For this joint review, we decided on a Gregg Olsen book! This book takes off right away. Adam and Sophie decide to take a little family trip with their 3-year-old daughter, Aubrey. While Adam and Aubrey are out on the lake, he hears Sophie scream, then sees her struggling with a man on the porch. He rows back as fast as he can but once he hits land, Sophie is gone.
Things escalate pretty quickly and Detective Lee, the little sister of Adam’s childhood best friend, starts to realize that some details just aren’t adding up. Between all the secrets and the tangled web of lies, will she be able to figure out what really happened to Sophie?
Book Stats
- Publication Date: 05/21/19
- Publisher: Thomas & Mercer
- Format: ebook
- Chapters: 80, plus 1 epilogue
- Pages: 391
- Narrator POV: 1st person, alternating between Adam, Lee, Kristen, & Connor
- Kindle Unlimited 🖤
Ronni’s Review
Book Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐/5
Spice: 🌶️🌶️/ 5
Gregg Olsen can tell a story and give life to characters you will hate for the rest of your days! That was the case for just about every character in this story except Aubrey. Sophie sucked, Adam sucked, Kristen sucked, Connor sucked… well, you get the point.
I did enjoy the story and it, more or less, ended up where I thought it would. There were enough twists to keep me interested and the story was beautifully woven for the most part. It’s just that everyone sucked so it was difficult to grasp on to much good. Even Detective Lee, who I thought I was going to like, ended up disappointing me.
One of the things that irritated me most about this was the storyline with Frank and Helen. Frank was awful and Helen had absolutely no spine to stand up to him. I felt awful for her but at the same time, cannot fathom letting someone treat me that way. I really hoped for a different outcome than the little we got for Frank at the end.
Am I happy I read it? Yes. Would I do a re-read? Nope, I sure wouldn’t. I will pick up another by Olsen, though.
Shayna’s Review
Book Rating: ⭐⭐⭐ / 5
Spice: 🌶️🌶️/ 5
First things first, I gave this 2 chili peppers. It’s not particularly spicy, but does regularly mention intimate sexual acts, even if they’re usually vague. Based on our rating scale, I settled on 2 peppers.
Okay, so this story started off right away and I loved that. It immediately grabbed my attention and had me hooked. I kept trying to find clues and figure out who attacked and kidnapped Sophie, but with all the insane lies and secrets, I was never 100% sure. I love that in a mystery/thriller because being able to guess right away isn’t fun. Granted, the main person I thought was behind it actually was (partially), but the process of getting there was still enjoyable. Mostly.
There are many things I did not like about this book, particularly in the second half. I felt like I rolled my eyes constantly because of the absurd information we kept being fed. I also hated everyone (except Aubrey). I felt like I had no one to root for and that’s always difficult for me in books. I’m someone who starts to feel really disconnected from the story if I don’t care about any characters, so I struggled with that a bit.
I ended up dropping this rating to 3 stars because I did really like the premise and the first half of this chaotic story. The second half really fell flat for me. I can’t give a lot of detail without spoiling (though I will include spoilers below with plenty of warning before hand) so I’ll just settle on saying that I felt like there were many plot points that were ridiculous or didn’t really add up. I didn’t receive the closure I would’ve liked from an ending, and I had no decent characters to root for.
End of spoiler free review. If you would like to read the more detailed reasons I lowered the book rating and the issues I had with the ending and characters, continue below.
There are spoilers below. Please stop now if you don’t like spoilers.
📢 SPOILERS 📢 SPOILERS 📢 SPOILERS 📢 SPOILERS 📢
Okay, now that you have been adequately warned, here are the specific things I didn’t like about this book:
Let’s start with Lee. Her back story really doesn’t impact the main plot at all and I’m unsure why it was included. Yes, it gave her reason to trust Adam, but it also could’ve been as simple as “he was my brother’s best friend and I grew up knowing him”, ya know? I would even get it if it seemed to add some depth to Lee’s character, but it definitely didn’t feel that way to me.
Also, that woman constantly thought about how good she was at detecting lies and BS, but literally everyone lied to her constantly and she never had any clue.
Oh and she made the biggest leaps and jumps to conclusions. She noticed one small thing and thought “It was definitely Kristen”, then found a hat and goes “It’s clear Kristen and Adam did this together”. Like, what? Your legs must be hurting from all those wild jumps, Lee.
