#NEW #RELEASE with #REVIEW - Since She Went Away by David Bell

Description:

Three months earlier, Jenna Barton was supposed to meet her lifelong best friend Celia. But when Jenna arrived late, she found that Celia had disappeared—and hasn’t been seen again. Jenna has blamed herself for her friend’s disappearance every single day since then.

The only piece of evidence is a lone diamond earring found where Celia and Jenna were planning to meet, leading the national media to dub Celia “The Diamond Mom.” And even though Jenna has obsessively surfed message boards devoted to missing persons cases, she is no closer to finding any answers—or easing her guilt.

But when her son’s new girlfriend—who suddenly arrived in town without a past—disappears, a stricken Jenna begins to unwind the tangled truth behind Celia’s tragedy. And as long-buried secrets finally come to light, she discovers how completely lives can be shattered by a few simple lies.

MY TAKE:

4 STARS

When Celia didn’t show up to meet Jenna, it’s all Jenna could do but to blame herself for putting Celia into whatever predicament she did that caused her to disappear, and all she felt was pure guilt. She would find herself playing the ‘what if’ card, so often. If Jenna hadn’t been late that night, would Celia still be alive? What if she didn’t insist they go out that night? She put ALL the blame for Celia’s disappearance onto herself. We know Jenna is being irrational, and you can’t help but to feel for her. Here is her best friend since school, and now she’s gone? Jenna misses her severely and lives with what happened every day.

In alternating chapters between Jenna and her teenage son, Jared, we also learn he has a girlfriend, Ursula, and there is mystery surrounding her as well, then she disappears, too. What is it with people who come around Jenna? They seem to disappear. Both of these stories start to intertwine very late into the story, and the answers all start to work themselves out.

This was an enjoyable murder mystery, and it had me flipping the pages, but I was able to put it down unlike others where I just could not, and that is the reason I did not rate this a five star book. I had part of the mystery figured out for once! However, I was off on most all of it, still, and never could have put the details together! This is a shocker, I have to say that! Once we do find out what happened, the book abruptly ends.

I see this author is very accomplished, yet this is the first book I’ve seen by him. I have a new author to follow and read! I’ll take that! I would like to thank the Publisher, New American Library and NetGalley for providing me a copy of this book to read and write a review of my own opinion!

From June 24th to July 22nd, 2016, if you go to Goodreads, you can enter to WIN this book! Go to the page this book is on, scroll down a little further, and more on the left side of the page you'll see this listed as a GIVEAWAY! Good luck!



ebook: $11.99
print:   $10.20