The Nowhere Child by Christian White #bookreview #audiobook

I purchased this book for my own personal collection. I borrowed the audiobook from the library.

Publisher: Minotaur Books / Macmillan Audio

Published: January 22, 2019 (first published June 2018)

 

Summary:

Winner of the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award, The Nowhere Child is screenwriter Christian White’s internationally bestselling debut thriller of psychological suspense about a woman uncovering devastating secrets about her family–and her very identity…

Kimberly Leamy is a photography teacher in Melbourne, Australia. Twenty-six years earlier, Sammy Went, a two-year old girl vanished from her home in Manson, Kentucky. An American accountant who contacts Kim is convinced she was that child, kidnapped just after her birthday. She cannot believe the woman who raised her, a loving social worker who died of cancer four years ago, crossed international lines to steal a toddler.

On April 3rd, 1990, Jack and Molly Went’s daughter Sammy disappeared from the inside their Kentucky home. Already estranged since the girl’s birth, the couple drifted further apart as time passed. Jack did his best to raise and protect his other daughter and son while Molly found solace in her faith. The Church of the Light Within, a Pentecostal fundamentalist group who handle poisonous snakes as part of their worship, provided that faith. Without Sammy, the Wents eventually fell apart.

Now, with proof that she and Sammy are in fact the same person, Kim travels to America to reunite with a family she never knew she had. And to solve the mystery of her abduction–a mystery that will take her deep into the dark heart of religious fanaticism where she must fight for her life against those determined to save her soul…

 

My thoughts:

I first discovered Christian White when I read his sophomore novel, The Wife and the Widow, which I absolutely loved! I knew I had to go back and read his debut novel and immediately bought it, but as we all know just because we buy the book doesn’t mean we are going to get to it right away. Well, I finally got to it and I’m so mad I waited so long…this book was just as amazing as his second book and I cannot wait to get my hands on his third book, Wild Place!

This is such an addicting, cleverly crafted psychological thriller that grabbed me from the beginning. That opening scene really hooked me and I was all in from there. This is a kidnapping case unlike any you have read before. There are just the right amount of twists and turns along the way to keep you completely engaged and I found myself unwilling to put this one down. The way the story moves back and forth in time, switching at just the right moment when we learn something really keeps you on edge, wanting to know how it is going to play out.

Between the unreliable characters, the cult, the snakes, the religious fanaticism, and just the right amount of creepiness thrown in, I was unsure who to trust and did not see that ending coming! How this is a debut novel, I have no idea but consider me a mega-fan of this author for sure!

 

Audio thoughts:

I decided to listen to this one in order to get to it a little sooner and boy what a great audiobook it was! The narrator, Katherine Littrell, did a fantastic job bringing this story to life. She really draws you into the story and makes it hard to put down until you reach the end. Her pacing was spot on and she gave each and every character their own personality and voice.