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Monday, September 7, 2020

Review: The Stepdaughter by Georgina Cross

TITLE AUTHOR 

Publisher: Bookouture
Pages: 266
Format: eARC
Buy the Book: Amazon

Goodreads:  It’s a normal afternoon when I walk out the patio doors of our kitchen to check on Mia, my stepdaughter, who is swimming in our backyard pool. But she’s gone. My heart stops when I see the back gate is open, her pink, fluffy towel lying folded on a chair. I was just feet away. Why didn’t I hear her scream? Who took our little girl?

My husband can’t understand how I could have let his daughter disappear. And when the police come asking questions, I wish I could wind back time to that normal afternoon when I was cooking lasagna for my family, Mia’s favorite. I can tell the officers don’t believe me: they’ve cast me as the evil stepmother.

I just wish I could understand the messages I’ve found from my husband on Mia’s phone: I’m so sorry, I still love you. And why his wedding ring is found at the bottom of the pool after Mia disappeared. He never told me it was missing. What else is he hiding?

But the detective keeps asking me where I was during those ten minutes when Mia vanished. And I can’t tell her my secret. From the way she’s looking at me, I know she thinks I did something to my stepdaughter. Mia and I haven’t always been that close and sometimes she drives me nuts, just like any normal teenager, but I would never hurt her.

I just need you to believe me.
 


Kritters Thoughts:  A young girl goes missing, a strong swimmer that was last seen in her backyard pool with the house next door up in flames there are a lot of questions as to what happened to Mia and who caused the fire.  

Told through a lot of perspectives from the stepmother of Mia, the neighbor who lost her house and her mother who was possibly the last to see Mia, but is having memory issues.  I will always love a story that uses multiple perspectives to tell a story because I feel as though you get a fuller story from hearing from more than one perspectives.  

With short chapters and some that leave on such a hanging cliff, this book read so quickly that I started and finished it in a visit to my local pool.  Like most mystery/thrillers the twists and turns were timed so well and I enjoyed each of them, there was one that I predicted maybe a little too early, but that didn't ruin the reading experience as a whole for me.  

Another book that I was both sad and excited to find out it was a debut.  There is no backlist to dive into, but I can quietly anticipate her next book!


Rating: absolutely loved it and want a sequel

Ebook 2020 Challenge: 85 out of 100


Disclosure of Material Connection:  I received one copy of this book free of charge from Bookouture.  I was not required to write a positive review in exchange for receipt of the book; rather, the opinions expressed in this review are my own.


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