Then She Was Gone: From the number one bestselling author of The Family Upstairs

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Blue tells a critical statement related to men and their concept of love in this book. This shows the importance of mutual love. Love is about putting equal effort into relationships. If a person who beholds the concept of unconditional love falls in love with a Narcissist, then the first person's life will be totally destroyed. Even though unconditional love is one of the ideal forms of love, it will be practical only with ideal individuals. Otherwise, we will be able to love unconditionally while others are only ready to accept that love and not to give anything in return. It will turn into a toxic parasitic relationship in no time. In the original version of this book, the one I delivered to my editor in December 2016, Floyd discovers Ellie in Noelle’s basement when he goes to her house to collect Poppy’s things after killing Noelle in his kitchen. Ellie is close to death but instead of calling an ambulance, Floyd takes her home. He has a dead body in his house. He cannot afford to get the emergency services involved. For a few days he keeps her in his study. He feeds her good food and runs her hot baths and introduces her to Poppy as a niece of his. All the while Floyd is planning to return Ellie to her family. But he needs to be sure first that the police are not looking for Noelle and that no one suspects that he had anything to do with her disappearance. Then finally, after a few days, he agrees to take Ellie home. This is what Floyd (talking to Noelle) describes happening next: Ellie thinks she knows who it might be. But she cannot bring herself to crystallize her suspicions. She’s known something was about to happen, that something was about to change. She’s known it for weeks. Floyd has been less attentive, spent less time with her. She’s heard footsteps overhead, the vague outline of a female voice. There’s been laughter in the house. And when Floyd did come to visit, he was serious and thoughtful, and more concerned, Ellie had felt, about her predicament.

Thank you to Atria Books and NetGalley who provided me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. I found a loose green muslin skirt of Kate’s in a bag she’d clearly been intending for the charity shop. It had an elasticated waist. She paired it with another jumper of mine, a soft grey cashmere one. She looked almost pretty. Like a quirky student coming home after her first term at university. Is it not more believable than a regular person saying she didn't like Floyd because he gave her the heebie-jeebies? From Noelle's perspective, in the past) Noelle grew up with two older brothers, two younger brothers and a younger sister who died when she was eight. Noelle comes upon Floyd's book, and goes to a signing. It turns out they both live in the same neighborhood (Stroud Green), a few roads apart. They run into each other later, and eventually go to dinner at a Eritrean restaurant. They see each other for over a year. Noelle does not get along well with SJ.When her children were small they'd sometimes say, 'What would you do if I died?' And she would reply, 'I would die too, because I could not live without you.' And then her child had died and she had found out that somehow, incredibly, she could live without her, that she had woken every morning for a hundred days, a thousand days, three thousand days and she had lived without her." Hanna sighs, Laurel sighs too, realizing she has just done the thing she always promised herself she would never do. When the children were small, Laurel's mother would occasionally make small, raw observations about gaps between phone calls and visits that would tear tiny, painful strips off Laurel's conscience. 'I will never guilt-trip my children when they are adults,' she'd vowed. 'I will never expect more than they are able to give.'" Jake's girlfriend, Blue, calls Laurel after the dinner. Blue says that she thinks Floyd is hiding something and that his aura is dark. Laurel is dismissive. still, not the worst book out there. i definitely would have loved this more if my predictions had been right, but thats completely my own fault.

Thank you so much to NetGalley, Atria Books, and Lisa Jewell for the opportunity to read an advanced copy of this book. The book opens from Ellie’s point of view ten years earlier. Life is going great for Ellie. She’s doing well in school and the boy she’s had her eye on seems to like her too. Her future is bright. The absence of twists might irritate some of the readers. But the author's writing skills, narrative style, and the way Ellie was crafted will compensate for it easily. Ellie was fifteen eager to take her exams. Now that she had been tutored in math she was sure she would do well. On her way to the library one evening, she disappears. Her disappearance takes a huge toll on the family, a family that breaks apart as many families in this type of situations often do. Now ten years later, Laurel is willing to take a shot at having a life and love again a series of events will send her reeling. Would she finally find out what happened to her daughter?I can do it,’ she said. ‘I can go home and I can tell my parents that I ran away and that I’ve been living in a squat. Or a commune. Living rough. Hand to mouth. Moving from place to place. I’ll tell them that I lost my mind. That the stress of my exams made me go mad for a while. I’ll tell them that I’ve been lost and that now I’m found. And I won’t, I swear, I won’t tell them about you or about Poppy. I swear. And I promise.’ I love strongly character driven novels, including thrillers and that is what Ms. Jewell does so so well. I became invested in the feelings of Eliie’s mother, and as a mother of four daughters, I wanted so badly for things to somehow turn out that this poor woman didn’t have to continue without knowing what happened to her missing beautiful, intelligent, golden girl! From Laurel's perspective, in the present) Laurel calls Noelle's parents who report that they haven't seen her in decades. She was supposed to move and go live with them along with Poppy at one point, but it looks like she dropped off the baby with Floyd and disappeared instead. And then one day a charming and charismatic stranger called Floyd walks into a café and sweeps Laurel off her feet. As you may imagine Laurel is devastated, barely holding up but one day she meets Floyd at a cafe, sharing a carrot cake and the charming, mysterious, charismatic mathematician blows her mind. And another surprising thing about this man is her 9 years old daughter named Poppy who lives with her, has great resemblance with her deceased daughter.

I don't know whether I can call this book a thriller. There are not many unexpected twists in this story. So can I call it a book coming under the gentle of "acutely observed family drama"? I think that it is a mixture of both genres. The vacillating between the past and the present is done perfectly by the author. The mendacious mercurial nature of some characters in this book will rattle you to the extent of even making you nihilistic. I have read and listened to a few of Lisa Jewell’s books and I have enjoyed them all. This one kept me gripped and I finished it in just a couple of sittings.The more I read - the more I wanted to keep reading. Lisa Jewel wrote a ‘jewel’ of a great suspenseful- book with terrific fantastic characters. The reasons behind Ellie’s disappearance come to light through Ellie’s POV. Her mother, Laurel, also has a main voice in the story.

And within this stranger was the essence of everything that mattered to me and the potential to take a can of petrol to it, to blow it all to ash and rubble.

Part Three

Ellie, a conscientious teenager, and the apple of her mother's eye, left to visit the library and was never seen or heard from again. Laurel, Ellie's mother, couldn’t understand how her other children and her husband were able to move on with their lives without knowing what happened to Ellie. Laurel's life stalled, her marriage fell apart and the relationship with her two remaining children is strained. thoughts on “ Lisa Jewell: The Alternative Ending I Envisaged for Then She Was Gone (Warning: Contains Spoilers!)” I’m on board with her editor on this one. I think the ending that’s in the book is more realistic than the alternative ending. I can see why she’d want to write it that way to give it a happier ending, but I think the ending that her editor steered her towards makes more sense. Read it or Skip it? As a couple of friends said - (Diane & Esil) - they were pretty sure ‘what’ happened to Ellie who had gone missing early in their reading — me too - but I didn’t know ‘why’. This is the third Lisa Jewell thriller that I have read and she has penned another winner! After finishing this book I really had to wait a few days to sort of “SETTLE ME DOWN” as this mystery touched some very delicate feelings in me, more so than her first two books. Call me a snob but in my experience with thrillers, it has been hard to find many with the combination of great writing, past and present POV’s that flow seamlessly together, and create emotions that well up inside of you and really stay with you.