And Lee’s brother, Kip, who was also Adam’s BFF? He was brought up and it was mentioned that he was killed while serving in the military and then nothing. Why was he even mentioned? It’s like Lee’s “incident” all over again – this plot point didn’t add anything to the story.
Now for Connor. The only adult person I initially liked, until he ended up being a cheater like everyone else. He was in jail waiting to be released and his lawyer submits paperwork to help with him getting custody of Aubrey. Okay, I know he’s biologically the father, but he’s known about Aubrey since Sophie was pregnant, even met her once as a baby, and never attempted to be in her life. But now suddenly he deserves custody after not being around for 3 years? No.
And he’s an idiot if he truly thinks Frank isn’t a controlling person. Even if Adam’s POV was overexaggerating how awful Frank was, we still had the POV of other characters that showed Frank’s constant tantrums and controlling nature. But Connor thinks Frank is just gonna give Aubrey to him, despite not knowing a thing about him? No. None of that makes sense.
While we’re on the subject of custody, what the Hell is wrong with Adam? (I know, a lot). But he was Aubrey’s father for 2 years before finding out she was biologically someone else’s child. Okay, that sucks, but you still loved that child for 2 whole years and now suddenly you feel nothing for her? As a parent, that makes no sense to me.
Granted, Adam was obviously not a normal individual. When you lose someone you love (supposedly, even though half the time he talked about how much he couldn’t stand her), you wouldn’t immediately box their things up to get rid of. At least, not without emotion or considering saving some things for Aubrey or whatever. He was just like “Welp, she’s gone so I’ll get rid of her crap”.
And he was way more interested in pissing off Frank than literally anything else. Grow up.
Okay, next. Kristen wanted to adopt Aubrey. Okay, sure. Even though she was never willing to adopt prior to this. But I don’t understand why her and Adam were planning to get married. They clearly didn’t like each other, and Adam was already willing to give up Aubrey to a random couple, without being married. So why not just have Kristen step in as the person he’d like to sign over rights to?
Speaking of the marriage, if he planned to marry Kristen so she could adopt Aubrey, why even talk to a lawyer about giving her to a different, random family? That seems like a pointless thing to do.
Also, how long had they planning to get married? Because as soon as Sophie died, Adam went to sleep with his boss again. That definitely didn’t seem like someone who wanted to appear smitten and/or get married.
And the adoption/family lawyer. If a lawyer were to hear Adam’s claim about Frank molesting Sophie as a child, I would think that accusation would need to be investigated, yes? Even if it’s total BS? But no! Aubrey just stays with Frank and Helen while waiting for Connor to get out of prison. No one seemed to question it or care about that accusation at all.
And Adam, clearly a liar, spewed BS constantly. But the one thing he’s up front and honest about was the history of the cabins and their secret tunnels? To Lee, the detective on the case? Seriously? That seems like it was just thrown in as a last minute thought. It would’ve made more sense if she had seen blueprints or saw marks on the floor where secret doors had opened or something.
My biggest issue, however, was the “twist” about Kristen’s ovaries. Or lack thereof. I’m sorry, but no. Even if she was seeing a psychiatrist and the author’s intent was to make it seem like Kristen was a little unhinged and crazy, this wasn’t well done. Kristen had been taking hormones and tried IVF and all that, which Connor confirmed in his POVs. And he had been there throughout appointments with her, so she clearly did have a fertility doc at some point. She also claimed to have given eggs and had things checked out to make sure it wasn’t her who was barren. Just like Connor was giving sperm to be tested and whatnot. You can’t convince me he was giving his sperm to a psychiatrist. Absolutely not. So, she did have a fertility doctor. But you’re telling me they didn’t notice she had no ovaries, even with all the testing done? No, that’s absolutely absurd. It’s way too unrealistic. I wish that hadn’t been thrown in at all.
So yeah, those are the things in the last half of the book that ultimately had me dropping my review to 3 stars. All of those are just my opinions, of course, and many people really loved the book and felt differently. 🤷♀️
As always, feel free to let us know why you disagree with our opinions. We do love bookish conversations! 🖤
Leave a Reply