Books Read: Lucy Atkins - The Missing One

The loss of her mother has left Kali McKenzie with too many unanswered questions. But while clearing out Elena's art studio, she finds a drawer packed with postcards, each bearing an identical one-line message a Canadian gallery owner called Susannah Gillespie: thinking of you. Who is this woman and what does she know about Elena's hidden past?

Desperate to find out, Kali travels with her toddler, Finn, to Susannah's isolated home on a remote British Columbian island, a place of killer whales and storms. But as bad weather closes in, Kali quickly realises she has made a big mistake. The handsome and enigmatic Susannah refuses to talk about the past, and as Kali struggles to piece together what happened back in the 1970s, Susannah's behaviour grows more and more erratic. Most worrying of all, Susannah is becoming increasingly preoccupied with little Finn...

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Kal has always had a strained relationship with her mother Elena but she never really understood why so when Elena dies it leaves Kal with a whole lot of unanswered questions.  Whilst clearing through some of her mother's things she comes across some postcards that her mother had received annually from someone called Susannah, someone she'd never heard of before.

But that's not the only thing on her mind as she suspects that her husband might be in contact with his ex so she needs some time to herself to think things through but what she does next could seriously cost her more than she could ever imagine.

Kal decides to head off on a spur of the moment journey to Vancouver with her toddler son Finn to try and piece together the mystery that was her mother's life...

What follows is a gripping tale full of intrigue as we discover the truth about the life that Elena had kept hidden from Kal for all those years through recollections of her time in California in the 1970s.  It didn't help Kal's journey of discovery that her father wasn't exactly forthcoming with answers when she tried to ask him about her mother or that Susannah was not quite the person she thought she was either.

I really felt for Kal who felt like she was losing her mind and beginning to wonder how much of what she's known about her mother was true and how much was fiction.

From the very first page I was drawn in hook, line and sinker and constantly found myself wanting to pick this up and read even when I should really have been doing other work!  Through the descriptive writing you get a real feel for the rugged landscape and all the ensuing drama that unfolds, there is simply no other way to describe how I felt about this book than to say I loved it.

A fantastic story from Lucy Atkins, I cannot wait to read more books from her in the future.  I received a review copy of this eBook from the publisher via NetGalley.