What happens to a family when a child goes missing? In a busy street market, Abbie lets go of six-year-old Sarah’s hand. She isn’t a bad mother, just exhausted. When she turns around, her daughter isn’t there.
Six years later, Abbie is in love and getting married. But her fragile peace is constantly threatened – not knowing what happened to Sarah is like living with a curse. Then she receives a phone call from an unknown number. A man claims to know what happened to Sarah, but if Abbie tells anyone or fails to follow his instructions, she’ll never find out. How far will Abbie go to know the truth?
Vikki Wakefield is the author of YA novels including All I Ever Wanted, Friday Brown and This is How We Change the Ending (Book of the Year in the 2020 CBCA Awards). Though After You Were Gone is her first novel for adults and her first psychological thriller, it reads like the work of a seasoned crime writer. It’s an incredibly tense, multi-layered suspense thriller that kept me gripped from start to end.
The premise for After You Were Gone follows every parents’ worst nightmare: an abduction of a six-year-old child at a market, there one minute, gone the next. This thought alone is enough to cause sleepless nights, but Wakefield takes the nightmarish scenario even further. The novel moves between chapters titled Now, Before and After, all centring around the pivotal event of Sarah’s abduction. Wakefield brilliantly characterises mother Abbie, whose journey is complex and heart-breaking. Wakefield incorporates her teenage pregnancy and single parenthood into this story, as well as her being riddled with guilt and pain after Sarah’s disappearance. As the novel builds at break-neck speed, you’ll be questioning every character, their motives and even Abbie’s memories. The level of unease and uncertainty that are achieved here are markers of a great thriller.
With After You Were Gone, Wakefield is making her mark as an author to watch out for. This debut psychological thriller is perfect for fans of Anna Downes and J.P. Pomare.
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