When They Find Her: An unputdownable thriller with a twist that will take your breath away

We read this in my reading group having had free copies. Sadly nobody thought it was a good read and many felt it really dragged in the middle. The story did not feel believable and we all felt that as it was set in present day the little girls body would have been found earlier and there appeared to be a poor knowledge of forensics.None of the characters really felt connectable with which made it hard to become emotionally attached to the story.

From the start this novel does captivate the reader. It is a murder mystery with a difference which addresses issues, such as child abuse, mental health, struggles with motherhood. The chief protagonist is Naomi whose innermost thoughts and doubts make for rather monotonous and repetitive reading. However she is totally self obsessed, which does not add to the story. The narrative.doesn’t flow sufficiently which spoils the story. There is insufficient development of the characters which makes it difficult to have any empathy for them. I found myself counting off the pages ( which I never normally do) which is indicative of my enjoyment or lack thereof!

I read this book through my Book Club, and read it in two sittings. It was a thrilling read. When Naomi finds her daughter dead at the bottom of the stairs one morning, because of her use of sleeping drugs she is not sure if she has been responsible. So she decides to hide her body and lie about her daughter’s disappearance. What follows is the stuff of nightmares, and I certainly didn’t anticipate the ending. It is a bit longwinded in the middle perhaps, but stick with it.

Well worth reading.

Another Book Group choice that I probably wouldn't have picked up otherwise, a disappointment as it turned out. The premise, a missing child with guilt wracked mother who can't remember what happened, is intriguing if not exactly original. Yet the execution is simply ridiculous. I skimmed through just to see which of the few characters was responsible and there's a lot of filler, repetitive and ultimately annoying interior monologue, nothing much actually happens and then an abrupt ending. I usually like Unreliable Narrators but Naomi's bad choices don't make sense other than as necessity to service the it. The only character I warmed to was Helen. I couldn't bring myself to care about any of them tbh, and at no point did any of it feel realistic, not even the police investigation. Still, it was a quick read but distinctly unmemorable. A first novel, not all bad so perhaps I'm being unduly harsh, yet it simply didn't work for me.

A frustration story how a lie lead to more lies which is tragic as it effected so many people and started with the death of a young girl. The story was interesting as it constantly kept me in suspense and constantly changing my mind about what had happened. The beginning and end of the book was great but felt I would not be missing much condensing Chapter 7 to 41 to about 4 chapters. A great story but I just wanted it to end half way through. Luckily I persisted to the twisted ending.

A very good read I thought.
This book is about the consequences of attempting to cover up the truth and from the outset you never know if the main character Naomi killed her daughter.
The way the author writes the main characters past life, the mental health issues and addiction to sleeping pills leaves you guessing about whether she killed or not.
Yet you also come away feeling sorry for Naomi as her struggles with post natal depression have affected her entire life in such as dramatic way.
A good ending to a alternative " who done it" novel.

Naomi and Aiden have one daughter, Freya. Aiden left the marriage three years ago, taking Freya with him after Naomi’s behaviour became somewhat erratic due to an unhealthy relationship with medication. Since then, although Naomi sees Freya regularly, she has never had her to stay overnight. Until the start of this book. The story opens as Aiden is, somewhat reluctantly, dropping Freya off at Naomi’s house. The night ends in tragedy, but it is not at all clear what exactly happened. Naomi has put Freya to bed and then taken a sleeping pill which effectively knocks her out. When she wakes up, she finds her daughter dead and she has no idea how or why this has happened. In a moment of blind panic, and terrified of how her husband and the authorities will interpret the evidence, she hides her daughter's body and then reports her missing. How this huge error in judgement pans out is the story told in this book.

The premise is a good one and has the potential to evolve into a good crime novel/thriller. Indeed, when the solution is finally revealed, it is obvious that the plot has been well thought out and carefully constructed by the author.

