by Heather Young
SYNOPSIS
In 1935, six-year-old Emily Evans vanishes from her family's vacation home on a remote Minnesota lake. Her disappearance destroys the family - her father takes his own life, and her mother and two older sisters spend the rest of their lives at the lake house, keeping a decades-long vigil for the lost child.
Sixty years later, Lucy, the quiet and watchful middle sister, lives in the lake house alone. Before her death, she writes the story of that devastating summer in a notebook that she leaves, along with the house, to the only person who might care: her grandniece, Justine. For Justine, the lake house offers freedom and stability - a way to escape her manipulative boyfriend and give her daughters the home she never had. But the long Minnesota winter is just beginning. The house is cold and dilapidated. The dark, silent lake is isolated and eerie. Her only neighbour is a strange old man who seems to know more about the summer of 1935 than he's telling.
Soon Justine's troubled oldest daughter becomes obsessed with Emily's disappearance, her mother arrives to steal her inheritance, and the man she left launches a dangerous plan to get her back. In a house haunted by the sorrows of the women who came before her, Justine must overcome their tragic legacy if she hopes to save herself and her children.
REVIEW
Justine is stuck in difficult relationship with a man who tries to control everything she does. When she finds out that an old relative has died and left her the family lake house, she packs up as much as she can fit in her car, takes her two daughters and heads for Minnesota. The happy plans Justine had for a fresh start in a house she could never have afforded herself soon take a negative turn - the house has seen better days and is really not fit for the winter storms heading their way. On top of this, the secrets of what happened at the lake house sixty years ago have haunted the area ever since, and as Justine discovers more about the events of that terrible summer, the parallels with her own life become more and more devastating.
The Lost Girls is a slow burn family mystery which builds up the tension from page one and hooks you in with its dual timeline narrative. As the story switches between the present day and the summer of 1935, Justine's great-aunt Lucy tells the story of what really happened that summer, leading up to the unsolved disappearance of her six-year-old sister Emily.
I particularly enjoyed the historical mystery sections of the book and found myself desperately wanting to carry on reading more of Lucy's story. The Lost Girls dealt with some challenging and emotional subject matters but it was written in a beautiful way that was both haunting and heartbreaking at times. Perfect for fans of The Glass House by Eve Chase and The Hiding Place by Jenny Quintana.
Thanks to @verve_books and @hyoungwriter for the opportunity to read and review.
Genre: Mystery / Thriller / Historical Mystery
Publisher: Verve Books
ISBN: 978-0857308184
Pages: 352pp
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