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A review by couchnest
The Girls She Left Behind by Sarah Graves
5.0
Graves second book in the Lizzie Snow series did not disappoint. I had not read book 1, and only realized after reading a bit that it felt like it MIGHT be part of a series, but that did not detract from the book, at all. This was easily enjoyed as if it were a standalone.
The storyline is one that could be, as Law & Order puts it, "ripped from the headlines," but it was so much more than just that! Detective Lizzie Snow has relocated to Maine from Boston in search of her missing niece. This part of the story is a continuation from book 1, and is also a side story, in my opinion, to what the rest of the novel offers the reader.
Graves offers a lot of descriptive details for the area, which in part, are important since due to dry weather conditions, wild forest fires keep cropping up and threatening to overtake the small town of Bearkill where Sheriff Deputy Snow is working.
How to explain the flow of the story? It starts off with a scene about two girls who are sneaking off to party/dance and an abduction occurs. As the story progresses, we go back and forth in time 15 years... alternating between the story of the two girls and what happens with them, and the present-day with what is going on with Snow and a recent disappearance of a young teenage girl.
As the story progresses, things happen that bring the two things together, and Snow is left to figure out where the missing girl from Bearkill is, what and who the mysterious woman is that suddenly showed up at the same time, and if the kidnapper from 15 years ago is on the loose in her town. On top of that, if or how all these things are connected.
There is a lot going on and the switching back and forth between past and present was a little disorienting, but the story made up for it all. There is even a hint of romance, but very very little. This fast-paced read will appeal to mystery, thrillers and psychological suspense readers.
Many thanks to Edelweiss, Bantam and Ms. Graves for allowing me to read an ARC.
The storyline is one that could be, as Law & Order puts it, "ripped from the headlines," but it was so much more than just that! Detective Lizzie Snow has relocated to Maine from Boston in search of her missing niece. This part of the story is a continuation from book 1, and is also a side story, in my opinion, to what the rest of the novel offers the reader.
Graves offers a lot of descriptive details for the area, which in part, are important since due to dry weather conditions, wild forest fires keep cropping up and threatening to overtake the small town of Bearkill where Sheriff Deputy Snow is working.
How to explain the flow of the story? It starts off with a scene about two girls who are sneaking off to party/dance and an abduction occurs. As the story progresses, we go back and forth in time 15 years... alternating between the story of the two girls and what happens with them, and the present-day with what is going on with Snow and a recent disappearance of a young teenage girl.
As the story progresses, things happen that bring the two things together, and Snow is left to figure out where the missing girl from Bearkill is, what and who the mysterious woman is that suddenly showed up at the same time, and if the kidnapper from 15 years ago is on the loose in her town. On top of that, if or how all these things are connected.
There is a lot going on and the switching back and forth between past and present was a little disorienting, but the story made up for it all. There is even a hint of romance, but very very little. This fast-paced read will appeal to mystery, thrillers and psychological suspense readers.
Many thanks to Edelweiss, Bantam and Ms. Graves for allowing me to read an ARC.