Here And Gone

Goodreads Description

Here and Gone is a gripping, wonderfully tense suspense thriller about a mother's desperate fight to recover her stolen children from corrupt authorities. It begins with a woman fleeing through Arizona with her kids in tow, trying to escape an abusive marriage. When she's pulled over by an unsettling local sheriff, things soon go awry and she is taken into custody. Only when she gets to the station, her kids are gone. And then the cops start saying they never saw any kids with her, that if they're gone than she must have done something with them... Meanwhile, halfway across the country a man hears the frenzied news reports about the missing kids, which are eerily similar to events in his own past. As the clock ticks down on the search for the lost children, he too is drawn into the desperate fight for their return.

My Review

After reading just a few pages of this book, I knew that I was going to really enjoy it. Having just finished a book that I found to be long winded, too descriptive and with not much dialogue, this read was the exact opposite and so it hit the mark. The quality of the writing was great, the plot was great, the dialogue was great...so overall, yes you guessed it, great!

I found this read and the plot itself to be pretty intense. I felt anxious about the situation that the main character found herself in and it got me thinking: what would happen if the people that you were supposed to trust the most, being the authorities, pulled a dirty on you? And then nobody believed you, or your story because it just seemed so unlikely. That concept absolutely terrifies me. The thought of being trapped in a bizarre situation, telling the truth, and then just not being believed, has been a concept that I've battled with for some time. It must be absolutely frightening.

This whole story is pretty much a sit-on-the-end-of-your-seat type read. By the time I was halfway through, I was totally gripped and entertained. I wanted the children to be found, I wanted Audra to be believed, and I wanted the corrupt officials to get what they deserved.

Another thing that I liked about this book was that the plot wasn't linear. It wasn't just a story based in the here and now. There is a reason that Audra was running away to California, and that reason was her abusive and crazy husband. So, although the story is primarily about the disappearance of her children, the book also looked at her relationship with her husband and cut back to scenes of what happened in their relationship. I enjoyed that.

A great read Bookworms, and one that is bound to be enjoyed by those of you that love a good crime thriller.

My Rating: * * * *

Publication Date: August 2017 (South Africa)

Genre: Crime Thriller

Format: Trade Paperback

Source: Review copy received from the publisher. Many thanks to author, Haylen Beck and Penguin Random House SA for my copy. It was my pleasure to read and review this title.