MY THOUGHTS: I loved this book. I love Lisa Jewell's writing. I love her characters. I wanted, so badly, to know what happened, but I wanted the book never to end. I think I am addicted. I have started another of this author's books straight away. And I seldom, if ever, do that. Ten years after her teenage daughter went missing, a mother begins a new relationship only to discover she can't truly move on until she answers lingering questions about the past.

I’d be open to reading a different book of Jewell’s since I don’t think she’s a bad writer or anything, but the mystery in Then She Was Gone didn’t really do it for me. This ranks for me as a pretty average mystery novel, so I don’t know that I’d really recommend it. I’m open to reading a different book of hers in the future though!

Alternate Ending

Once again, I am impressed with Lisa Jewell’s storytelling. I thought this was a terrific story. Told from multiple points of view, alternating between ‘then’ and ‘now’, I was enthralled as everything was revealed. The characters are very ordinary people. They are not rich, nor particularly successful. They don't marry millionaires and live happily ever after. They are ordinary people with ordinary worries who have ordinary awful things happen, and who react like I imagine that I, or any of my friends, would react should a child of mine go missing. And in this very 'ordinaryness' Jewell creates compelling characters that we come to love and empathise with, and addictive reads. Populated with fantastic characters, this was a fascinating and moving story about obsession, loss, and family. Some suspension of disbelief may be necessary, but it didn’t really bother me, I just enjoyed what I found to be a unique and absorbing story. The book opens from Ellie’s point of view ten years earlier. Life is going great for Ellie. She’s doing well in school and the boy she’s had her eye on seems to like her too. Her future is bright.

still, not the worst book out there. i definitely would have loved this more if my predictions had been right, but thats completely my own fault. I'll admit, I figured out the plot of Then She Was Gone fairly soon into the book. While it did detract a bit from my enjoyment of the book as the story continued to unfold, I was still captivated by the way Lisa Jewell teased out the suspense, making you wonder what surprises might pop up. Having never read any of Jewell's books before, I worried she might throw in some outrageous or melodramatic plot elements, and I was pleased that she didn't do that. How can we understand that our partner is an ideal candidate for providing mutual love or unconditional love? If you are always loyal, honest, and supportive with each other and never complain about each other to other people, there is a high probability that you are ideal candidates for mutual or unconditional love. This book shows us the importance of mutual love in our life. And then one day a charming and charismatic stranger called Floyd walks into a café and sweeps Laurel off her feet. All these apparent loose threads begin to be tied to Ellie’s disappearance. Meanwhile, the book explores the reactions of various family members to the tragic event, showing that Laurel was not the only one damaged by the loss. Likewise, law enforcement efforts are summarized: Ellie was last seen on closed-circuit television (CCTV) footage captured the morning she vanished. Though the police are diligent, conducting house-to-house searches and pursuing tips received from the public, they find nothing. In the absence of any evidence to the contrary—beyond Laurel’s insistence that her daughter had no reason to flee home—law enforcement concludes and steadfastly maintains that Ellie was a runaway. They speculate she may be living on the European continent.

Epilogue

As you may imagine Laurel is devastated, barely holding up but one day she meets Floyd at a cafe, sharing a carrot cake and the charming, mysterious, charismatic mathematician blows her mind. And another surprising thing about this man is her 9 years old daughter named Poppy who lives with her, has great resemblance with her deceased daughter.

Laurel and Floyd go out on a couple of dates and are soon smitten with each other, and before long she sleeps over at his house. The next morning, they are awakened in bed by young Poppy—who looks almost exactly like Ellie did at the same age. Poppy is smart, charming, precocious, and enthusiastic about Floyd and Laurel’s budding relationship. Poppy and Laurel eagerly go shopping for clothing together, and bond in friendly fashion. For Laurel it is almost like having her own beloved daughter alive again. This could be Jewel’s first tentatives steps towards advancing up to the literary thriller category. I was impressed with this novel as it held my rapt attention from start to finish. It gave me goosebumps in more ways than one. This story was very dark, gloomy, and creepy, but also quite emotional and poignant. Laurel's voice is so realististic, raw, and sympathetic, she nearly had me believing she was a real person and that this was a true story. Her emergence from a tortuous state of limbo and her fierce determination to get to the truth, and begin truly living life again was an amazing transformation.

Is it not more believable than a regular person saying she didn't like Floyd because he gave her the heebie-jeebies? This is the third Lisa Jewell thriller that I have read and she has penned another winner! After finishing this book I really had to wait a few days to sort of “SETTLE ME DOWN” as this mystery touched some very delicate feelings in me, more so than her first two books. Call me a snob but in my experience with thrillers, it has been hard to find many with the combination of great writing, past and present POV’s that flow seamlessly together, and create emotions that well up inside of you and really stay with you. This is not a cliched version of fiction with a bunch of peripatetic perfunctory characters with a mandatory twist at the end to consider it as a thriller. I was able to predict the ending by around 30% in the book. This book is the tragic life story of Ellie, which will bring tears to your eyes if you are a compassionate human being. Ellie, a conscientious teenager, and the apple of her mother's eye, left to visit the library and was never seen or heard from again. Laurel, Ellie's mother, couldn’t understand how her other children and her husband were able to move on with their lives without knowing what happened to Ellie. Laurel's life stalled, her marriage fell apart and the relationship with her two remaining children is strained. Another sweltering month in Charlotte, another boatload of mysteries past and present for overworked, overstressed forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan.

In Lisa Jewell’s thriller Then She Was Gone (2017), an ordinary London family is shattered by the mysterious disappearance of the youngest of three children, a bright, beautiful girl. Ten years later, new evidence is uncovered that the missing teenager was not simply a runaway as supposed, but a pawn in a disturbing plot. Principal characters Lisa is a New York Times and Sunday Times number one bestselling author who has been published worldwide in over twenty-five languages. She lives in north London with her husband, two teenage daughters and the best dog in the world.When her daughter's bones are discovered years later, Laurel feels she can finally move on with her life. She meets a man at a cafe not long after the burial of her favorite child.