Sunday 5 June 2016

Missing Pieces - Heather Gudenkauf



Everyone has secrets…

Sarah Quinlan's husband, Jack, has been haunted for decades by the untimely death of his mother when he was just a teenager, her body found in the cellar of their family farm, the circumstances a mystery. The case rocked the town where Jack was raised, and for years Jack avoided returning home. But when his beloved aunt Julia is in an accident, hospitalised in a coma, Jack and Sarah are forced to confront the past that they have long evaded.

Sarah and Jack are welcomed by the family Jack left behind all those years ago—barely a trace of the wounds that had once devastated them all. But as facts about Julia’s accident begin to surface, Sarah realises that nothing about the Quinlans is what it seems. Caught in a flurry of unanswered questions, Sarah dives deep into the rabbit hole of Jack’s past, but the farther she climbs, the harder it is for her to get out. And soon she is faced with a hard reality she may not be prepared for.


What did I think?

I read the exceptional One Breath Away a number of years ago and knew that Heather Gudenkauf was an author I wanted to read more from.  I have purchased a few more of her books over the years but as usual there are so many books, so little time and I've not got around to reading them.

I didn't enjoy Missing Pieces as much as One Breath Away, but that's always going to happen when you have a yardstick by which other books shall be measured.  So deleting One Breath Away from my memory for the moment, let's see what I really thought about Missing Pieces.

Sarah and Jack return to Jack's hometown of Penny Gate when his Aunt Julia ends up in hospital following an apparent accident.  It quickly becomes clear that Julia's fall was not an accident and the police begin looking more closely at the family for a motive.  During the course of the investigation, Sarah finds out that Jack was once suspected of murdering his own mother, leading her to question whether she ever really knew her husband at all.  Why did he keep this a secret from her?  Who is the man that she married?  Sarah is now so disillusioned about Jack, that it is only due to the fact that they weren't in Penny Gate at the time, that she doesn't suspect him of Julia's accident.

Missing Pieces is an intense story of relationships and how far we go to protect the ones we love.  Just because we hide something from our loved ones, it doesn't necessarily mean that we have something to hide, we may do it to protect them.  Human nature is fascinating indeed and Heather Gudenkauf certainly knows how people tick.

A suspenseful small town mystery, perhaps not Heather Gudenkauf's best, but certainly one that kept the pages turning as the layers of family history were peeled back.

I received this e-book from the publisher, Harlequin, via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

My rating:



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