Product Description

It’s the morning of Nina Landry’s fortieth birthday. She’s supposed to have her kids ready to leave for the Christmas holidays with her new boyfriend. But her fifteen-year-old daughter, Charlie, is not yet home. She spent the night at a friend’s, and now she is nowhere to be found. As time passes slower and slower by the hour, Nina’s worry builds to panic.

Has Charlie run away, or has something worse happened? And why won’t anyone—not the cops, not Charlie’s friends, not Charlie’s father—take her disappearance seriously? As day turns to night and a series of ominous revelations leads Nina from sickening suspicion to blood-chilling certainty, she comes to the desperate realization that she has no one to turn to…but herself.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #346575 in Books
• Published on: 2009-03-03
• Released on: 2009-03-03
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 352 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780312943165
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. A mother fights to keep her composure as she hunts for her missing child in this nuanced, literate thriller from the husband-wife writing team of Nicci Gerrard and Sean French (Killing Me Softly). Shortly before Christmas, Nina Landry, a divorced mother of two living on isolated Sandling Island somewhere in the south of England, is getting ready for a family vacation in Florida that will include her new marine biologist boyfriend. Blindsided by a surprise 40th birthday party, Nina is further disconcerted when her 15-year-old daughter, Charlie, who was supposed to help with the packing, fails to come home from a slumber party. Nina's seamless first-person account of the next 24 hours mines the frustration and feelings of helplessness that come with any investigation slowed by the rigmarole of police work. This engrossing read captures the importance of the often overlooked and underappreciated minutiae of everyday life while commanding a deeply personal reaction in readers. (Apr.)
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Review

 “Lose yourself in this smart nail-biter of a tale about a mother’s desperate search for her missing teenage daughter.”—People magazine

“A seamless first-person account…This engrossing read captures the importance of the often overlooked and underappreciated minutiae of everyday life while commanding a deeply personal reaction in readers.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“What gives Losing You its chief distinction…is its unusually emotive color and its flinty protagonist.... Nina is the parent we’d all like to be under duress, and I find I’ve become nearly as protective of her as she is of her daughter.”—Salon.com

 “The pace and tension accelerate as the identity of Charlie’s abductor remains deliciously uncertain. This is a quick, enjoyable read.”—Library Journal

“[French] renders psychological chillers that manage to generate great suspense… This latest offering is sure to keep readers furiously flipping pages through the night.”—Booklist

“The novel’s greatest strength is its cool-eyed portrait of an English village”—The Washington Post  

“Nicci French know[s] exactly how to maintain the tension…You live through every nail-biting minute.”—The Guardian  

“The heart pounds from the first page…This is a book that keeps you reading into the small hours.”
—The Observer (UK)

From the Back Cover

 “Engrossing.”—PUBLISHERS WEEKLY (STARRED REVIEW)

It’s the morning of Nina Landry’s fortieth birthday. She’s supposed to have her kids ready to leave for the Christmas holidays with her new boyfriend. But her fifteen-year-old daughter, Charlie, is not yet home. She spent the night at a friend’s, and now she is nowhere to be found. As time passes slower and slower by the hour, Nina’s worry builds to panic.

“Unusually emotive.”—Salon.com

Has Charlie run away, or has something worse happened? And why won’t anyone—not the cops, not Charlie’s friends, not Charlie’s father—take her disappearance seriously? As day turns to night and a series of ominous revelations leads Nina from sickening suspicion to blood-chilling certainty, she comes to the desperate realization that she has no one to turn to…but herself.

“The pace and tension accelerate as the identity of Charlie’s abductor remains deliciously uncertain.”—Library Journal

Customer Reviews

LOST HOLIDAY
Nina Landry, her daughter Charlie, and son Jackson along with Christian, Nina's love interest are supposed to be getting ready to leave Sandling Island for a Christmas vacation in Florida. Coincidently, today happens to be her fortieth birthday, too. Their plane is scheduled to leave Heathrow at 6p.m., thus the whole family thinks it has plenty of time for last minute errands and packing. And the last thing on Nina's mind or agenda is a morning surprise birthday party planned by her daughter, who has not been seen since she left for an overnight pajama party the evening before. As soon as Nina realizes that Charlie is really missing she asks the celebrants to leave the house and she begins a frantic search for her. She tries to get help from the local constabulary, her ex-husband and Charlie's friends. Unfortunately no one believes that the teen is really in trouble.
Nicci French (husband and wife writing team of journalists Nicci Gerrard and Sean French) has never let her readers down. The first few lines grab the reader and keep her/him glued to the book. Fast pacing, spare prose and a story every parent can identify with make LOSING YOU another winner for fans.

Can't put it down, edge of your seat kind of mystery...
This was one of the most suspenseful mysteries I have read in a long time. It's Nina's birthday and she is getting ready to take her kids and her boyfriend to Florida for Christmas. While trying to get everything ready for the trip, a surprise birthday party occurs supposedly put together by her daughter, Charlie. When Charlie doesn't show up for the party or for the departure of the trip, Nina becomes frantic with worry. The first thing she does is go to the police but they don't believe Charlie is in danger. Just another teenager who is trying to make a statement with her parents by hiding out for a night. Nina doesn't believe it so she takes it upon herself to try and find her daughter. As a mother, Nina's gut feeling is, something is drastically wrong here. As a mother, the thought of a missing child can suck the life right out of you. I was pulling for Nina every step of the way.
This is a quick read and it keeps you on the edge of your seat right up until the end. Highly recommend.

a rather unthrilling thriller
Three stars is actually a bit on the generous side, but I do want to give the authors credit for the parts done well; it is also a book that will probably appeal to many casual readers. Unfortunately, the best thing about the book, to me, was that it was a quick read, so I didn't waste a great deal of time on it.

It began interestingly enough and did draw me in at first. The writing style is fairly smooth and literate. The mother's emotions as she searched for her daughter were fairly well developed. However, she was the only character that was at all convincing. The others might as well have been cardboard cut-outs for all character they were given. People wandered into and out of the story for no real reason. For example, the cousin who came to help out and then just left--there was really no point to her being in the story at all. Such was also the case with the boyfriend who was supposed to be going on vacation with them; he was stuck in traffic for the entire book and never appeared at all! There were a number of other irrelevant characters, as well. It's just plain annoying to have authors throw in characters and then leave them floating around, useless.

Plotting was not intricate; it was needlessly complicated. There were things the mother learned as she searched that seemed as if they were going to be relevant, but turned out to have nothing to do with the whole business in the end. As the story drew to its conclusion, it became more and more formulaic and trite. I don't want to throw in plot spoilers for those who might want to read this, so I'll simply have to say that there was absolutely no logical reason for some of the things the "bad guy" did. They were only put in to keep the story going. Many of the final events were as unbelievable as the characters. And, while I don't feel the need to have everything neat and tidied up at the end of a story, there were too many loose ends left hanging.

If you want an easy, unchallenging read and aren't too bothered by a lack of believability, you may enjoy this book. It's much like many made-for-Lifetime TV movies--a child at risk, a mother who will do whatever it takes to save her, etc.--so if you like those, you'll probably like this. I didn't.