Customer Reviews

Losing You

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

On Sandling Island, England, divorced Nina Landry raises her two children, fifteen years old Charlie and Jackson. Nina is looking forward to a Christmas vacation in Florida with her boyfriend marine biologist Christian and is pleasantly stunned when he and others arrange a surprise fortieth birthday party for her.

However her joy turns to concern when Charlie fails to come home from a teen pajama party. Not only is this out of character for her daughter, but Charlie also promised to help pack for the Florida trip, a vacation the teen was looking forward to. Nina goes to the police, who provide her with platitudes about teens and nothing else just like friends and family did earlier. Each minute that passes with no news is like a nuclear bomb exploding in her stomach, but nothing except helplessness and fear happen.

This tense thriller is told predominantly by Nina so that the audience sees her dread grow rapidly and out of control because she is frustrated and fears the worst. Fans especially parents will empathize with Nina, as she not only prays for the safe return of her daughter, she offers deals to the Lord to make it happen. This is a winner from Nicci French as Nina's life goes from joy to terror in a short span.

Harriet Klausner

Nina Landry, her daughter Charlie, and son Jackson along with Christian, Nina's love interest are supposed to be getting ready to leave Sandling Island for a Christmas vacation in Florida. Coincidently, today happens to be her fortieth birthday, too. Their plane is scheduled to leave Heathrow at 6p.m., thus the whole family thinks it has plenty of time for last minute errands and packing. And the last thing on Nina's mind or agenda is a morning surprise birthday party planned by her daughter, who has not been seen since she left for an overnight pajama party the evening before. As soon as Nina realizes that Charlie is really missing she asks the celebrants to leave the house and she begins a frantic search for her. She tries to get help from the local constabulary, her ex-husband and Charlie's friends. Unfortunately no one believes that the teen is really in trouble.
Nicci French (husband and wife writing team of journalists Nicci Gerrard and Sean French) has never let her readers down. The first few lines grab the reader and keep her/him glued to the book. Fast pacing, spare prose and a story every parent can identify with make LOSING YOU another winner for fans.

This was one of the most suspenseful mysteries I have read in a long time. It's Nina's birthday and she is getting ready to take her kids and her boyfriend to Florida for Christmas. While trying to get everything ready for the trip, a surprise birthday party occurs supposedly put together by her daughter, Charlie. When Charlie doesn't show up for the party or for the departure of the trip, Nina becomes frantic with worry. The first thing she does is go to the police but they don't believe Charlie is in danger. Just another teenager who is trying to make a statement with her parents by hiding out for a night. Nina doesn't believe it so she takes it upon herself to try and find her daughter. As a mother, Nina's gut feeling is, something is drastically wrong here. As a mother, the thought of a missing child can suck the life right out of you. I was pulling for Nina every step of the way.
This is a quick read and it keeps you on the edge of your seat right up until the end. Highly recommend.

I've read many books by Nicci French and they (because it's actually two authors) never let me down with their plotting and suspense. What I most enjoyed about this book is how realistic the mother's actions were once she learned her daughter was missing. As I read it, I kept thinking, Yes! That's exactly how I would respond as well, especially all the times she was impatient with the people she interviewed and the police who weren't moving fast or smart enough for her. She was a mother bear searching for her cub, she had no time to waste and it all just rang spot on for me. Keep up the excellent work, Nicci French!

With masterful twists and turns French has produced another book you do not want to put down. The characters are average Brits who find thenselves trapped in extraordinary suspense. If you like PD James, Priscilla Masters,and others in the field of psychological suspense, this book is a winner. I highlighy recommend it.

Three stars is actually a bit on the generous side, but I do want to give the authors credit for the parts done well; it is also a book that will probably appeal to many casual readers. Unfortunately, the best thing about the book, to me, was that it was a quick read, so I didn't waste a great deal of time on it.