However, it was not all good. This book is marketed as a psychological thriller but, in my opinion, one critical element of that genre is missing - there are no thrills. I found it dull and very repetitive to the point of being boring.
I also had a problem relating to the characters and managed to read the whole book without really feeling any connection, or even any empathy, with any of the people involved. As a result I didn’t really care what happened to them.
Despite the initial premise having the potential for a good storyline, I felt that Naomi’s reaction to the crisis of finding her daughter’s body was too extreme and therefore not very believable. Less may well have been more from my point of view and a less dramatic reaction may well have had more impact. In actual fact I am not at all sure that any intervention from Naomi was necessary – it would have made quite a good police procedural as it was.
Finally, at heart this is a crime novel but the crime is pushed to one side to such an extent that most of the book focusses on Naomi and her state of mind. So much so that most of the time I felt as though I was reading a psychiatrist’s case study of a patient and would have been more likely to put it in the category of a self-help guide in the popular psychology section. The interesting part, the whodunnit, is all solved in a rush towards the end of the book.

Would I recommend this book? It will come as no surprise to you that my answer is no. However, and this is quite important, it had very good reviews generally and most people do not share my views. On that basis, it’s probably worth giving it a go. This is the author’s debut novel and, whilst I clearly believe there is room for improvement, I hope she perseveres.

"When They Find Her" is a dark and intense psychological thriller with many twists and turns. The first chapter stunned and horrified me and grabbed me from the beginning.
Naomi has the life that she's always wanted until her husband leaves her taking their daughter with him. He agrees to allow the daughter to stay overnight with her. There is an accident and then begins the lies. One lie follows another and then another and then another. Naomi flounders around and seems to be the one to be empathetic towards but as the story unfolds the characters are so complex that it becomes an emotional rollercoaster.
As a debut novel I found it to be very intriguing. However I also felt that the ending was too abrupt and it felt as if the author decided she was tired of writing this story. Let's tie this up and get on to the next thing. That said I would still recommend this book to my friends. I look forward to seeing what Lia Middleton can give us in the future as she matures as an author.

I gave this book 4 stars because it surpassed my expectations. I like a good easy-reading psychological thriller (as long as it doesn’t get all spooky and supernatural – not my thing!) and the cover made this look like exactly that, a run-of the-mill thriller. It was a lot more, with a clever plot that actually turned this into a whodunnit as much as anything else. It opens with a stressed out Naomi who discovers something tragic has occurred in her own home and, believing that everyone will think she committed the crime, she commits another by covering it up. She is in a state of panic and confusion for much of the book, as the police come closer to unearthing the crime, and that really builds the tension and interest. The truth starts to become a little predictable but you’re still not sure so it is absorbing right to the end. A great debut novel, written by a real-life barrister.

Wow the bookworms have been gripped. One of our members read it the night she was given the copy and stayed up all night reading. Another said " wow that was a great read, loved every word and raced through it very quickly as I couldn't put it down"

A great page turner.

The novel's opening and setup is undeniably intriguing. While what Naomi does is clearly wrong, yet I found myself sympathising with her and almost feeling like I would have done the same thing myself. As setups go, this is definitely one that leaves you wanting to find out what will happen.

That's as far as my interest in this book went. The vast majority of the novel features Naomi half-heartedly trying to cover up what she's done, while the real issue of the story (who actually committed the real crime?) goes completely un-discussed. By the time it becomes the focus of the story in the final quarter, there's not enough space left for a careful unravelling of the mystery. Instead, Naomi has no idea what happened until she's literally shown a video of the criminal's confession (in what definitely must be an egregious violation of police procedure).

What really frustrates me about this story is how it goes along with the larger trend of female-led domestic thrillers where the main character doesn't actually do all that much and the story simply unfolds around her. In this novel, Naomi makes one significant choice at the beginning, then the rest of the story is her doing a series of ineffective things to cover it up. The final resolution of the crime has nothing whatsoever to do with her. When I read a thriller, I expect the protagonist to be driving the story, and I'm frustrated by the number of thrillers with female protagonists who sit back and do nothing.

From scrolling other reviews, it seems as if my thoughts on this novel are unusually negative. It seems like many other people found Naomi to be an interesting, relatable character, and they really appreciated the final twists. Personally, I couldn’t get around the way that 75% of the novel was just filler and the real mystery only unravelled at the end in the most perfunctory way, but I am quite critical of structure. If you just want an easy thriller, this one has a unique premise. If, however, you want a clever mystery, it's not worth wading through this novel for the final few pages.

This was suspenseful. There were twists to the ending and I found myself trying to work out how the person I thought was innocent would evade an incorrect judgement. A book I would enjoy on holiday.

Tampering with the crime scene then lying to Police, I found it difficult to empathise with the main character. However, the drip feeding of relevant facts created enough suspense to keep me reading until the end.