I am a huge Lisa Jewell fan and I was very excited to get an advanced copy of The Night She Disappeared. This is a typical Jewell mystery, with multiple timelines and narrators.
In 2017, nineteen year old Tallulah and her boyfriend don’t come home after a night out. They left behind everything, including their 1 year old son. In 2019, no word or answers have come and the police have no leads. Until the local boarding school gets a new head teacher. When Sophia and her boyfriend moves into the school’s head teacher college, she quickly becomes invested in the the murders.
There are three timelines and multiple POVs woven together throughout this book, which is one of Jewell’s signature writing style. I normally love multiple timelines and POVs, and I’m fairly good at keeping track of interweaving storylines. With that said, I felt slightly confused by the different timelines for about the first half of the story. I’m not sure if it’s because they were so close together but for me it made the story hard to get into.
I did really enjoy the different POVs, especially of our missing teenager Tallulah. Jewell did an excellent job of depicting the stress that she is under as a new mom, college student, and coming to terms with who she is. Other than Tallulah’s POV though, I did not feel I really connected with any of the characters so that plus the bit of confusion at the beginning of the story really impacted my rating.
Ultimately, I enjoyed this story and I still quite enjoy Jewell’s story. This one was just not my favorite of her. While the atmosphere of the story was eerie, I think this particular story could have been a bit darker. However, I still recommend checking out this story when it comes out, especially if you enjoy a good mystery with some unexpected twists.
The Night She Disappeared comes out September 7, 2021. Huge thank you to Atria for my advanced copy for my honest review. If you liked this review please let me know either by commenting below or by visiting my Instagram @speakingof_books.
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