Hide and Seek by Andrea Mara
The game of hide and seek is over, everyone has gone home, but little Lily Murphy hasn’t been found. Her parents search the woods and tell themselves that the worst hasn’t happened – but deep down they know this peaceful Dublin suburb will never be the same again.
#HideAndSeek @AndreaMaraBooks @TransworldBooks #RandomThingsTours @annecater @RandomTTours #blogtour
COUNT TO TEN
Years later, Joanna moves into a new house. It seems perfect in every way, until she learns that this was once Lily Murphy’s home. From that moment onwards, a sense of dread seems to follow her from room to room.
AND WHEN YOU OPEN THEM, YOUR CHILD IS GONE
As Joanna unravels the secrets at the heart of this close-knit community, her own dark past begins to resurface. Because she thinks she knows what really happened to Lily – and if the truth gets out, it might be her undoing…
My Review
Wow what a fantastic book this was! So many theories, so many red herrings and so many twists. Reading with The Pigeonhole we had numerous ideas, most of them totally wrong.
Hide and Seek is set in two timelines. The first one is ‘now’ or 2018, when Joanna moves into her new ‘forever’ home with husband Mark and their three children. It’s in the same suburb – Rowanbrook – where Mark lived as a child and his parents Tom and Susie still reside.
The second timeline goes back to the summer of 1985 when three-year-old Lily Murphy went missing. Did she drown in the nearby stream or was she taken? Her body was never found. I could not have guessed the outcome in a million years. It was a thrilling discovery, so unexpected. With a couple of further twists thrown in at the end for good measure.
But the first twist is that the house that Joanna and Mark have just moved into is the one where the Murphys lived when Lily disappeared. No-one told Joanna and she is unsurprisingly unsettled. Did Mark know? He must have done. So she starts digging.
But does anyone in Rowanbrook know what really happened that summer? Are they keeping secrets? Joanna keeps plenty of secrets of her own, even from her husband. But she can never tell, because the truth is too enormous, too ghastly and too damning to ever come out.
There are so many people who could have been involved at the time, but were they? Because half of them seem to have their own dirty little secrets, including numerous affairs, that have nothing whatsoever to do with Lily Murphy. But as we all know in great fiction, the truth must all come out in the end. And when it does it’s mind-blowing.
Many thanks to @annecater for inviting me to be part of #RandomThingsTours and to The Pigeonhole, and my fellow Pigeons for making this such an enjoyable read.
About the Author
Andrea Mara is a Sunday Times and Irish Times top ten bestselling author, and has been shortlisted for a number of awards, including Irish Crime
Novel of the Year. She lives in Dublin, Ireland, with her husband and three young children, and also runs multi-award-winning parent and lifestyle blog, OfficeMum.ie. All Her Fault was her first thriller to be published in the UK and internationally and was a Sunday Times bestseller.
