Happy Thursday from a cold and wet Southern California!☔️
Apologies if I did not make it to your blog yesterday, I have a cold/flu that is kicking my old booty! So fingers crossed I wake up this morning feeling better!
Excited to share with you today my review for this engaging mystery with a dash of thriller! Another wonderful group read with my Besties!💕
My Thoughts
This was an intriguing story that kept the mama bear in me on the edge of my seat!
This is a story guaranteed to make any parent squirm… Leslie and Jenny receive the call that no mother ever wants to receive, they need to head to Thailand to identify their daughters bodies…
Being a parent is a tough job, and being the parent of adult children is sometimes even harder… i’ve read so many reviews that state that they don’t know anyone who would allow their children to go to Thailand at the age of 18? And that’s fine if you don’t believe you would allow your children to go to Thailand, but it does not mean that a parent that would allow their children to go to Thailand is a bad parent…. I also think that a lot more UK kids in their late teens early 20s travel, the gap year is much more common… I personally don’t know anyone here in America who had a gap year? With the exception of Malia Obama, who I guess I don’t know personally…It is more than likely I would not want my kids to go to Thailand, but there comes a point in your child’s life that it is up to them… in this book Alex has graduated is about to head off to university and has saved her money for an entire year for this trip, in hindsight probably not the greatest idea, but… well I went off on a bit of a tangent there, sorry about that…. back to the book!
When two 18-year-old girls Alex and Rosie go missing while on holiday in Thailand it stirs up all kinds of emotions in Kate…. Kate’s son Jacob dropped out of university and went traveling to Thailand to “find himself“ with very sporadic communication with Home… Kate who is a reporter instantly gets herself on the case, and when the families travel to Thailand she is compelled to go too… but Kate has no idea what awaits her in Thailand, secrets and deceptions that will turn the reporter into the story!
This book really was more of a mystery/police procedural/family drama than a traditional thriller… but I was still completely engrossed in the story wanting to know what happened to these girls… I really liked Alex and I loved getting to know her through her Facebook posts and communication with her BFF back home… Rosie on the other hand was much less sympathetic, to say the least…. my heart broke for these parents and I really felt their pain and their need for justice and truth…. I can only imagine how hard it would be as more andMore truths were revealed about your daughters’ horrifying last days…
A perfectly paced story that was propelled forward by short concise chapters… i’d say this book was more plot driven then character driven, and generally I do like a story to be more character driven, but this one completely captivated me…. as I said my mama bear was on high alert… I just needed to know what had happened to these girls, and how these parents coped with living my worst nightmare….
A well constructed story with a large dose of mystery and a splash of thriller! Recommend!
🎵 OK I’m going to start doing something a little different with all my reviews. I love music and I always have a song going through my head as I’m reading… so I’m going to start sharing with you lyrics and a link to the song running through my head while reading. At least until I run out of songs or inspiration!
Bangkok, Oriental setting
And the city don’t know that the city is getting
The creme de la creme of the chess world
In a show with everything but Yul Brynner
Time flies doesn’t seem a minute
Since the Tirolean spa had the chess boys in it
All change don’t you know that when you
Play at this level there’s no ordinary venue
It’s Iceland or the Philippines or Hastings or
Or this place!
One night in Bangkok and the world’s your oyster
The bars are temples but the pearls ain’t free
You’ll find a god in every golden cloister
And if you’re lucky then the god’s a she
I can feel an angel sliding up to me
– Murray Head 1984
*** Big thanks to Berkley for my copy of this book ***
About The Book
The police belonged to another world – the world they saw on the television or in the papers. Not theirs.
When two eighteen-year-old girls go missing on their gap year in Thailand, their families are thrust into the international spotlight: desperate, bereft and frantic with worry.
Journalist Kate Waters always does everything she can to be first to the story, first with the exclusive, first to discover the truth – and this time is no exception. But she can’t help but think of her own son, who she hasn’t seen in two years since he left home to go traveling. This time it’s personal.
And as the case of the missing girls unfolds, they will all find that even this far away, danger can lie closer to home than you might think . . .
The Besties Thoughts
Book friends are the best friends! Berit☀️✨
Berit Talks Books 