Category: Henley Literary Festival

Book Review: The Missing Girl by Jenny Quintana

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The Missing GirlAbout the Book

When Anna Flores’ adored older sister goes missing as a teenager, Anna copes by disappearing too, just as soon as she can: running as far away from her family as possible, and eventually building a life for herself abroad.

Thirty years later, the death of her mother finally forces Anna to return home. Tasked with sorting through her mother’s possessions, she begins to confront not just her mother’s death, but also the huge hole Gabriella’s disappearance left in her life – and finds herself asking a question she’s not allowed herself to ask for years: what really happened to her sister?

With that question comes the revelation that her biggest fear isn’t discovering the worst; it’s never knowing the answer. But is it too late for Anna to uncover the truth about Gabriella’s disappearance?

Format: ebook (336 pp.)    Publisher: PanMacmillan/Mantle
Published: 18th December 2017    Genre:  Crime, Mystery, Thriller

Purchase Links*
Amazon.co.uk  ǀ  Amazon.com  ǀ Hive.co.uk (supporting UK bookshops)
*links provided for convenience, not as part of any affiliate programme

Find The Missing Girl on Goodreads

My Review

As well as attending several events at this year’s Henley Literary Festival (which runs from 29th September to 7th October), I wrote recently about how I’d been inspired to create a reading list of books by some of the authors appearing at the Festival.   The Missing Girl by Jenny Quintana is one of those books.

The Missing Girl is a compelling mystery but also an absorbing and believable depiction of a family coping with the disappearance of a child.  For me, this second element was the most rewarding part of the book.   As the mystery of Gabriella’s disappearance remains unresolved, it has a disturbing effect on the family.  Even more so coming as it does on top of overheard fragments of conversations and knowing glances between her father and mother the meaning of which twelve-year old Anna doesn’t understand at the time.   Anna mainly notices the hole Gabriella’s absence has left in their lives. ‘There was an emptiness, a stillness.  Gabriella had created sound.’

Alternating between two timelines – the present day and the 1980s – I thought the author did a particularly good job of recreating a sense of the earlier period.  A time when a bottle of Cinzano and a bowl of Twiglets marked a family celebration, Sunday lunch was a roast dinner (followed by roly-poly and custard if you were lucky) and a popular teenage hangout was the Our Price record shop.    I also liked the way the rather insular nature of a small village was conveyed and the spine-tingling feeling the author creates as young Anna undertakes her own investigation in the wooded outskirts of the village.

Given the sisters’ close relationship, I’ll admit I found it a little difficult to understand how Anna could have spent thirty years not wanting to find out more about Gabriella’s disappearance and Anna’s life in those intervening years doesn’t get much attention.  Nevertheless, the death of her mother does awaken Anna’s desire to know the truth – ‘Persistence, the need to know, creeping back after all those years away’ – and, luckily for her, some of the key witnesses from the time are still around.

The Missing Girl is an accomplished debut which I really enjoyed for the author’s deft handling of the dual timelines and its multi-layered story.   The author lays down plenty of tempting false trails for the reader to follow and although I (sort of) guessed one of the key twists in the book before it was revealed it didn’t spoil my enjoyment of what followed.  The solution to the mystery of Gabriella’s disappearance – sorry, not going to say!  However, I’ll admit the author wrong-footed me.

Jenny Quintana is appearing at Henley Literary Festival on 30th September 2018 (tickets still available as at time of writing)

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In three words: Atmospheric, unsettling, mystery

Try something similar…Reservoir 13 by Jon McGregor (read my spoiler free review here)

Jenny Quintana, author.About the Author

Jenny Quintana grew up in Essex and Berkshire, before studying English Literature in London. She has taught in London, Seville and Athens and has also written books for teaching English as a foreign language. She is a graduate of the Curtis Brown Creative writing course.  She now lives with her family in Berkshire. The Missing Girl is her first novel.                                      (Photo credit: Alicia Clarke)

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WWW Wednesdays – 19th September ‘18

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WWWWednesdays

Hosted by Taking on a World of Words, this meme is all about the three Ws:

  • What are you currently reading?
  • What did you recently finish reading?
  • What do you think you’ll read next?

Why not join in too?  Leave a comment with your link at Taking on a World of Words and then go blog hopping!

Currently reading

The Labyrinth of the SpiritsThe Labyrinth of the Spirits (Cemetery of Forgotten Books #4) by Carlos Ruiz Zafón (eARC, courtesy of NetGalley)

Barcelona, 1957. Daniel Sempere runs the Sempere & Sons bookshop, is happily married and has a son. No longer the child who discovered the Cemetery of Forgotten Books, he is still haunted by the mysterious death of his mother when he was six years old. Meanwhile his best friend and accomplice, Fermin, is about to marry the love of his life. But something appears to be bothering him. One morning, when Daniel is alone in the shop, a mysterious figure enters and buys a precious copy of The Count of Monte Cristo. Then, to Daniel’s surprise, the man inscribes the book with the words ‘To Fermin Romero de Torres, who came back from the dead and who holds the key to the future’.

