Hide and Seek: The unmissable new crime thriller from the top ten Sunday Times bestselling author of All Her Fault

Product Information

When the answers come it is so not what you had in mind but it’s so well thought out in a cleverly executed executed plot? However, the story is so intricately plotted and there are twists upon twists, which made for a dark, suspenseful read. You witness dynamics you can’t get a handle on, shocking dysfunction with monsters masquerading behind a glossy appearance and deceptive smiles. If you are keen on a twisty psychological thriller that slowly untangles a web of half-truths then this is the book for you.

Andrea Mara is a crime novelist from Dublin, Ireland, where she lives with her husband and three young children. But the more she learns, the closer she's drawn towards her own dark family secrets - secrets she's spent years trying to hide.

The memories of some either contradict or support the recollections of others and its interesting to see the changing of attitudes, or lack thereof, over the 30 years that have gone by. Her sense of contentment at finding their "forever home" soon subsides when a new neighbour tells her that her home once belonged to the family of Lily Murphy, a three-year-old who went missing in the mid-80s while playing a game of Hide and Seek. The two timelines also flowed seamlessly and worked well together to build up the tension and reveal what happened to the child.

Put everything aside as you delve into Joanna’s world as she struggles to uncover just what happened to a little girl who once lived in her new home. She has many secrets and thinks she killed her sister, Lila, when she herself was still a child but I couldn’t work out what that had to do with Lily. Next door to Joanna is Fran, who was a teenager when Lily went missing and is reluctant to help Joanna dig up the past but Joanna’s own mother-in-law, gossipy, overbearing Susie Stedman is more than willing to fill her daughter-in-law in on all the drama and scandal of years past.

She expertly ratchets up the tension in this single-sitting read, a nerve-shredder that will have you guessing right until the final unexpected twist.

Joanna feels compelled to find out more about the mystery of Lily’s disappearance - but as Joanna attempts to discover the truth from amongst her new community, it becomes clear that Joanna has plenty of her own secrets. As news of the disappearance filters through the quiet Dublin suburb and an unexpected suspect is named, whispers start to spread about the women most closely connected to the shocking event. I love a dual timeline; the 80’s irish suburb along with the attitudes of the time felt very familiar to me, but equally the modern day setting felt realistic too.Part of me wonders how this entire community did not guess that Joanna was “involved” given how many questions she asked 🤣 went way further than new homeowner curiosity. It is so cleverly plotted with many characters whose lives overlap, though its written so well its easy to keep up. Hide and Seek follows a similar formula; the introduction raises question after question, sometimes to the point of tedious repetition, the middle bursts open the narrative with possibilities, the conclusion offers an out-of-left-field ending that somehow ties everything up effectively. And I will admit that these are are quite interesting- certainly more interesting than the first three quarters of the book. For this quite little neighbourhood that Joanna and her young family have recently moved into has lots to hide and when Joanna discovers the young girl that went missing in the 1980’s used to live in their house, her sense of discomfort and of something not being quite right eats away at her.

Thanks to author, Andrea Mara, publishers Random House UK and Net Galley for this ARC in exchange for my honest review. Usually the children look after their own so it was surprising when things started to come out that maybe that wasn’t the case here! I am not sure I was fully convinced by the story’s conclusion either however the book kept my attention and I enjoyed the read. You feel a connection to each of the protagonists and are invested in their outcomes and the solving of the mysteries within the story.Joanna is taken aback when she learns that this is the house that 3 year old Lily Murphy disappeared from 30 years ago. They say females experience heart attacks differently to men and honestly I wonder at times if reading an Andrea Mara book is in a way a similar experience. Just what happened to Lily on that fateful day so many years ago when a game of Hide and Seek went wrong and so many years later the exact truth behind a little girls disappearance still remains unsolved.