When the Stars Go Dark by Paula McLain


☆☆☆☆
.ePUB, 346 pages
Expected Publication: April 13th 2021 by Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine

About the Book:
Anna Hart is a seasoned missing persons detective in San Francisco with far too much knowledge of the darkest side of human nature. When tragedy strikes her personal life, Anna, desperate and numb, flees to the Northern California village of Mendocino to grieve. She lived there as a child with her beloved foster parents, and now she believes it might be the only place left for her. Yet the day she arrives, she learns that a local teenage girl has gone missing. The crime feels frighteningly reminiscent of the most crucial time in Anna’s childhood, when the unsolved murder of a young girl touched Mendocino and changed the community forever. As past and present collide, Anna realizes that she has been led to this moment. The most difficult lessons of her life have given her insight into how victims come into contact with violent predators. As Anna becomes obsessed with saving the missing girl, she must accept that true courage means getting out of her own way and learning to let others in. Weaving together actual cases of missing persons, trauma theory, and a hint of the metaphysical, this propulsive and deeply affecting novel tells a story of fate, necessary redemption, and what it takes, when the worst happens, to reclaim our lives—and our faith in one another.

My Review:
I enjoyed this novel and found it compelled me to keep reading one more chapter, and then one more chapter, until the end. The whole story is from the searching detective's perspective and so creates a tense and claustrophobic first-person account of her trying to unravel what's going on. 

Looking back, some of it was a bit implausible, but that didn't detract from the "in the room" feeling of her trying to sift fact from fiction as she tries to work out whether the missing Cameron is alive and, if so, where she is and who has her...I loved the tension and the fact I didn't figure this one out.

I look forward to reading more from Paula McLain, I found this very atmospheric and felt like I was right there in Mendocino and the surrounding forest with her characters, I love when books can do that.

Disclosure:
Thank you NetGalley, Paula McLain and Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an impartial review; all opinions are my own.

#WhentheStarsGoDark #NetGalley

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