she's in a great relationship with a wonderful man. Hannah's life is turned upside down when she returns home from a conference to find that the man of her dreams has disappeared. Not only has he left her, but he has removed all trace of himself from her home and their life together. Matt's disappearance is the beginning of Hannah's downward spiral into possible madness. She calls Matt's employer only to find he left months ago. She calls every hotel for miles to find him. She tracks down his coworkers to see if they can reveal any clues to where he is. She even tries to find Matt's mother, a woman she despises, to get answers only to find she's disappeared as well. Just when Hannah feels she's starting to come to grips with Matt's disappearance, she begins to receive strange text messages and phone calls and it seems as if someone is coming into her home when she's away. Has Matt returned? If these texts, calls, and visits aren't from Matt, who are they from and why? Why did Matt leave the way he did? Hannah is desperate to find answers to these questions and more, but will she be willing to accept the truth if she ever finds it?

I found Gone Without A Trace to be a fast-paced and engaging read. Ms. Torjussen has crafted a story with plenty of twists and turns to keep you guessing until the bitter end. Initially, I felt sorry for Hannah, but the more I read the more I realized that all is not as it appears (no, I won't tell you any more...read the book!). Ms. Torjussen introduces us to only a handful of characters and they all come across as deeply flawed in some way. Hannah's past is slowly revealed as the story develops and the reader gradually comes to understand that her childhood was far from idyllic. Her father was and continues to be abusive and very manipulative, with her mother often being the victim of that abuse. Hannah's best friend seems to epitomize passive-aggressive behavior and isn't very likable. I found Gone Without A Trace to be a chilling psychological thriller and suspenseful read. There's a lot going on in this story and if I revealed it all you wouldn't need to read it, but here's a partial list: childhood abuse, spousal abuse, anger management issues, and murder. If you enjoy reading stories with unreliable narrators or a good thrill, then you'll definitely want to add Gone Without A Trace to your TBR list. I look forward to reading more by Ms. Torjussen in the future.

I received an ARC of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This did not affect my opinion of the book or my review itself.

My absolute favorite thing about this book was how suspenseful it was. I could not put it down,and found myself squeezing in chapters throughout the day whenever I could. What was perhaps most impressive was that for the first two thirds of the book, there were no big reveals (except for the main one revealed in the book description), but small mysterious occurrences, and yet the suspense not only held, but grew. The little reveals made everything eerier and even more of a mystery.

The concept is really unique, and had me having to know the solution. I could not figure out how Torjussen could possibly bring everything together in a way that made sense. This was a case of really surprising reveals (every time I thought I knew what was going to happen, I was completely wrong), but ones that did seem a bit out of the blue. There were so many completely surprising twists one right after the other in the last few chapters, that they seemed somewhat disjointed from what I had read before. The few flashbacks definitely made things clearer,

This was a gripping read, and while I would have liked a little more foreshadowing, the twists were a big surprise, the kind that made me question everything I'd read before. This is a unique take on the psychological thriller, and the mystery did not disappoint.