I’ve read numerous books Lisa Jewell at this point, but I will not hesitate to call ‘The Night She Disappeared’ one of my favourites.

This excellent psychological thriller is told from three perspectives:

2017; when we’re introduced to Tallulah’s life, that of a young, 19 year old mother, as she tries to navigate her new responsibilities with school work and social life.

2018; when we’re witnessing Kim, Tallulah’s mother, trying to understand what happened when her daughter, and her boyfriend Zack, didn’t come back home after date night, leaving their baby boy Noah behind.

2019; when Sophie, a detective novel writer, who’s just after moving into the area, discovers a clue in her back garden which will be able to reopen the cold case of the missing young parents and perhaps shed some light on what really happened the night they disappeared.

The three point view was an interesting tactic. Through Sophie’s storyline, the reader learns early on that Tallulah’s disappearance has never been solved and is still ongoing. The other perspectives are a great addition to that to see what her and her mother Kim were going through earlier on – it provides insight needed to understand the whole story.

While it is intriguing, it is not very revealing – which is brilliant because it kept me on my toes, and I couldn’t guess what had happened right to the very end.

I applaud author’s imagination to come up with that storyline, it is absolutely brilliant, including so many twists and turns, so many unexpected paths it lead the reader through. This time around I also thought the characters were well fleshed-out. Even though there was a lot of them – and that is one common aspect across all of Lisa’s stories I came to dislike – they were all full of personalities that I couldn’t stop being interested in. I could feel Tallulah’s confusion navigating uncharted waters, Kim’s distress at her daughter’s disappearance and new routine she found herself in having to take care of a one year old as a result.

Each character had a part to play in this jigsaw of a story and it all tied together beautifully, with a satisfying end.