The Night She Disappeared: A Novel

I’ve read a few books by Lisa Jewell and this one is my favorite! It bounces back and forth between different timelines and eventually two overlap and continue m. Such anticipation as it continues to get closer to the night it happened! It keeps you guessing the whole time what happened, how did it happen, how does it end??

Read it in two days! Another thriller in my month of May thrillers!

I had a hard time getting into this novel, the story felt too phoney at times. I really didn't enjoy it or the characters. I lost interest multiple times and the ending felt super out of left field.

Slow start, but takes off after that and sucks you in.

Fantastic read!

I hate to write a review with spoilers but I have a few things I want to talk about here that would spoil major plot points so I've basically got no choice. I will keep the biggest spoilers for the end and warn you as you read, I don't actually want to spoil the plot for anyone so please only read ahead after the warnings if you've also read the book or don't care to read it. In the first timeline, Tallulah and Zach are new parents to one year old Noah. He's a happy, adorable baby and they're young parents who are just trying to do what's best for their son. One night, on a 'date night' these two young adults go missing. They had gone to the local pub as planned but then unexpectedly went to a party at the home of Tallulah's college friend. Scarlett's home, Dark Place, is old and full of history, and on the outskirts of town. Everyone at the party says that nothing odd happened and the couple left saying that a cab was on the way to pick them up. They insist they have no idea where the two could be now. Some, even Zach's mom, say that they probably ran off because being parents at 19 was too much for them to handle. Kim, Tallulah's mom doesn't think so. She knows Tallulah could never voluntarily stay away from Noah. She continues to insist that something terrible has happened and even holds a vigil on the anniversary of the disappearance to keep everyone's thoughts on finding the truth. In the second timeline, we meet Sophie, an author of detective novels. In the fall, one year after the disappearance Sophie moves with her relatively new boyfriend to a country house owned by the boarding school where he is now head-teacher. We don't have head-teachers here in the states so I would guess that would make him the Dean. Her background causes her to be very curious about things, especially local true crime. She hears some gossip and then does her own research and finds the recent story of Tallulah and Zach. She also hears about an abandoned home that can be accessed through a forest path right behind her cottage. The home, Dark Place, can be traced back centuries and was abandoned by the family who lived there very recently. One day right outside her back garden gate, she stumbles upon a sign instructing her to 'dig here', just like a scene in her first novel. When she does she uncovers a 💍! And so begins her dive into the disappearance of Tallulah and Zach. Getting a little spoilery... On the surface Tallulah and Zach's relationship is great. Kim recently even found a ring in Zach's coat pocket so she was hopeful that the couple would return from the pub engaged. When we have Tallulah as our narrator we find that the truth is very far from perception. In reality Zach is very controlling, jealous, and even cruel to Tallulah. He wants her to quit school, ditch her friends, move away from her family, and basically just exist for his pleasure. If she wants to enjoy an evening with a friend or even just a coffee she is called a bad mom by Zach. If he thinks too much of her time is spent on school or anything other than himself he gets angry and almost violent. That's the thing with Zach, he's never actually physically done anything more than grabbing her too hard. But the way he does that, and the way he will grab Noah hard and whisper horrible things to him about how Tallulah doesn't love him when he's mad at her makes Tallulah worry for her and her son's safety. She feels bad worrying but it is very warranted. Because it's so far just worry she doesn't tell anyone about this behavior. Not even her mom, Kim is blissfully unaware of the monster under her roof. Tallulah's dad ran off when the kids were small so to Kim, the fact that Zach is there makes him automatically wonderful. After the disappearance she does start to remember things, moments and small comments that make her wonder if she read their relationship wrong the whole time, but it's too late once she realizes the truth. I want to take a moment to rant here about this behavior of Zach's. Too often do we hear about stuff like this after the fact in real life and still people are skeptical of women when they speak out about it. Women have been programmed that men are just like that, controlling means love, jealousy means love, even abuse can be explained as passion, it's alarming the things that are excused. Here's where the *not all men* disclaimer comes in and I hate even having to say that because, duh. Obviously when a group of people have a certain trait, not all of them have it, and I really feel like the people who cry about this the loudest have a guilty conscience, otherwise this would be assumed. Anyways, it's alarming the bad behavior that we've excused forever and unfortunately calling it into the light recently does not seem to have remedied the issue. If anything, it's escalated to a new level, now we have very vocal incels who are so terrible they can't find a mate and of course women are blamed for that, not their own failings. These people have always existed, but they used to be ashamed of their poor behavior at least, now they're proud, they celebrate being horrible people. They enjoy being terrible to not only women but anyone they deem different to themselves. I really appreciate this author shining light on a very real problem women struggle with everywhere in the world. The rest will have more spoilers so if you're stopping here I'll just say that this is a great thriller. The twists and turns of the dual timeline really keep the reader engaged and kept me from putting this down until I was completely finished. I read this in less than 24 hours and I was sad to leave the story! I would definitely read a continuation on this one, I'd love to find out what happens to the perpetrator after everything is uncovered. Big Spoilers ahead...... A thriller doesn't often close with an ending I was hoping for. I hoped that somehow Tallulah would still be alive but didn't see how that was possible because of her love for her son. Kim insisted she wouldn't voluntarily leave Noah and she was right. It kept my love for the Tallulah character intact, I worried that if she did voluntarily disappear that I wouldn't like her as much so I was relieved at the ending. And I have not cheered out loud at a character's death, I don't think ever, before Zach. The whole book I was hoping that he was dead at the end, an odd feeling to wish death upon a fictional character but here we are, the author created a super hateable character very successfully.