She's Not There by Joy Fielding

Caroline and Hunter Shipley have two young daughters and are off to celebrate their 10 year anniversary in Rosarito.  On arriving Caroline discovers that her brother Steve and his wife Becky, her friend Peggy and her husband and some casual friends Jerrod and Rain Bolton are all there to welcome them and to celebrate with them.  Initially disappointed Caroline decides to make the best of the week even though she has been looking forward to a quiet week with her husband. 

From the opening of the book it is made very clear that Caroline has favourites.  Her older daughter Michelle is seen as being a demanding 5 year old, prone to tantrums and just a general difficult child.  The youngest child, Samantha, is the perfect, angelic 2 year old and very definitely mommy's favourite.

On the night of their actual wedding anniversary the babysitter has been cancelled but their room overlooks the restaurant and Hunter talks Caroline in to going for the meal anyway.  They agree to check the girls every 30 minutes and all seems to be going well, until they return to their room shortly after 10pm and Caroline makes the anguished discovery that Samantha is missing.

If the story sounds vaguely familiar to you, don't be surprised.  It is heavily influenced by the real life events surrounding the disappearance  of Madeline McCann in 2007.  It is actually an almost exact duplication of the main events with just a few minor tweaks to the location and people involved - the Tapas 7 are now 8 for instance. 

For this reason the early sections of the story became quite laboured reading as it felt like you already knew all this.  The touches that kept me reading where the studies of how the press intrusion and the court of public opinion had castigated this mother and contributed to the break up of her marriage and her estrangement with her oldest daughter.  Fortunately, the second half of the book dealing with the aftermath of a young girl coming forward saying that she thinks she is Samantha.  This leads to a denouement that is unexpected and strangely satisfying and certainly makes me glad I stuck with the early portion of the book.

I did enjoy the book but it was very definitely a tale of two halves for me and I could not get past the parallels with the McCanns.  This generally spoilt the story for me and I have had to mark it down from a 4 to a 3 for this reason.  completely subjective opinion but then aren't all reviews?

I RECEIVED A FREE COPY OF THIS NOVEL FROM READERS FIRST IN EXCHANGE FOR AN HONEST REVIEW.

**Review originally published November 19th, 2017**