Sara Foster

SARA FOSTER writes page-turning psychological suspense thrillers with strong female leads. Her latest novel, When She Was Gone (2025), begins when an au pair and two small children vanish from a remote Australian beach, and is a race-against-time thriller, exploring themes around misogyny, wealth, power and control.

Sara is also the author of the acclaimed dystopian thriller The Hush and seven more bestselling psychological suspense stories: The Deceit (novella), You Don’t Know Me, The Hidden Hours, All That is Lost Between Us, Shallow Breath, Beneath the Shadows and Come Back to Me. Two of her novels have been optioned for television, and You Don’t Know Me was adapted into a chart-topping drama podcast series by Listnr. Sara has a PhD in creative writing (studying maternal representations in fiction) and lives in Perth, Western Australia, with her husband, two daughters, three cats, Luna the cavoodle and Sunny the bearded dragon.

Q: What was the idea behind the story?
Sara Foster: When She Was Gone came about because I wanted to write a story set in Western Australia, where I live with my family, and so I began dreaming up different thriller ideas. The remote beaches of the southwest are some of my favorite places, and I also like writing about characters with connections to both England and Australia (like me!). Once I had the au pair character of Louisa, and her estranged mother Rose, the rest of the story began to fall into place.

Q: Would you say the theme is retribution, power, or money?
Sara: I think all the themes of retribution, power, and money come into play at different times in When She Was Gone. Power and money are certainly deeply interconnected in this story. Money gives some characters the opportunity to act in ways that others simply cannot, while those who don’t have money are much more limited in their choices.

Q: How would you describe the mystery in the story and its role?
Sara: The central mystery of When She Was Gone is the disappearance of Louisa (Lou) and the children, and this thread runs right through the book. I hope the reader is absorbed in the thriller elements of the story and the way this event has repercussions for so many people.

Q: Is domestic violence at the center of the story?
Sara: I don’t think of domestic violence as the singular center of the story, but it’s certainly a core thematic element of the novel. I wanted to look at violence in all its forms—latent as well as actualized—and to think about how violent tendencies develop when early signs aren’t addressed.

Q: Why did you include the quote about domestic violence: “By the time a victim has been degraded, undermined, and attacked for years, they have lost all sense of control. They exist from one terrified moment to the next, sometimes for years, and reclaiming their lives is a messy, protracted process”?
Sara: I think it’s all too easy to judge domestic violence victims without stepping into their shoes, whereas there are many reasons why it’s hard to leave an abusive relationship. I hope my story exposes the complexity and messiness of these scenarios and encourages empathy rather than judgment.

Q: How would you describe Rose?
Sara: By the time we come to meet Rose in When She Was Gone, she has gone through a terrible period of grief and depression after a traumatic work event as a young police officer, which readers witness at the beginning of the book, leaving her with PTSD. However, she has come through this, rebuilt her career, and is in a much stronger place by the time she needs to search for her missing daughter Louisa.

Q: How would you describe Henry?
Sara: Henry, Rose’s husband, has been emotionally abusive to Rose over the years—withholding access to Louisa, making life generally difficult for her, and always putting himself first. This changes when Louisa disappears just as his third wife has given birth to twins, meaning Henry is unable to fly to Australia himself and must therefore appeal to Rose to help him. He is a bit of a classic, self-centered narcissist.

Q: How would you describe Louisa?
Sara: We don’t get to see much of Louisa directly in the story, only briefly at the beginning before she disappears with the children. At that point, she’s obviously unhappy with the way the Fishers treat her and parent their kids. However, once she’s gone, we can only learn about her through secondary sources—her diary, her Instagram, and other people’s accounts. Through this, we can see her strength and her vulnerabilities, and Rose must pray that Louisa is worldly enough to keep herself together in whatever situation she’s in.

Q: How would you describe the Fishers?
Sara: The two young children who disappear with Louisa belong to a very wealthy family called the Fishers, who are used to getting their own way or using their considerable wealth to turn events to their favor. However, when these two very small Fisher children go missing and no one has any idea what’s happened, for once money cannot buy the family out of this predicament, and they are forced to try to communicate with one another in different ways.

Q: Anything else you’d like to add?
Sara: I write weekly on Substack at The Resilient Author (for writers) and Story Matters (for readers).

Q: What are you working on next?
Sara: I’m working on another mystery thriller now with a few more puzzle elements to it, set in the Cotswolds in the UK, a place my grandparents lived for a while. I’m having a lot of fun refining the characters and plot as I try to bring it all together.

When She Was Gone by Sara Foster brings to the forefront the unusual relationship between a mother and her daughter.  This intertwined within a riveting mystery allows readers to understand the mother/daughter dynamics.

Former Detective Rose Campbell who now lives in London is notified that her estranged daughter, Lou, has disappeared from a remote Western Australian beach. They have not spoken in years because of how Lou’s father and stepmother spoke of Rose. Yet, now Rose’s ex, Henry, has called on her to help find their daughter who is suspected of kidnapping the two young children she is the au pair for. The missing baby and toddler are heirs to a high profile and wealthy Australian family, the Fishers. Rose is intent on finding her daughter and proving her innocence.

The detective assigned to the case, DSS Mal Blackwood, on the verge of retirement, is chosen because of his ability to solve some of the most intense and difficult investigations. At first, Rose and Blackwood appear at odds as to what really happened but that all changes when a disturbing piece of evidence is found on a nearby strip of beach, making it clear that they are caught in a race against time to bring Louisa and the children safely home.

This is a very suspenseful novel that readers will not want to put down with well-defined characters that they will either root for or hate.