‘Mummy, she’s gone…’

Gemma Ballantine is getting ready for work one morning when her eldest child comes running down the stairs, saying the words every mother dreads.

The front door is open. And her six-year-old daughter has disappeared. Frantic with fear, Gemma starts a nail-biting search for her little girl.

After what feels like forever, her mother-in-law Diane finds Katie wandering lost a few streets away. Relieved to have her youngest child back in her arms, breathing in the sweet scent of her hair, Gemma thinks the nightmare is over.

But then her perfect family starts to fall apart.

And she realises it’s only just beginning…

A parent’s worst nightmare… you’re just about to leave the house for the day, make the school run, and head to work when you realize your 6 year old daughter walked out the front door of your house onto a busy road!

Thank God for your mother-in-law who happened to be traveling on the way out and noticed little Katie lost on the road! Whew… good mother-in-laws are hard to find you know!

Have you ever looked, as an outsider/stranger/acquaintance, at a woman who seems to have it all? Career, nice house on the seaside, a wonderful loving husband, 2 beautiful kids… they’re so annoying right? They seem… perfect. The perfect family. Except The Perfect Family doesn’t exist. Ever. Even though Gemma and Robert try really hard to put up a front, they need help. They are stretched too thin with work and kids. Again, thank God for Robert’s family. His mother, sister-in-law and brother have always been there for them when things get tough.

If it weren’t for Robert’s mother, who knows just about everyone in the community, Gemma and Robert wouldn’t have known what to do when they realized they can’t juggle everything. With Diane’s help, they hire Sadie, a live in nanny. Relief sets in. Life returns to normal and everything falls into place.

The end…

Nope! Not even close. The huge twist at the end of this story will no doubt knock you off your seat. Like all the characters in all of her books, trust no one. Suspect everyone. No one is innocent.

Shalini Boland never disappoints! When I crack open her books I always prepare to be amazed! 5⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Shalini Boland lives in Dorset, England with her husband, two sons and their cheeky poodle-terrier cross. Before kids, she was signed to Universal Music Publishing as a singer/songwriter, but now she spends her days writing suspense thrillers (in between school runs and hanging out endless baskets of laundry).

Her debut psychological thriller The Girl from the Sea published in June 2016 reached Number 1 in the US Audible charts. Her second thriller The Best Friend published in October 2016 reached a high of number 10 in Amazon’s UK Kindle charts. It also achieved number 1 in all its categories and was a Kindle All Star title for several months in a row.

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