That night Fermin confesses that he was once in prison and that he had to fake his own death to escape. Now his former cellmate has reappeared with a possible key to hidden treasure. But is it a trap? And why is Daniel’s wife meeting someone in secret? And who was the sinister figure Daniel’s mother went to meet on the night of her death…

MacbethMacbeth by Jo Nesbo (eARC, courtesy of NetGalley)

He’s the best cop they’ve got.

When a drug bust turns into a bloodbath it’s up to Inspector Macbeth and his team to clean up the mess.

He’s also an ex-drug addict with a troubled past.

He’s rewarded for his success. Power. Money. Respect. They’re all within reach.

But a man like him won’t get to the top.

Plagued by hallucinations and paranoia, Macbeth starts to unravel. He’s convinced he won’t get what is rightfully his.

Unless he kills for it.

Recently finished (click on title for review)

The Clockmaker's DaughterThe Clockmaker’s Daughter by Kate Morton (eARC, courtesy of NetGalley)

My real name, no one remembers.  The truth about that summer, no one else knows.

In the summer of 1862, a group of young artists led by the passionate and talented Edward Radcliffe descends upon Birchwood Manor on the banks of the Upper Thames. Their plan: to spend a secluded summer month in a haze of inspiration and creativity. But by the time their stay is over, one woman has been shot dead while another has disappeared; a priceless heirloom is missing; and Edward Radcliffe’s life is in ruins.

Over one hundred and fifty years later, Elodie Winslow, a young archivist in London, uncovers a leather satchel containing two seemingly unrelated items: a sepia photograph of an arresting-looking woman in Victorian clothing, and an artist’s sketchbook containing a drawing of a twin-gabled house on the bend of a river.

Why does Birchwood Manor feel so familiar to Elodie? And who is the beautiful woman in the photograph? Will she ever give up her secrets? (Review to follow.)

Pre-order The Clockmaker’s Daughter from Amazon UK

Castle GayCastle Gay (Dickson McCunn #2) by John Buchan

Retired Glasgow provisions merchant and adventurer, Dickson McCunn, first seen in Huntingtower, features for a second time in Castle Gay.

His group of boys known as the ‘Gorbals Die-hards’ have gone on to Cambridge University. Now Dougal and Jaikie embark on ‘seeing the world’. Their escapades involve Castle Gay, its occupant Mr Craw, and all manner of interesting characters.  (Review to follow.)

What Cathy (will) Read Next

Paris EchoParis Echo by Sebastian Faulks (hardcover, library copy)

American postdoctoral researcher Hannah and runaway Moroccan teenager Tariq have little in common, yet both are susceptible to the daylight ghosts of Paris. Hannah listens to the extraordinary witness of women who were present under the German Occupation; in her desire to understand their lives and through them her own, she finds a city bursting with clues and connections. Out in the migrant suburbs, Tariq is searching for a mother he barely knew. For him, in his innocence, each boulevard, Métro station and street corner is a source of surprise.

Sebastian Faulks is appearing at Henley Literary Festival on 29th September 2018 (tickets still available as at 18th September). 

The Long and Winding RoadThe Long and Winding Road by Alan Johnson (hardcover)

From the condemned slums of Southam Street in West London to the corridors of power in Westminster, Alan Johnson’s multi-award-winning autobiography charts an extraordinary journey, almost unimaginable in today’s Britain. This third volume tells of Alan’s early political skirmishes as a trades union leader, where his negotiating skills and charismatic style soon came to the notice of Tony Blair and other senior members of the Labour Party.

As a result, Alan was chosen to stand in the constituency of Hull West and Hessle, and entered Parliament as an MP after the landslide election victory for Labour in May 1997. But this is no self-aggrandizing memoir of Westminster politicking and skulduggery. Supporting the struggle of his constituents, the Hull trawlermen and their families, for justice comes more naturally to Alan than do the byzantine complexities of Parliamentary procedure. But of course he does succeed there, and rises through various ministerial positions to the office of Home Secretary in 2009.

In The Long and Winding Road, Alan’s characteristic honesty and authenticity shine through every word. His book takes you into a world which is at once familiar and strange: this is politics as you’ve never seen it before…

Alan Johnson is appearing at Henley Literary Festival on 30th September 2018 (event now sold out).