1986.  On a cliff top in Tenerife, a young mother stands wondering if she should jump.  Everything is a mess and she doesn’t know how to fix things.  Then there’s a noise behind her and she turns, “it’s you,” she says.

Thirty years later, the young mother’s daughter – Anna – still hasn’t got over the fact she was abandoned as a baby.  Despite her father remarrying (her mother’s best friend, adding a nice complication to the story) and being a mother herself, life just feels hard.

It gets harder still when the said best friend – Monica – gets an email that says they know what Monica has done and, thanks to some cryptic words at the bottom, everyone becomes convinced the missing mother – Debbie – is back.  The questions is now, where was she all this time.

Unfortunately, for me, the answer was nowhere as gripping as the first two thirds of the book led me to believe.  With a story told by Debbie back in 1986 and Anna in the present day, I was completely drawn in to a mystery of a missing woman and so many potential suspects it made my head hurt just a little – but in a good way.  I found myself questioning everyone and everything I read.

Then, as the conclusion rolled around, it all went a bit pear-shaped.  All these tightly strung out plotlines just didn’t join together properly, leaving me with an ending that just didn’t have any of the tension of the rest of the book and feeling more than a little bit flat.  It was such a shame because, until then, I’d been enjoying myself.

When this happens, it’s so hard to judge a book – how do rate something you’d give four stars in parts and three in others?  I’m settling in the middle at 3.5 but with the caveats that the ending might not be what you expect if you read the blurb.

The blurb…

Here are two things I know about my mother:

1. She had dark hair, like mine.
2. She wasn’t very happy at the end.

Anna has always believed that her mother, Debbie, died 30 years ago on the night she disappeared

But when her father gets a strange note, she realises that she’s never been told the full story of what happened that night on the cliff

Confused and upset, Anna turns to her husband Jack – but when she finds a love letter from another woman in his wallet, she realises there’s no-one left to help her, least of all her family

And then a body is found.

About the book…

Publisher: Avon
Publication Date: 26th July, 2018
Number of Pages: 384
Genre: Thriller, Suspense, Mystery
Rating: 3.5 out of 5

Note: I received this book in return for a fair and honest review.  All thoughts, feelings and opinions are my own.

Find on: Goodreads / Amazon UK / Amazon US