missing persons

When Charlotte was eleven, she was kidnapped from a football game. For the past four years, she has been held in her kidnapper’s attic, and raped every night (just warning you, this book is hard core, don’t let that beautiful fantasy cover fool you), sustained only by dreams of her loving family. But now, she has finally escaped. But losing her has torn her family apart. Her parents are divorced, her dad is obsessed with fame, her mother drinks too much, and her sister is a druggie. Her father wants her to write a book and be the figurehead of a new charity and her mother  wants her to stay

Amy and her best friend Dee were kidnapped six years ago, but one day she returns home alone, unwilling to share anything about her experience, and she is desperate to protect her secrets no matter what. Nothing she does feels right when she tries to adjust back at home, she is a stranger in her own family. She feels guilty that she was the one to return. She soon realizes that keeping her secrets may just hurt the people she loves most. She has to go back so she can move forward, but she is risking everything.

Whoa. This book. What a powerful story. The beautiful writing does justice to

Arrowood is a grand mansion on the banks where the Des Moines River meets the Mississippi River. Arden Arrowood spent her childhood living in the family home until the tragic disappearance of her two-year old twin sisters drove her family to abandon the house. Now, almost 20 years later, Arden returns to  Arrowood and the memories of her childhood and her sisters. Will she finally be able to find out what happened on that fateful day so long ago?

Arrowood is an absorbing story with a strong lead character that holds your interest throughout. The sense of place (the mansion on the river and

Laura McHugh's second novel does not disappoint. Set in Keokuk, Iowa, this novel tells the story of Arden Arrowood, who has inherited her family's stately old home, where she hasn't set foot since she was a child. Arden's grandparents have owned the house and held it in a trust for years, keeping it maintained and intact. Now that her father has passed away, the house is Arden's. Her mother doesn't think it's a good idea to move back, but Arden can't resist. She's stuck, and she has no way to move forward without starting at Arrowood - the house her sisters disappeared from so many years ago

A friend of mine, who loves mysteries, recommended Evidence of Life by Barbara Taylor Sissel.  She said it is a book to put on my To Read list, but after reading the intriguing summary I gave it a higher priority and read it immediately. 

With a loving husband and two wonderful children, Abby Bennett thinks her life couldn’t be more perfect.  But what starts out as a simple camping trip for her husband, Nick, and daughter, Lindsey, becomes a hellish nightmare when they go missing during a powerful storm.  As search and rescue efforts continue, wild speculation and ugly rumors begin to surface

When Griffin steals a minivan with the keys left in, he thought he got lucky. He did not bargain on 16 year old Cheyenne Wilder sleeping in the back. Now, in addition to his accidental kidnapping, he finds out she is blind and has pneumonia, and he has no idea what to do. But when his father finds out she is the daughter of the president of a powerful president of a company, there is a reason to keep her. But can she survive this real life nightmare and escape alive?

The heroine of the book is immensely brave and goes to great lengths to save herself and escape her captors. If you like a

What a heart wrenching, yet inspiring, read this was! I listened to the audio book and couldn't tear myself away. It's been a long time since I found myself so immersed in a story, or since I have read a story so incredibly tragic and yet, at the same time so hopeful.

The main character is Carey, who believes she is 15 years old. She suffers abuse and neglect at the hands of her meth addicted, mentally ill mother who kidnapped her away from her father when she was five.  She has been hidden away in the Obed Wild and Scenic National Park in Tennessee, along with a six year old half sister. 

Quentin Jacobsen has spent his life loving the magnificent and adventurous Margo Roth Spiegelman from next door. So when she crawls through his window one night dressed like a ninja and summons him for a genious campaign of revenge, he of course follows. The next day at school, she has mysteriously vanished into thin air. But he learns she left him clues to find her, and the closer he gets, the less he sees the girl he thought he knew.

This book was just another masterpiece by John Green. I simply enjoyed it. As I read it I did not want it to end. John Green is definitely my new author and

Deep in debt and seeking a major change in her life, author Elizabeth Greenwood becomes infatuated with the idea of faking her own death. Couldn't she just "die," and walk away from her student loans, her life, and her problems? Instead of actually committing pseudocide, as it's known, she delves into researching the idea instead, and the result is Playing Dead: A Journey through the World of Death Fraud.

First Greenwood interviews several private investigators and privacy experts about whether it's even possible to disappear completely in the information age, when so much about our lives

This best-selling novel by South Korean author Kyung-Sook Shin takes a piercing look at how we treat those closest to us, and what it means to be a wife and mother. Told from four perspectives, the story examines the aftermath of the disappearance of “mom”. Some of the narrators speak in the unusual voice of second person, which serves to make the narrative more personal.

The narrators’ revelations are often poignant but can be uncomfortably honest, creating a family portrait that might serve to make the reader painfully aware of his/her own family’s foibles, but also of the strength of

Aiden was six when he went missing during a bad rainstorm which flooded the banks of the river that runs through their village. His family and police believed he had been swept away by the river and drowned, having only found his jacket floating in the river and no body. Ten years later his mom is married and in her last month of pregnancy when she gets the incredible news that Aiden is alive. Told from the viewpoint of Aiden's mom, Emma, the Silent Child is a psychological thriller that will engulf you in the chaos of Emma's intense emotions as she tries to figure out who took Aiden.

What

The End of Everything by Megan Abbott is a haunting coming-of-age story, ripe with teenage angst and suburban mystery. Set in the 1980s, the novel is about two thirteen-year-old girls who are best friends and in their last month of their last year of middle school. It is a time before internet, cell phones, and instant digital recording of every moment of life. One of the girls, Evie Verver, goes missing one afternoon, and the other, Lizzie Hood, tells the story of what it is like to be caught up in the drama: the waiting, the suspicion, the false rumors, and, ultimately, the secrets uncovered

In The Forgotten Girls, Detective Louise Rick returns to the area she grew up in for a fresh start. As the new head of the Missing Persons Department, she finds that her familiarity with the terrain makes things easier, however, confronting people from her past is tougher than she expects.

While reading, you get an inkling that there may be more than one mystery to be solved. True to Scandinavian crime fiction, this book doesn't shy away from tough subjects or gory details.

My mystery book group read this title and had mixed feelings: some wished Rick had done a little more police work

Lane is just fifteen when her mother commits suicide. She is sent from New York City to western Kansas to live with her grandparents. Even though she’s never met them, they claim to love and want her. As Lane adjusts to life away from the dysfunction of her mentally ill mother, her idealistic image of the farm blends with her mother’s version to form a reality she wants no part of.

But home and family are hard to root out, and when her cousin Allegra goes missing, Lane is dragged back into the dysfunction she thought she had escaped when she left Osage Flats ten years before.

There’s a

The day after an anonymous blogger wishes the popular girl would die, Lucy vanishes. Everyone at Soundview High School is scared and worried, but not as much as Madison, the last person to see Lucy before she disappeared. When two more students disappear after their names are mentioned on the blog, the residents of Soundview become panicked. Madison also begins to receive notes warning she is next. Madison is desperate to stop anyone else from vanishing, so she turns to a mysterious new student at her school, but can she trust him when it becomes clear he isn’t sharing everything he knows? The