13 July 2020

Review: DEAR CHILD, Romy Hausmann

  • format Kindle (Amazon)
  • Published in German Feb 2019
  • Translated from German by Jamie Bulloch
Synopsis (Amazon)

YOU ESCAPED. BUT YOUR NIGHTMARE HAS JUST BEGUN.

A windowless shack in the woods. Lena's life and that of her two children follows the rules set by their captor, the father: meals, bathroom visits, study time are strictly scheduled and meticulously observed. He protects his family from the dangers lurking in the outside world and makes sure that his children will always have a mother to look after them.

One day Lena manages to flee - but the nightmare continues. It seems as if her tormentor wants to get back what belongs to him. And then there is the question whether she really is the woman called 'Lena', who disappeared without a trace over thirteen years ago. The police and Lena's family are all desperately trying to piece together a puzzle that doesn't quite seem to fit.

My Take

Lena Beck went missing in Munich when she was 23 and her father Matthias, and Karin, his wife of 40 years, have always believed she will turn up sometime, alive.

In a sense the novel begins almost at the end. An ambulance is called to a road accident where a woman has been hit by a car. A child tells them her name is Lena and her own name is Hannah, but she doesn't know their surname and she doesn't know how to contact her father. She says she has a younger brother and that he will be in their cabin in the woods.

Matthias gets a phone call from a policeman in charge of the case that investigation into Lena's original disappearance to say that a person has been found that they think might be Lena. He rushes to the hospital only to find that the injured person is not his daughter. Then he and Karin see Hannah who looks like a younger version of their daughter.

A very intriguing plot with plenty of twists. On one level it is a hideous tale about obsession, on another a warming one about Matthias' search for the truth. The identity of "the husband" came as a complete surprise. It is the author's debut title.

My rating: 4.5

About the author
Romy Hausmann was born in the former GDR in 1981. At the age of twenty-four she became chief editor at a film production company in Munich. Since the birth of her son Romy has been working as a freelancer in TV. DEAR CHILD is her thriller debut. Romy lives with her family in a remote house in the woods near Stuttgart.

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