Finding Grace by K.L. Slater
Genre: Psychological thriller
Read: 10th February 2019
Purchase: Amazon
(release date 14th February 2019)
★★★★ 4 stars
I must say I was thrilled to be approved to read K.L. Slater's newest psychological thriller FINDING GRACE. After the previous two I've read - BLINK and LIAR - I've been a huge fan and enjoy her style of suspense and page-turning intrigue she delivers. However, for me, this one fell a little flat. I'm not sure why; it just didn't have that same compelling tension her other books have had. Don't get me wrong - I still enjoyed it. Just not as much as her others.
I admit I am always drawn to the "missing child" concept and the different ways in which it's delivered. Some may think it is getting a little long in the tooth and has been overdone a little too many times, but I still enjoy the mysteries surrounding each child's disappearance and unravelling the clues that lead us to the end.
But FINDING GRACE is a little different than just your average missing child story. It is fast paced, peppered with hints of some dark secret lurking in Lucie's past. All of which we get sprinkles of throughout.
Grace has just turned 9 years old and is your usual gregarious child of that age, believing they are almost grown up because "I'm nine years old now!" A phrase which has become Grace's favourite since her birthday the day before, constantly using it to emphasise the importance of her age and therefore, the status with which is brings. So when she hounds her parents into letting her walk home from her best friend Olivia's house ON HER OWN the following day, Blake and Lucie are apprehensive. But she's a big girl now and she wants to be treated as such.
So it is against their better judgement that Blake and Lucie agree but, unbeknownst to Grace, with one stipulation. Both fathers will keep watch discreetly from their respective ends so that Grace will never know. But, it all goes wrong when Blake takes his eyes off her for a moment. Just checking his phone, to which he is surgically attached, and then slipping on the moss-covered path and twisting his ankle. He calls out to Lucie who has the music up loud in the house preparing for her daughter's return from her exciting day out. Oblivious, she doesn't hear him. And in that moment, Grace has vanished!
The police are called and a search is underway by locals in the community eager to help. Motives soon come to light and everyone is questioned. At the same time, I felt the police had very little to do with the story. It was more about Lucie and her past secret, the secrets she uncovers regarding her husband Blake and her ultimately intent on finding Grace herself.
Lucie obviously blames herself for saying yes to Grace walking home, which had more to do with putting her mother-in-law in her place than anything else, I felt. She spends much of the time blaming herself and questioning Blake's secrecy. She is sure he is having an affair with her best friend Bev and wonders if that has anything to do with Grace's disappearance. Whilst the police are not discounting anything, they have said that Grace probably just wandered off and lost track of time. But they don't know her like Lucie does. She wouldn't just do that. Lucie is sure someone has taken her. But who?
Then a secret from Lucie's past comes back to haunt her. No, it isn't possible. Is it? Is SHE the reason Grace has been taken?
The story unfolds through Lucie's eyes as she recounts events from the day before, the morning of, the afternoon of and after Grace's disappearance. Every few chapters we are taken sixteen years back to Grace's short time at university, as that story is told from a third person perspective - as if Lucie distances herself from that time and the events that unfolded by not telling it herself. Turning each page, the reader is left wondering what could possibly be so bad to make Lucie run from her studies and back home again. When it is finally revealed, I must admit I was left wondering "Is that it?" and "Why?" Regardless of the threats made towards her I would have gone straight to the police. And to think, if she had, such a secret would never have followed her for sixteen years resulting in Grace's disappearance.
What happened after the said event sixteen years prior was a little more interesting. When Lucie met Blake, when he proposed, when they married, Grace's birth and the horrific car accident at the end of her street where I found myself with baited breath and crossing my fingers - PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE! - as I'm sure Lucie did also. But it all began to make a little more sense from then on. Sadly, the end result was a little far fetched I thought, but still had me breathing a sigh of relief.
For fans of K.L. Slater, I think they will discover FINDING GRACE to be an enjoyable read, if not her best. The suspense, the tension, the intrigue are all there to make it a compelling easy read.
I would like to thank #KLSlater, #NetGalley and #Bookouture for an ARC of #FindingGrace in exchange for an honest review.
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