If you’ve read the book blurb, you know what happens next, and you can guess exactly what it means. Laurel meets the precocious nine-year-old daughter of her new beau, and she looks exactly like Ellie. You can connect the dots well enough on your own. But the story itself is about much more than that reveal. It’s all in how we get there.

When she starts dating again, Laurel finally begins to rediscover meaning in her life. She lost everything after Ellie disappeared. Now it’s coming back. Her new man, Floyd, is intelligent, cultured, and passionate about Laurel in just the right amounts. And his 

daughter? She needs Laurel. It’s been years since she’s had a mother—that’s a whole other mystery to unravel—and she instinctively latches onto this new material presence. It’s nice to feel that kind of belonging again. So much so that Laurel can almost overlook the red flags and weird coincidences between Ellie’s disappearance and Floyd’s past life. Almost.

If you think you’ve already guessed what happened and how, you haven’t. There are layers to this story, with each twist slowly revealed as the chapters progress. The pacing moves along at a nice clip, making this a page-turner that’s easy to read. There are