While there are a few key plot twists, there weren’t any that really caught me off guard. While the mystery and suspense of what happened to Ellie is absolutely at the forefront of the book throughout the entire novel, the resolution of Ellie’s disappearance is more straightforward than I had been hoping for. I don’t know that it says anything really groundbreaking, but it gave the characters more dimension.Īt the same time the actual mystery component to it was less satisfying than I was expecting as well. Jewell sincerely tries to tackle the subject of the family struggling from the weight of their loss, and it gives the book a little more heft. Then She Was Gone has a clear family drama element to it, which I wasn’t expecting, but was pleasantly surprised by. I think I was expecting something similar to the other recent mystery bestsellers like The Wife Between Us or something like that. ( From the publisher.I didn’t have a ton of expectations going into Then She Was Gone. Who has been murdered-and who would have wanted one of their neighbors dead? As 'Jewell teases out her twisty plot at just the right pace' ( Booklist, starred review), you will be kept guessing until the startling revelation on the very last page. In Lisa Jewell’s latest brilliant 'bone-chilling suspense' ( People) no one is who they seem-and everyone is hiding something. Meanwhile, twenty years earlier, a schoolgirl writes in her diary, charting her doomed obsession with a handsome young English teacher named Mr. For one thing, he has taken a particular liking to her best friend and fellow classmate, and Jenna’s mother-whose mental health has admittedly been deteriorating in recent years-is convinced that Mr. One of Tom’s students, Jenna Tripp, also lives on the same street, and she’s not convinced her teacher is as squeaky clean as he seems.

Joey thinks her crush is a secret, but Tom’s teenaged son Freddie-a prodigy with aspirations of becoming a spy for MI5-excels in observing people and has witnessed Joey behaving strangely around his father.

And everyone is watching you.Īs the headmaster credited with turning around the local school, Tom Fitzwilliam is beloved by one and all-including Joey Mullen, his new neighbor, who quickly develops an intense infatuation with this thoroughly charming yet unavailable man. It’s not the sort of place where people are brutally murdered in their own kitchens.īut it is the sort of place where everyone has a secret. Melville Heights is one of the nicest neighborhoods in Bristol, England home to doctors and lawyers and old-money academics. A suspenseful page-turner about a shocking murder in a picturesque and well-to-do English town.

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