New Release Book Review: Local Woman Missing by Mary Kubica

New Release Book Review: Local Woman Missing by Mary Kubica

Title: Local Woman Missing

Author: Mary Kubica

Published: July 7th 2021

Publisher: HQ Fiction – US

Pages: 320

Genres:  Fiction, Thriller

RRP: $29.99

Rating: 4 stars

People don’t just disappear without a trace…

Shelby Tebow is the first to go missing. Not long after, Meredith Dickey and her six-year-old daughter, Delilah, vanish just blocks away from where Shelby was last seen, striking fear into their once-peaceful community. Are these incidents connected? After an elusive search that yields more questions than answers, the case eventually goes cold.

Now, eleven years later, Delilah shockingly returns. Everyone wants to know what happened to her, but no one is prepared for what they’ll find…

In this smart and chilling thriller, master of suspense and New York Times bestselling author Mary Kubica takes domestic secrets to a whole new level, showing that some people will stop at nothing to keep the truth buried.

Review:

Suspense virtuoso Mary Kubica returns with Local Woman Missing. A story of two baffling disappearances, dark secrets, lies and misdirection, Kubica really teases her reader from start to finish. Unfolding via two different time constructs, Local Woman Missing is a riveting, baffling and incalculable read.

Local Woman Missing follows the strange disappearance of Shelby, a woman who vanishes without a trace from her small and peaceful town. Then another woman and her young daughter also disappear from almost the exact same location. The two cases both invoke feelings of mistrust and fear in this once serene little community. These unsettling events lead to plenty of questions, speculation and possible links. Despite a big push to solve these cases, nothing eventuates and they are both forgotten. But over a decade later the young girl and the daughter of one of the missing women resurfaces. With so many lingering questions over what happened to her, this girl’s past sends shockwaves through the local area.

Bestselling author Mary Kubica now holds seven novels to her name, most of which I have read. Mary Kubica is one author that I continually turn to if I am in need of a page turning domestic thriller. Local Woman Missing was no different to the norm, I was engrossed in this one from cover to cover. I think fans will really lap this one up, while new readers to Kubica’s work will find Local Woman Missing an absorbing read.

Kubica opens her latest release with a hooking prologue and then launches her reader into present day events some eleven years later. The prologue works really well to pull the reader in to this all-consuming tale. The opening hook also serves to set the book up for the engrossing events to come. It is very easy to settle into the groove of this one, Kubica opens up an excellent starting puzzle for the audience to mull over. I appreciated this beginning sweetener very much.

Part of the appeal of Local Woman Missing is the tense, swirling and all questioning atmosphere. Kubica works hard to establish this tight and dark foreboding style backdrop. Our emotions are stirred and our mind stays alert at all times in this book, thanks to the author’s full use of even pacing arrangements. I enjoyed playing an energetic role in trying to link up the two perplexing disappearances to the strange eventualities in the present. Kubica takes an astute but unpredictable route with this new tale, dunking her audience in a suspect narrative filled with plenty of questions and very few answers. Suspense is the name of the game in this one. With explosive twists, shadowy characters and shocking late reveals, Local Woman Missing is definitely a novel you need to seek out in your local bookstore.

Local Woman Missing by Mary Kubica was published on 7th July 2021 by HQ Fiction – US. Details on how to purchase the book can be found here.

To learn more about the author of Local Woman Missing, Mary Kubica, visit here.

*I wish to thank Harlequin Australia for providing me with a free copy of this book for review purposes.

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