Friday 7 September 2018

BLOG TOUR: 11 Missed Calls - Elisabeth Carpenter


Here are two things I know about my mother:

1. She had dark hair, like mine. 

2. She wasn’t very happy at the end.

Anna has always believed that her mother, Debbie, died 30 years ago on the night she disappeared.
But when her father gets a strange note, she realises that she’s never been told the full story of what happened that night on the cliff.
Confused and upset, Anna turns to her husband Jack – but when she finds a love letter from another woman in his wallet, she realises there’s no-one left to help her, least of all her family.
And then a body is found…


What did I think?

Elisabeth Carpenter sure knows how to write a gripping page-turner as I found out when I read her fantastic debut, 99 Red Balloons, and 11 Missed Calls is no exception.  From the intriguing prologue until the final page was turned, I was frightened to blink in case I missed a crucial word that would explain what happened all those years ago on the edge of a cliff in Tenerife.

11 Missed Calls grips the reader from the start as we meet Anna's mum, Debbie, on the edge of a cliff in Tenerife.  With suicidal thoughts in her head, she thinks her family would be better off without her, but just as she's about to step off the edge someone else appears...of course, we don't find out who this was until much later so prepare to read very fast!

Thirty years later, Anna can't forget a mother she never knew and she's sure that there's more to Debbie's story than meets the eye.  I certainly agreed with Anna and was really suspicious of the fact that Anna's Dad and Debbie's friend, Monica, were now together.  Hold on a second...didn't Monica go to Tenerife with Debbie?  Yes indeed, Debbie's story is sounding more fishy than Baldrick's apple crumble so I read with such eagerness to find out what really happened.

There's a lot going on in this book that can sometimes make it quite busy and a little overcrowded but do bear with it; I think I was so hooked on the Debbie story that it was all I could think about and I almost glossed over Anna's other drama with her husband, Jack.  I think I just wanted to get back to the main storyline as quickly as possible with one huge question buzzing around my brain: did Debbie jump or was she pushed?

I always felt as if people knew more than they were letting on and I felt angry at times at the attitude that Anna shouldn't really be asking about what happened to her mother when she couldn't even remember her.  The thing is, she remembers more than even she realises and I do believe that traumas in childhood can cause us to have phobias and fears throughout our life.

11 Missed Calls is such an intense family drama and that amazing prologue ensured I was hooked like a hungry fish from the very first page to the very last.  Keep 'em coming, Elisabeth!

I chose to read an ARC and this is my honest and unbiased opinion.

My rating:


Buy it from Amazon



About the author:

Elisabeth Carpenter lives in Preston with her family. She completed a BA in English Literature and Language with the Open University in 2008. 

Elisabeth was awarded a Northern Writers’ New Fiction award, and was longlisted for Yeovil Literary Prize (2015 and 2016) and the MsLexia Women’s Novel award (2015). She loves living in the north of England and sets most of her stories in the area, including the novel she is writing at the moment. She currently works as a book keeper.

Follow Elisabeth on Twitter @LibbyCPT




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