Chloe lives a quiet life. Working as a newspaper archivist in the day and taking care of her Nan in the evening, she's happy simply to read about the lives of others as she files away the news clippings from the safety of her desk.
But there's one story that she can't stop thinking about. The case of Angie Kyle - a girl, Chloe's age, who went missing as a child. A girl whose parents never gave up hope.
When Chloe's Nan gets moved into a nursing home, leaving Chloe on the brink of homelessness, she takes a desperate step: answering an ad to be a lodger in the missing girl's family home. It could be the perfect opportunity to get closer to the story she's read so much about. But it's not long until she realizes this couple aren't all they seem from the outside... But with everyone in the house hiding something, the question is - whose secrets are the most dangerous?
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She treads carefully through the carnage. ONE
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(@MantleBooks, 1 April 2021, 416 pages, ebook, #ARC from the publisher via #NetGalley and voluntarily reviewed, #BlogTour 5 April via @RandomTTours)
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This is an impressive debut and I can't wait to see what the author comes up with next. Chloe is a fantastic character and I could really relate to her. My Nan had dementia as well and Chloe's Nan reminds me a lot of her. The author does a good job of handling dementia in a realistic and believable way. Chloe is a flawed but very human character with her loneliness and obsessions. She isn't an easy person to life and comes across as creepy and unsettling at times but there's something that really drew me to her, and I found her obsession with the cold case very touching. I loved the way she injects herself into the life of Angie's grieving parents and how things start to go in a dark direction at this point and become disturbing.
