As soon as I read the blurb for this book, I just knew I had to read it. Hooked from the start, this was a very hard book to put down. What a cracking debut for this author!

Naomi loves her daughter Freya with all her heart and treasures the time she gets to spend with her. For reasons unknown to the reader at the start, Freya has never been allowed to stay overnight with her mother and lives elsewhere with her dad Aiden and his new wife Helen.

Naomi is overjoyed when finally, Aiden agrees to let Freya stay the night. Why is he so nervous to leave his 4-year-old daughter with her own mother though? Surely, she’ll be perfectly safe?

The next day Aiden receives a panicked phone call from Naomi, asking if he came to collect Freya early. He confirms that he didn’t, and this is when Naomi tells a terrible lie! One that she will never be able to retract. Freya is missing!

The story is told from the perspective of Naomi, we know from the off that she is lying about Freya being missing and we follow her journey as her lie spirals out of control and a massive police search takes place to look for her daughter.

This is a chilling read full of palpable suspense with some great twists and turns along the way. There is also a heartbreaking side to the story and this played with my emotions throughout. The description of the setting is incredibly atmospheric, I felt like a fly on the wall at the farm where Naomi lived, watching all the goings-on and the snowy weather helped by adding an extra chill.

Naomi is an incredibly unreliable character with many flaws but her love for her child and the lengths she would go to, to keep her, really shows. I spent half my time screaming no and willing Naomi not to do half the things she does and the other half feeling desperately sorry for her.

This book is really well written and had me guessing throughout, my instincts were right, and I did work out some of the outcomes, but this did not spoil my enjoyment of the book.

Gripping, tense and full of suspense, don’t miss out on this brilliant new psychological thriller.

This is a cleverly written story which reveals little at first. Told from the perspective of Naomi, mother to four year old Freya, who clearly has dark secrets in her past. Why does Freya live with her father? The truth is drip fed throughout the story with flashbacks and trips into the past. The shocking revelation towards the end took my totally by surprise and had me reading into the small hours.