Here and Gone

Author: Haylen Beck
Genre: Suspense/Thriller
Type: Trade Paperback
Pages: 287
Publisher: Broadway Books (Penguin Random House)
First Published: June 5, 2018
First Line: "The road swayed left then right, the rhythm of it making Audra Kinney's eyelids grow heavier as each mile marker passed."

Book Description from GoodReads: Here and Gone is a gripping, wonderfully tense suspense thriller about a mother's desperate fight to recover her stolen children from corrupt authorities.

It begins with a woman fleeing through Arizona with her kids in tow, trying to escape an abusive marriage. When she's pulled over by an unsettling local sheriff, things soon go awry and she is taken into custody. Only when she gets to the station, her kids are gone. And then the cops start saying they never saw any kids with her, that if they're gone than she must have done something with them...

Meanwhile, halfway across the country a man hears the frenzied news reports about the missing kids, which are eerily similar to events in his own past. As the clock ticks down on the search for the lost children, he too is drawn into the desperate fight for their return.

My Rating: 5 stars

My Review: The blurb on this book sounded intriguing and I'm always up for a great thriller. But I had no idea Here and Gone would grip me so soundly that I'd read it in two sittings (with my inability to stay awake into the wee hours of the morning being the only reason I didn't finish it in one sitting).  

This book is filled with 60 short chapters that keep the pace high, the twists plentiful and a constant tension throughout. In the first half of the book, readers will question what they've been told especially when they're left hanging with exquisitely griping final lines of the short chapters. The story is told using multiple POVs as well as emails interspersed throughout the story. Readers will feel for many of the characters, including Audra's helplessness as a mother desperate for someone to help her find her children before its too late.

This is a thrilling, compulsive, twisty read that isn't a mystery per se but readers will be eager to see how things unravel and the unrelenting tension within the fast-moving plot with keep readers glued to the pages. I eagerly await Haylen Beck's next book.

Disclaimer: This Advanced Reading Copy (ARC) was generously provided by the publisher in exchange for my honest review.