The School Trip by Miranda Smith has two little girls disappearing during a school field trip to the local pumpkin patch. It is a mother’s worst nightmare to have a child go missing. The story is told from Emma, a schoolteacher and mother, and the kidnapper’s point-of-view. The majority of the story is told from Emma’s POV with little snippets from the guilty party. I like the kidnapper’s sections because it gives the reader insights into the kidnapper. I found The School Trip to be a slow starter. The pacing picks up a little when Claire, Emma’s daughter, disappears from the pumpkin patch. I found Emma a hard character to like. I understand that she is grieving the loss of her husband, which we are told numerous times. Emma feels that his death is her fault which is another repetitive detail. I liked Emma’s sister-in-law, Piper. She was a mysterious character. Piper had some secrets of her own as well as helpful connections. I liked the linear timeline of the story. We follow the investigation from the beginning until the end. The author captured the character’s emotions. I did feel the ending was rushed. The story played out in a predictable manner. I was able to identify the guilty party early in the story. I found the story easy to read, but it did not hold my interest. I skimmed through sections to get to the end. I quickly tired of all the repetition (guilt, grief, despair, raising her daughter on her own, husband’s death is her fault, etc.). I wanted action, suspense, and intrigue. I appreciated the epilogue. The School Trip is a book that I read, but I did not enjoy. ( )

The School Trip was an 'unputdownable' book that kept me up way past bedtime. There was no way that I could sleep until I found out how the book ended.

Emma is a kindergarten teacher. She's a recent widow and worries about her 6 year old daughter Claire and how her father's death will affect her. As the story begins, all of the kindergarten classes take a field trip to the local pumpkin patch. Even though Claire isn't in Emma's class, they are on the field trip together. The kids have a great time - petting the animals, going on a hayride and playing in the park. Claire doesn't get to spend as much time as with Claire because she has to take care of her own class but she trusts her daughter's teacher to do the same. When a little girl goes missing, Emma works with the other teachers to find her. The police are called and when the little girl is found, the parents and their children begin to leave. That's when Emma realizes that Claire is missing. She knows that her daughter wouldn't leave with a stranger and begins to search for her. The police have a video of the park exit that shows Claire walking out of the park with a stranger. After losing her husband two years before, she is totally upset that she may have also lost her daughter and blaming herself as she wonders if there is somehow a link between her husband's death and her daughter's disappearance.

As a parent, it's hard to imagine anything worse than having your child disappear and the author takes us through all of Emma's anguish and tears. Her willingness to do whatever she can to find her daughter cause the police to begin to leave her out of their case but she's willing to go against them and follow an idea that she has about who is responsible. This book was a real roller coaster ride with lots of twists and turns. The author did an interesting thing to make things even more tense for the reader -- interspersed in the story are several chapters by the kidnapper who has an attitude that is totally unhinged. Those chapters made me worry more about what the outcome would be because I could see the unnamed kidnapper as someone willing to hurt Claire


This was a fantastic thrilling book that melded the search for the child with the grief from the loss of her husband that Emma continues to work through. I highly recommend this thriller and have ordered some of Miranda Smith's earlier novels. ( )