When Louise Williams receives a message from someone left long in the past, her heart nearly stops.
Maria Weston wants to be friends on Facebook.
Maria Weston has been missing for over twenty-five years. She was last seen the night of a school leavers' party, and the world believes her to be dead. Particularly Louise, who has lived her adult life with a terrible secret.
As Maria's messages start to escalate, Louise forces herself to reconnect with the old friends she once tried so hard to impress. Trying to piece together exactly what happened that night, she soon discovers there's much she didn't know. The only certainty is that Maria Weston disappeared that night, never to be heard from again - until now...
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[The email arrives in my inbox like an unexploded bomb: Maria Weston wants to be friends on Facebook]***
(Sphere Books, 27 July 2017, 384 pages, ebook, #popsugarreadingchallenge 2020, a book about or involving social media, bought from @AmazonKindle)
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I didn't expect to enjoy this book much. I don't know why, but I thought it would be cheesy and riddled with clichés. I'm happy to say I was completely wrong. The book doesn't offer anything particular new or different at first, a Facebook request from someone who died and increasingly strange and sinister messages from this same person. As the events unravelled there were several possibilities. Maria really died and her ghost was messing around. Maria somehow survived and is seeking revenge. Someone who knows what really happened is seeking revenge on Maria's behalf. I enjoyed the way the story weaves back and forth between the present and Louise's final year in high school. I had my suspects but was way off. This is well written, engrossing thriller.
