Brandi Reeds

A Good Read
I have never picked up a Brandi Reeds books until this one and I am very happy that Netgalley has put her on my radar. I am a big fan of thrillers and this truly fits the bill. This is a good read and definitely one of those books you can finish in one sitting like I did.

In The Day I Disappeared, five-year-old Amy’s older brother was supposed to be watching her. Instead he was outside fishing. However, when he came home later, Amy was missing. A little bit of time later little Amy’s body is found drown and her brother never forgives himself.

Holly was kidnapped as a child at the age of five. She was returned months later essentially unharmed. While Holly remembers nothing, she had a wound on her forearm and a missing tooth. One of her church members was convicted of the crime but the more I continued turning pages I am not sure about it at all.

Twenty years later, Detective Jason contacts Holly. He believes Holly is the first in a string of abductions and that she is the only hope of finding Skyler the latest victim alive and well. Only one of the ten was found alive—Holly. Another was found dead. The fate of the others is unknown but presumed dead.

Holly tries to help Jason, by trying to remember details of her own abduction. But with her mother stuck in a coma in the hospital, her best friend’s upcoming wedding, and her on-again-off-again relationship with her boyfriend, she already has a lot on her plate.

The Day I Disappeared is an immensely twisty tale combining a serial child abductor story with some intense family drama. Both Holly and her best friend, Kitten, struggle with their relationships with their parents. While in a coma, Holly’s mother, Cecily, is also narrating part of the book. Which adds so much more dimension to the story I found myself enjoying the voice of Holly’s mom very much. Be prepared to dislike many of the characters, my least favorite is the best friend once you read it you will know why. Never Holly though she goes above and beyond to try and figure these abductions out not only for the little girls but for herself as well.… (mehr)

I was super excited to stumble upon this Dark Corners collection of short stories by various authors via my Amazon Prime library (Amazon Original Stories.) I like that the stories are available individually on both my Kindle and Audible account. Oak Avenue was a great ending to this series. My favorite plot for a scary story is definitely a haunted house. A couple and their baby daughter move to the husband’s hometown and purchase an old mansion in desperate need of renovation. The wife struggles to be accepted by the locals while her husband works out of state during the week. Tension builds in their relationship as the house increasingly torments the family.… (mehr)

Four year old Holly Gerbhardt is kidnapped. Three months later she reappears with no memory of what happened. Twenty years later, another girl goes missing in similar circumstances and detective Jason Guidry recruits Holly to help him solve it. All she has to do is try to remember.

This story is told predominantly from Holly's point of view, but it is interspersed with chapters from Holly's mother Cecily's point of view. Holly, now an adult, doesn't really know her place in the world. She doesn't quite fit in. She's tried to move on from her past but it's not that easy and she's still scarred. Her life is blighted with complicated relationships. She never had the greatest of relationships with her mother. But now Cecily is in hospital in a coma after a car accident. She's haunted by the abduction as well, and her point of view takes the form of her memories of the past as she fights for her life in the present. The pieces of the past slowly come together, some from Cecily's recollections, some from Holly, as she slowly starts to remember the things she forgot.

I expected this book to be a typical detective crime thriller, but it's more people than procedural. It's definitely more about the family secrets, relationships, and a hidden past that perhaps shouldn't be uncovered. There's a definite focus on relationships and feelings, and the detective doesn't actually feature that much in the narrative. It's very slow burn, with a long build up and then most of the action taking place in the last 3/4 of the book. Each memory throws up more questions, and I found the slow drip of memories and information really intriguing. I was kept guessing the whole way through. The plot itself is kind of wild, and trying to put together the pieces made this a fun read.

The one character I really didn't like much was Kitten. She's Holly's best friend, who witnessed her abduction as a child. She seems kind of disconnected from Holly, even at one point saying 'if I've moved past it, so can you', showing she really doesn't understand what Holly's been through. Kitten is preparing for her wedding, and I found her a bit of a bridezilla at times. Although that might be just because I don't really understand the appeal of marriage and big, perfect weddings.

Overall this book is a good read, with plenty of mysteriousness that made me want to keep reading.… (mehr)