Life as a missing person is absolute murder...
When artist Eloise Ford hears that human remains found in an abandoned mine are believed to be those of long-missing teenager Elizabeth King, the shock sends her reeling.
It can't be true. Eloise knows this for a fact because... she is Elizabeth King.
Now, her carefully curated life in Cornwall is falling apart. Her husband is acting strangely, her children aren't speaking to her and she can't sell a painting for love nor money. But much more worrying are the signs that someone knows exactly who she is... and why she had to vanish thirty years ago.
Eloise needs answers. Is her son's ex-girlfriend just plain annoying... or does she know something? Will the detection skills of the online 'Truth Seekers' group prove more than amateurish? What's the real story behind those village newcomers?
And just how far would she go to keep her family, her friends, and her fraudulent life, safe?
What did I think?
I picked up The Vanishing Act solely on the cover (without reading the blurb) so one of the twists that is mentioned in the blurb was a complete shock to me. I simply couldn't put it down and read it in a couple of hours so be prepared to do nothing but read when you pick up The Vanishing Act.
The story is told from the points of view of Eloise Ford and Holly Bond. Both women have a keen interest in the human remains that have been found close to where they live but there's more to this story than meets the eye. I loved the relationship between Eloise and her son's ex-girlfriend Holly. Eloise really didn't like Holly to start with but she certainly grows on her.
It's pretty creepy and a little scary that Eloise doesn't know who she can trust as she struggles to hold on to the perfect life that she has built over the past 30 years. I think it must have been quite exhausting to maintain the perfection that she has strived for but I can understand her motives for doing so.
The pacing is blisteringly fast once the book gets its hooks into you, which for me was just a few pages in, and I read it so much quicker than I expected which is always the mark of a good book. Holly is part of a Facebook group about missing people and I loved reading the posts between them; each character has their own writing style and unique voice and it feels as if they were written by real people.
Completely gripping and incredibly addictive, The Vanishing Act is as unputdownable as it is unpredictable. I absolutely loved it and can't recommend it highly enough - it's easily one of the best books I've read this year. The Vanishing Act is my first Jo Jakeman book and I will definitely be looking at her back catalogue on the strength of this novel.
Many thanks to Hannah Hargrave PR for sending me a gifted hardback to read and review; this is my honest and unbiased opinion.
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