16 Oct Reported Missing by Sarah Wray #BlogTour #Review
Hey amigos, hope you’re having a a fantastic day! It’s a beautiful, sunny day in Greece and I’m sending you loads of sunshine wherever you are. <3 Today I have the pleasure to take part in another blog tour for one of my favourite publishers, Bookouture, this time for Sarah Wray’s new thriller, REPORTED MISSING. If you’re fans of psychological thrillers and don’t mind a really messed up heroine, this is definitely the book for you. It’s a real bargain at the moment on both amazon.co.uk & amazon.com, so grab it while you can. Many thanks to lovely Noelle, Kim and Team Bookouture for my galley and the chance to be part of the blog tour. See you soon!
I received this book for free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
Reported Missing by Sarah Wray
Published byBookouture
Published on 14.7.2017
Genres:psychological thriller, thriller
Pages: 346
Format:e-book
Four months ago, Rebecca Pendle’s husband disappeared. So did 14-year-old Kayleigh Jackson.
Just a coincidence? Rebecca wants to believe so… But as the police start to draw parallels between Chris and Kayleigh, it’s getting harder for her to trust his innocence.
Faced with an angry town that believes Chris has abducted the teenager, Rebecca tries to discover the truth.
But what she finds shocks her more than she ever thought. How well does she really know the man she loves?
A completely gripping, suspenseful thriller, with a shocking twist. Fans of Louise Jensen, K.L Slater and and The Girl on the Train will be hooked until the very last page.
Reported Missing is a book that grabbed my attention ever since I saw the gorgeous cover and read the blurb. I was expecting an exciting, fast thriller with loads of suspense and tons of characters I will have my doubts in. Now, while I certainly enjoyed it I must say I expected a bit of different read. Which doesn’t mean it was bad, it could be just my reading preferences in question.
This book is definitely a slow burner, it starts of slow but then again many great psychological thrillers do. It kind of is a good thing because it gives the readers a chance to get to know the main character better and get inside their heads. While I certainly respect this and it did gave me the opportunity to get to know the main character, Rebecca much better, it did drain me to certain extent. The book opens with Rebecca’s husband missing about 4 months and the police still hasn’t gt a clue to where he is. Not only that, even Rebecca is puzzled as she doesn’t know why her husband would just up and leave on one hot July day. To make things worse, the very same day, 17th July, a 14 year old goes missing. The whole town thinks these two events are somehow connected and they suspect that Rebecca’s husband, Chris ran away with the underage girl. This kind of makes Rebcca a persona non grata in the small town. She’s got one good friend but is mostly unkind to her during the stress and is drinking most of the time. She’s got no one to turn to for help as everyone think of her as ‘the wife of the pervert’. We follow events from November to late December (Christmas day) as Rebecca does a bit of research on her own to find out the reasons of her husband’s missing and possibly track him alive. At the same time, she needs to consider the possibility of her husband running away with 23 years old younger girl. She has a lot of stuff on her plate which is why she turns to drinking even more. Why would Chris run away from her? It’s true that things between them have been kind of colder ever since their move from London, but as far as she knew, it wasn’t such a big deal to make Chris leave her. However, as Rebecca starts her research she starts wondering, did she really knew her husband as well as she thought she did? She finds out he lost his job just a week before going missing and yet he kept it a secret. He was taking money from their joint account without even telling her. Why? As you see, Rebecca is in a really bad place.
Now, while all of this is definitely a good base for a novel, my biggest issue was the slow pace. It felt like building and building and in the end, made me care not so much about the big reveal. But what I loved the most is the author got me interested in Rebecca’s life and personality. Even though Rebecca is not the most likable character I loved her inner dialogue and the flashbacks from her life with Chris. I didn’t really think she was doing a great investigation, but then again, I wouldn’t want ever to find out how I would investigate if my husband went missing. Of course she was clumsy, irritating and anxious most of the time, as she didn’t have a single answer or many people who would help her.
What I also liked is how the book raises the question of trust. How untrustworthy are people sometimes, judging the first chance they get. Also, the flip side of the coin…what if we trust too much and end up hurt, realizing after so many years we knew nothing about our closest people. This book did make me wonder and I loved this. It’s thought provoking and brings up such delicate question, like trust, loyalty, addiction.
Rebecca kind of reminded me of the main character from The Girl on the Train, drinking heavily and being really messed up. Also, she’s the only narrator so we see only her point of view. While the book deals with two persons missing, it’s more about how these events impact the lives of those who’ve stayed to cope with this loss. It’s kind of a deep exploration into what goes on into the life of the one who stayed, who has to deal with all the hate, prejudice, not knowing, helplessness.
While I was absolutely blown away with how Rebecca got under my skin and revealed so much about herself making me feel all sorts of emotions (pity, rage, compassion) I have to say the slow pace made things a bit difficult. While there were certain twists I didn’t expect, I found this one to be a bit predictable.
Overall, while I’m certainly used to faster thrillers, I’m glad I read Reported Missing and would definitely read another one by Sarah Wray. It’s obvious she loves digging deep into the human psyche and has a great knack for creating unusual characters.
About Sarah Wray
Sarah Wray is originally from Yorkshire but now lives in Newcastle-upon-Tyne where she works as a technology writer and editor. She won a Northern Writers’ Award (Arvon Award) in 2015 for an early version of her first novel.
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