4 Stars from me
Reading this book felt almost like unraveling a ball of yarn, or when you try to untangle a knotted up necklace and just when you think you’ve got there another messy knot reveals itself.
Poor Willa, she slowly builds a life out of the ruins of her missing sister and yet can never shake off – despite all signs to the contrary – that her sister is alive. The sheer devastation of a child going missing on the way to school is literally unimaginable, however much one tries to consider the impact can surely merely skirt the edges of the shock-waves sent out by that crater of loss.
A myriad of coincidences run amok through the background as the story unfolds. I’ve seen reviews where readers have taken umbrage against this, however for me, and of course I may be wrong, this felt very considered and deliberate.
Sarah Easter Collins has created a tale of timeless beauty which has it its heart the wondrous thing of hope.
Blurb: She could be anyone. She could be you.
Nobody ever found out what happened to Laika Martenwood, the girl who vanished without a trace on her way to school one morning. But for her sister Willa, life shattered into tiny pieces that day, and she has never been able to put them back together again.
Willa sees Laika everywhere: on buses, at parties, in busy streets. It’s been twenty-five years, and the only thing that has kept her going is her belief that her sister is alive, somewhere.
But when a dinner party conversation about childhood memories spirals out of control, a shattering revelation from one of the guests forces Willa to rethink everything she thought she knew about her past. And, out of the debris of that explosive evening, the truth of what really happened begins to emerge. Piece by piece.
Read and Rated 