Sarah Wray

Four months ago our protagonist Rebecca Pendle’s husband Chris went missing. She thought they were happily married and there was no signs that there was anything wrong so his disappearance is a massive shock turning her life upside down.
On the very same day 14-year-old Kayleigh Jackson also goes missing. She had gone to meet up with her friends but she never made it there.
Is it just a coincidence or are they both connected in some way?
A search was made looking for the missing teenager and only Bec is actively looking for her husband.
As the search goes on with no signs of Kayleigh the 2 disappearances appear to be connected but no solid evidence to confirm it.
As with any small town rumours are ripe, there is the accusation that Chris is a paedophile, that there was child pornography found on his computer, that Chris used to spend a lot of time with Kayleigh and consequently he has either killed her or he has her captive somewhere. Or maybe they have run off together?
The story is told from Bec’s point of view and her life since her husband disappeared.
She has been living in a caravan for four months and is shunned by almost everyone as they hold Chris responsible for Kayleigh’s disappearance.
It is only Bec that doesn’t believe there is any truth in the rumours but as she starts her own investigation into what happened that day four months ago she discovers her husband has been keeping secrets.
She discovers that Chris had lost his job which comes as a massive shock to her because he had still kept up the appearance of going to work, taking his packed lunch she makes for him every morning and she was waving him off to work as normal.
How could she not know? Why had he not told her and where had he been going everyday?
If he could hide that from her what else didn’t she know about her husband?
As she continues to search for answers strange things start to happen. She starts getting strange phone calls, things have been moved in her house and even things have started to go missing from her mum’s room in the care home.
This book is quite a slow burner and I did find it a struggle at times to carry on reading it, even though the book is really well written it failed to grab and hold my attention unfortunately. But i had to finish the book as i needed to know how it ended, sheer curiosity kept me going to the end!
It was just to slow for me but this is a book that you need to read for yourselves and make up your own mind as we are all different, some books fit different people in different ways.
This book is a bit like Marmite, you will either love it or hate it!! 🙂… (altro)

This book had so much potential. The premise sounded promising and I thought the subject was very topical. That being said the only thing that kept me reading this book was to see what happened to the two missing characters. I had a theory, based on events that happened in the book, but I was wrong. I think my ending may have been more satisfying, I don't know.
The first problem of the book for me was the main character Rebecca. She is just so pitiful for so long that it's hard to get to know or like her. And my gosh this woman must look a mess with how many times she falls, scrapes, gets hit in the book. Someone buy her some band-aids!! I got sick of her pity party and wish she had gotten stronger much earlier in the book.
My second problem in the book was the addition of certain events and scenes that seemed confusing and unnecessary at times. Her best friends birthday for instance. I am pretty sure that if we cut that scene out of the book we wouldn't lose much of the story.
And of course the ending. The reason we all read. To get to the end of a book and wish there were just 10 more pages so we could just keep on reading. Putting that book aside and feeling satisfied with what a tale you have read. It almost felt as if the writer stopped caring about the book as well. Sorry Ms. Wray, but this one just didn't do it for me.… (altro)

This was SO BAD.
I cannot get my head around the fact that there are actually positive reviews here. Come on people, it was just awful.
The first half of the book just nothing happens. Literally - half of the book.
Rebecca just goes around whining, moping, drinking, maxing out credit cards while not going to work, whining some more about not having money and getting constantly abused by freaking children - I mean, seriously?!
The second half of the book has sort of a progress, but it's just so stupid and lame!

I must say, I skipped through the last chapters because by that time everything was so unbearable, but I kinda have a feeling that the police came rushing to arrest the bad men because Rebecca secretly called 911 and the operator listened to all the evil plans of evil men (which of course were discussed in detail in front of our main character). Hello, every action B-movie from the 90s.
Anyways, I know I may be wrong about that one, but it would fit perfectly in the whole idiocy of the book.

PS. I so loved the idea, the premise - a man and a girl disappear on the same day and no one really knows if disappearances are connected! Shame that it was so badly executed.

PS.2. Anyone else noticed the whole sentences repeated in different chapters? My ebook had a paragraph about "shops are closing, owners are hoovering" repeated in two chapters word by word.… (altro)

Reviewed By Beckie Bookworm
https://www.beckiebookworm.com



So "Reported Missing" What did I think?
Well I would love to say that this bowled me over, but sadly I can't, It was an ok read and I did finish, but it was definitely a struggle to get to the end and I really did consider abandoning Reported Missing numerous times throughout.
So a brief run-through.
Our story centres around Rebecca Pendle (Bec) whose husband "Chris" has been missing for four months. Coincidently Schoolgirl "Kayleigh Jackson" is also missing and Rebecca faces a small town who believe the two events to be linked, as she tries to discover the truth about her husband's disappearance, secrets are revealed that lead to a totally different conclusion for all involved here.
So why didn't we gel?
Well There were a few things going on here that grated on me the first being that I found Rebecca as a character a really annoying,abrasive, selfish and very whiny individual, I wanted to give her a huge kick up the backside and tell her to wake up and smell the coffee!!!



Now the way this story was told we were in Rebecca's head the entire book and that a real no no if you are not liking the person whose head you are in and I so wasn't liking Rebecca at all.
I was in a word really bored.
Bored with Rebecca's wanderings and pointless repetitive thoughts that seemed to lead nowhere, in particular, frankly, I was losing the will to live and I wanted out of her constricting narrow-minded headspace.

Now Look, I get it that her husband has walked leaving her floundering but it shows the mettle of this person in how she deals with this awful happening, Rebecca is still floundering in the pits of self-Pity four months later.
need I say more?
And also By the time we do get some answers for her I'd actually lost interest in the question and its reply, all that time we spent inside Bec's head I kept expecting something to happen, but no it's just more random wool gathering and self-pity, woe is me type stuff, and when we do get some actual closure I found it very anti-climatic indeed, it was like is that it?
I found this a very predictable read and you could kind of guess where it was going (and I was right)
There were some redeemable features to Reported Missing, and these did keep me persevering to the final curtain.
For one there were some great secondary character's, in particular, the friend Jeanie, I thought she was an unappreciated saint and Bec was very lucky to have her.
Also, Julie from the Caravan park, loved her, what a legend.
I also didn't like the lack of closure the whole experience gave me overall.
I found Reported missing very well written, it was just that the subject matter itself didn't grab me by the throat and I really failed to connect with the main character Rebecca.
Like massively!!!
This might have a totally different outcome for you.
I would like to Thank NetGalley, the publisher and the author for providing me with a free advanced readers copy of Reported Missing, this is my own honest unbiased opinion.

Reviewed By Beckie Bookworm
https://www.beckiebookworm.com/
https://www.facebook.com/beckiebookworm/… (altro)