Monday 8 August 2016

Dear Amy - Helen Callaghan


FIRST CLASS PSYCHOLOGICAL SUSPENSE FROM A MAJOR NEW VOICE IN FICTION
In her guise as 'Dear Amy', agony aunt for a local newspaper, Margot Lewis has dealt with all sorts of letters - but never one like this...
Dear Amy,
I've been kidnapped by a strange man. 
I don't know where I am.
Please help me,

Bethan Avery

This must be a cruel hoax. Because Bethan Avery has been missing for nearly two decades.

But as the present-day search intensifies for another missing schoolgirl, Margot is unnerved enough to take the letter to the police, hoping they will dismiss it as a sick joke.

Instead, they let Margot in on a little secret. One that confirms her darkest fears and tangles her up in the search for the sender, which could save one young girl's life and cost Margot her own...

What did I think?

Although I read it quite quickly, I didn't really lose myself in Dear Amy as much as I expected.  I didn't really feel any emotions for any of the characters, not even missing girls Bethan Avery or Katie Browne.  I thought the story itself was a good enough idea but it was just too easy to guess the outcome, even for me who doesn't usually see most things coming.  I do, however, have to give Helen Callaghan special kudos for making me gasp out loud towards the end of the book when I drew in my breath as fast as the gunshot I had just heard in my head.

Margot Lewis is a teacher at a local school when one of her pupils, Katie Browne, goes missing.  Everyone thinks Katie ran away so the police aren't really looking that hard for her.  Margot, in the form of Amy, agony aunt of the local newspaper, then starts to receive letters from Bethan Avery, a girl who was kidnapped twenty years ago and never found.  Could Bethan still be alive?  Is her case linked to Katie's?  Margot, however, has problems of her own - she's going through a messy divorce and popping sleeping pills like smarties. Will Katie be found before Margot unravels?

Dear Amy is a fast-paced thriller with a few shocks and surprises that really did make me gasp out loud.  Although it never quite caught me within its grasp, it was an enjoyable, albeit slightly predictable, read.

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

My rating:




Buy it from Amazon

No comments:

Post a Comment