The Girl You Lost - Kathryn Croft

The Girl You Lost

(4 / 5)

Another hit by Kathryn Croft. She is absolutely on my list of authors who I will just read without question now, as I have enjoyed every single book she has written. The Girl You Lost is no exception.

Simone and Matt’s daughter was taken 18 years ago. They have been dealing with the loss and grief all the years and suddenly a young woman called Grace shows up claiming she may be their daughter. Then Grace disappears. Simone must discover the shocking truth as she searches for daughter yet again.

I was totally sucked in to this novel. I sat down and started it and couldn’t stop until it was devoured. As always, I really enjoyed the damaged characters and how the story slowly becomes weaved together by only giving us small parts of the it until the whole truth suddenly becomes clear. I really enjoy psychological thrillers that do this. I love not knowing what is going on or going to happen. And I LOVE a good twist!

I really enjoyed the way the book was set out, with Simone’s story, and then also the narrator who we didn’t know. I loved how it slowly came together.

Simone and Matt were great characters. I enjoyed their relationship and their story. I enjoyed most of the secondary characters, and I felt it had a lot of action and suspense.

I did have a few problems that brought it down from a 5 star read to a 4 star one.

Firstly, and most disappointingly, I found it to be extremely predictable. It was before I even hit halfway that I realised the twist in the story, and even though I was secretly hoping I was wrong, it became more and more clear that I wasn’t. I am not sure how any seasoned psychological thriller fan could miss it. I also felt it had too many characters, especially because even though I was so engrossed in it, I still got confused a few times about who was who. It was also a bit too unbelievable, but I didn’t mind this so much because I love far fetched plots that still work. And this one really did work.

These are my only problems with the book though, as always Crofts writing is superb and even though I knew what was happening before I should have, I still LOVED the ride! She does a really wonderful job of keeping you at the edge of your seat.

Even though a lot of the story had some pretty awful and graphic subject matter, I feel it was done really well, it made an impact without being TOO graphic, and I feel people who are a bit more sensitive would not find it too bad. However I am not sensitive at all…