Review: THE LOST GIRLS, Wendy James

• format: Kindle (Amazon)
  
• File Size: 956 KB
• Print Length: 268 pages
• Publisher: e-penguin (February 26, 2014)
• Sold by: Penguin Group (USA) LLC
• Language: English
• ASIN: B00H8ARVG6

Synopsis (Amazon)

From the bestselling author of The Mistake comes a hauntingly powerful story about families and secrets and the dark shadows cast by the past.

Curl Curl, Sydney, January 1978.

Angie's a looker. Or she's going to be. She's only fourteen, but already, heads turn wherever she goes. Male heads, mainly . . .

Jane worships her older cousin Angie. She spends her summer vying for Angie's attention. Then Angie is murdered. Jane and her family are shattered. They withdraw into themselves, casting a veil of silence over Angie's death.

Thirty years later, a journalist arrives with questions about the tragic event. Jane is relieved to finally talk about her adored cousin. And so is her family. But whose version of Angie's story – whose version of Angie herself – is the real one? And can past wrongs ever be made right?

The shocking truth of Angie's last days will force Jane to question everything she once believed. Because nothing – not the past or even the present – is as she once imagined.

My Take

A cleverly written book, told mainly from the point of view of Jane, who was just twelve when Angie died. Jane's story is told partly in first person, particularly from an observer's point of view, and partly through the interviewing of Jane and other family members by Erin, a journalist wanting to make a radio documentary. Of course, at twelve, there are aspects of real life that Jane really doesn't understand, but now, thirty years on she can bring a more adult perspective to her teenage memories.

The focus of the story is who killed Angie and why, and also the impact of her death on the immediate members of Jane's family. What Jane did not understand at the time of Angie's death is that there were big secrets.

I managed to get part of the "real" story worked out easily enough but the final piece slotted in only a few pages from the end.

My rating: 4.7


I've also reviewed

4.8, WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?
4.8, THE MISTAKE