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The Lost Girls by Heather Young
Jan. 7th, 2017 11:35 amIt's a new year, and I've started up the Mount TBR trail!
In the summer of 1935, six-year-old Emily Evans vanishes from her family’s vacation home on a remote Minnesota lake. Her disappearance destroys her mother, who spends the rest of her life at the lake house, hoping in vain that her favorite daughter will walk out of the woods. Emily’s two older sisters stay, too, each keeping her own private, decades-long vigil for the lost child.
Sixty years later Lucy, the quiet and watchful middle sister, lives in the lake house alone. Before she dies, she writes the story of that devastating summer in a notebook that she leaves, along with the house, to the only person to whom it might matter: her grandniece, Justine.
For Justine, the lake house offers a chance to escape her manipulative boyfriend and give her daughters the stable home she never had. But it’s not the sanctuary she hoped for. The long Minnesota winter has begun. The house is cold and dilapidated, the frozen lake is silent and forbidding, and her only neighbor is a strange old man who seems to know more than he’s telling about the summer of 1935.
Soon Justine’s troubled oldest daughter becomes obsessed with Emily’s disappearance, her mother arrives with designs on her inheritance, and the man she left behind launches a dangerous plan to get her back. In a house steeped in the sorrows of the women who came before her, Justine must overcome their tragic legacy if she hopes to save herself and her children.
A spellbinding book that pulls you in and keeps you guessing almost to the end. It’s a story of girls lost, in many different ways, and in so many circumstances. There’s Justine, who, while trying to do her best, at times I felt like slapping. Lucy, whose courage and loyalty you can’t help but love. And Emily, the lost child who breaks your heart.
An arrow shot right at one plot twist made it easy to guess, but that didn’t lessen the book’s enjoyment. There’s still plenty of surprises, both good and bad. And the switches from Lucy’s 1935, to Justine’s present day, never confuses. This is the author’s debut novel. I’m looking forward to more from her.
Links are to more information regarding each book or author, not to the review.
1. The Lost Girls
In the summer of 1935, six-year-old Emily Evans vanishes from her family’s vacation home on a remote Minnesota lake. Her disappearance destroys her mother, who spends the rest of her life at the lake house, hoping in vain that her favorite daughter will walk out of the woods. Emily’s two older sisters stay, too, each keeping her own private, decades-long vigil for the lost child.
Sixty years later Lucy, the quiet and watchful middle sister, lives in the lake house alone. Before she dies, she writes the story of that devastating summer in a notebook that she leaves, along with the house, to the only person to whom it might matter: her grandniece, Justine.
For Justine, the lake house offers a chance to escape her manipulative boyfriend and give her daughters the stable home she never had. But it’s not the sanctuary she hoped for. The long Minnesota winter has begun. The house is cold and dilapidated, the frozen lake is silent and forbidding, and her only neighbor is a strange old man who seems to know more than he’s telling about the summer of 1935.
Soon Justine’s troubled oldest daughter becomes obsessed with Emily’s disappearance, her mother arrives with designs on her inheritance, and the man she left behind launches a dangerous plan to get her back. In a house steeped in the sorrows of the women who came before her, Justine must overcome their tragic legacy if she hopes to save herself and her children.
A spellbinding book that pulls you in and keeps you guessing almost to the end. It’s a story of girls lost, in many different ways, and in so many circumstances. There’s Justine, who, while trying to do her best, at times I felt like slapping. Lucy, whose courage and loyalty you can’t help but love. And Emily, the lost child who breaks your heart.
An arrow shot right at one plot twist made it easy to guess, but that didn’t lessen the book’s enjoyment. There’s still plenty of surprises, both good and bad. And the switches from Lucy’s 1935, to Justine’s present day, never confuses. This is the author’s debut novel. I’m looking forward to more from her.
Links are to more information regarding each book or author, not to the review.
1. The Lost Girls
