Claire Douglas’s Local Girl Missing was a quick audible listen. This was on Daily Deal last week and I grabbed it. I have read Douglas’s “Sisters” a few years ago and can’t say I liked it. Just because I like Penguin as a publisher, I decided to give this one a go too.  I keep seeing this book and ‘Last Seen Alive’ by Douglas again,  on Audible recommendations.

This is a better book than Sisters, and it really flows. Has all the elements of a suspense/thriller: Secrets in the past, troubled woman protagonist, a vanished girl whose remains just found. But still, something is missing. On top of the local girl…

Francesca -a.k.a. Frankie- is a successful woman, who managed to escape from the coastal town she grew up and followed her dreams in London. But in Frankie’s past lies a tragedy. Her best friend Sophie has vanished one night, when they were both 21. No one knows what happened to Sophie. The story starts when Frankie gets a phone call from her hometown, and Sophie’s brother Daniel, invites her back to the town. A foot have been found, and the police thinks it’s Sophie’s. Frankie gets back, but brings her own demons too. She is emotionally messed up, she has a boyfriend but having moved away from a wrecked marriage she is not happy with him. Daniel needs her help, and Frankie is ready to offer.However there are too many secrets in the past waiting to be unwrapped!

My main problem with this book was the writing style. I can’t stop being a picky reader, and can’t help noticing tiny repetitions like how a young girl ‘was an ugly duckling then turned into a swan’ or how a man touches a woman and sends ‘electric jolts’. I am not a huge fan of these sort of descriptions, feeling that it makes the storytelling synthetic. But that’s just me. Maybe you should ignore me. But I think this book needs a better editor. There, I said it.

I also think the ending was predictable. At least some of it. I appreciate the effort to make ‘twists and turns’ which most of the crime/thriller/suspense writers seem endlessly obsessed with. But I think a story should be beautiful and touching without the need of a twist- or a shocking end.

If you liked this book, you might like Sisters from Claire Douglas, Luckiest girl alive by Jessica Knoll, the Breakdown by B.A. Paris or I let you go by Claire Mackintosh (None of them I really liked, I must say…)

This book has:

GoodReads: 3.8

Amazon: 4.3

Audible: 4.1

scores by the time this review is written.

my score: 2 stars