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Then She Was Gone by Lisa Jewell Century, £12.99 Ellie was a golden girl, bright and beautiful, but one day she went to visit the library near her north London home and disappeared without

trace.  The effect upon the Mack family was devastating. Laurel and Paul’s marriage fell apart and Laurel was too broken to parent her other two children Hanna and Jake. We get a poignant

sense of the warm, chaotic family life that disappeared with Ellie.  Now living alone in a soulless flat, Laurel tries to get through one day at a time. Then Ellie’s partial remains are

found in Dover. Police conclude that she was a runaway and although Laurel instinctively knows that her daughter would never have run away, the funeral gives her some sense of closure.

Shortly afterwards she even feels able to embark upon a new relationship with a man she meets in a café.  Floyd Dunn is a successful author, charming and debonair. Laurel can’t quite believe

her luck and after all that she has suffered it is thrilling when she seizes another chance at happiness.  Then Laurel meets Floyd’s nine-year-old daughter Poppy and she is shaken by her

uncanny resemblance to Ellie. However much Laurel tries to tell herself that the similarities between Ellie and Poppy are a coincidence, she can’t shake off her sense of unease.  So she

embarks upon some surreptitious investigations. As Laurel starts to uncover what happened to her daughter the truth proves to be more deeply distressing, disturbing and haunting than both

Laurel and the reader’s worst fears. Though the plot is overly reliant on coincidences and some characters are suspiciously emotionally articulate the key players are so convincingly

portrayed and Jewell writes such lively, fluid prose that it matters not a jot.  After you hit the halfway mark I defy you to put this addictive, irresistibly readable book down until you

reach the final heartbreaking page.