This is, frustratingly for a reviewer, one of those books where I can’t say a word outside of the synopsis. You will want to go into this fresh, and once you start, you are not going to want to put it down! The book begins on a normal day, until a teenage girl walks into a London police station and tells them that she’s Abigail Wick, a child who disappeared 14 years prior. Sarah and Michael are her parents, she has a brother and sister named Daniel and Rebecca, and she has a scar that nobody would know about but her parents.
Abigail was abducted and had been living in Columbia until the people she thought were her parents died, and she got the truth in the form of a letter telling her where to find her real family. When the police call with news that they think they’ve found Abigail, Michael is joyous but Sarah is not. Her daughter is dead; she had to come to terms with that years ago to move on. This girl can’t possibly be their daughter - could she? Only a DNA test can determine the truth, but it will take at least three days for expedited results. In the meantime, she’s not going to leave a teenage girl homeless, so she reluctantly agrees to letting Abigail stay with them.
At first, everyone is happy, except for Sarah. Her two other children have embraced Abi and are so excited that their sister is alive. Michael is over the moon; he doesn’t even need a DNA test to confirm that this is his child. Still, Sarah remains very skeptical. This girl can’t possibly be Abigail. Surely not…right? Soon, Sarah is questioning herself, but she can’t shake the idea that this is not Abigail.
I sat down to start this and read it in one sitting. I had to find out if this girl was really Abigail, I had to figure out why Sarah is so sure it’s not, and I had to figure out who a mysterious person whose thoughts are sprinkled throughout the book was. The whole time I’m thinking, “okay, so it has to be either A, B or C.” Then I got closer to the end and I was like “WOAH…okay we are going with X being the answer; I sure didn’t see that coming”. THEN I get to the end and it actually turned out Z was the answer, and more shocked I could not have been.
The ending was something I’d never even considered, and I consider just about everything when trying to solve a mystery/thriller. That, combined with an exciting story, good writing and being a page turner, has me giving this a 4.5 star rating, rounded up. What a twisty, complex and entertaining book!
(Thank you to Bookouture, Lauren North, and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for my review. This book is slated to be released on July 24, 2023.)