Eighteen year old Emma has a seemingly perfect life – loving
parents, a lovely home and a nice circle of friends. However, one day she
leaves home without a trace. Her parents are devastated and determined to find
her.
The book begins one year later, Emma is still missing and her
parents Cath and Jim are hanging onto the hope that she is out there alive and
well and they are trying to carry on with their lives.
At the same time, they buy a rental property and a young
couple called Lara and Nick come into their lives, but they too have issues,
and secrets, of their own and soon their lives will become interwoven with Cath
and Jim’s.
Whilst all of this is happening, we find out that Emma, who
is not so far away after all, has created a whole new existence for herself and
maybe does not want to be found.
The Shadow Child is told from five perspectives – Cath, Jim,
Lara, Nick and Emma. I absolutely love this structure because you really feel
that you get to know each of the characters so well. You also soon realise that
there are so many secrets being kept that perhaps you even know more about the
characters than their partners do.
This book is so beautifully written, I became completely
absorbed in the lives of Cath and Jim, Lara and Nick and Emma. I just couldn’t
put this down and I didn’t really want it to end.
I can’t wait to see what this author writes next.
Highly recommended
5 stars