It began interestingly enough and did draw me in at first. The writing style is fairly smooth and literate. The mother's emotions as she searched for her daughter were fairly well developed. However, she was the only character that was at all convincing. The others might as well have been cardboard cut-outs for all character they were given. People wandered into and out of the story for no real reason. For example, the cousin who came to help out and then just left--there was really no point to her being in the story at all. Such was also the case with the boyfriend who was supposed to be going on vacation with them; he was stuck in traffic for the entire book and never appeared at all! There were a number of other irrelevant characters, as well. It's just plain annoying to have authors throw in characters and then leave them floating around, useless.

Plotting was not intricate; it was needlessly complicated. There were things the mother learned as she searched that seemed as if they were going to be relevant, but turned out to have nothing to do with the whole business in the end. As the story drew to its conclusion, it became more and more formulaic and trite. I don't want to throw in plot spoilers for those who might want to read this, so I'll simply have to say that there was absolutely no logical reason for some of the things the "bad guy" did. They were only put in to keep the story going. Many of the final events were as unbelievable as the characters. And, while I don't feel the need to have everything neat and tidied up at the end of a story, there were too many loose ends left hanging.

If you want an easy, unchallenging read and aren't too bothered by a lack of believability, you may enjoy this book. It's much like many made-for-Lifetime TV movies--a child at risk, a mother who will do whatever it takes to save her, etc.--so if you like those, you'll probably like this. I didn't.

As the English say, children "go missing" all the time. That's what single mom Nina has to face when her 15 year old fails to come home to pack for a family holiday. Losing You is the story of that day, told from the perspective of a mother who refuses to let bureaucratic red tape interfere with the search. Nina is not a police officer, but she knows well that the first hours that follow a disappearance are crucial, so, although she is on the verge of hysteria, she takes matters into her own hands. Fortunately, the family lives on a tiny island, and Nina is able to trace her daughter's footsteps, question her friends, and visit some of Charlie's haunts. When she discovers the body of another teenager, one whom Charlie knew, things begin to look hopeless indeed.

This is an intricately plotted novel written by two contemporary masters of the genre. Losing You lacks the sinister edge of some of their previous works, but the mountain moving tenacity with which Nina drives herself builds and sustains a different sort of tension. Well done, as the English also say!

LOSING YOU by Nicci French opens on a day that should be shot through with excitement. But instead it turns deadly for Nina Landry, single mother of daughter Charlie and son Jackson. Today is her 40th birthday, and since it falls just before Christmas, they, accompanied by Nina's boyfriend Christian, are leaving for a long-planned Florida vacation. They live on the remote Sandling Island, which is joined to the coast of East Anglia by a tidal causeway. Since their plane is not scheduled to leave Heathrow until 6 pm, the whole family thinks they have plenty of time for last-minute errands and packing.

But when Nina arrives home, she finds Charlie's chores still undone. The girl had promised that if she could attend a sleepover the night before the trip, she would come home early enough to take care of everything. Determined not to get upset, Nina takes care of her own tasks, then finally sits down for a cup of tea and to open her birthday cards. To further relax, she takes a bath. But while drying her hair, she hears pounding at the front door. She is confronted by at least a dozen people serenading her with "Happy Birthday to You" in her house; one of them explains that Charlie arranged it. But still there is no sight of her.

One hour after the next slips past, as the oblivious revelers continue celebrating while Nina becomes more frantic. She is secure in the fact that Charlie, who was eagerly looking forward to this trip, didn't run away. But as the "tide was advancing, creeping up the mudflats...it was misty, a gauze hanging over everything," her instincts were sending frantic SOS signals. Yet again she's distracted when her cousin Renata --- who is deeply depressed, frightened and neurotic, and who is supposed to dog sit --- arrives amidst the chaos. Her husband has left her.

After leaving Renata to settle herself in, Nina calls everyone she can think of who might know where Charlie might be, but has no luck. At this point she starts to hustle the mostly drunken partygoers out of the house. When they leave she decides to call the authorities. A reluctant PC Mahoney is not impressed with the information Nina gives him and makes clear that he doesn't believe that Charlie really disappeared. He tells her that he will send a car to scout around for her. With a sinking heart and visions of all kinds of horrors, she comes to terms with the fact that no one believes her and she alone will have to find her daughter.

Nina discovers that Charlie was last seen early in the morning, picking up the papers she was to deliver on her route. She seemed fine and took off on her bike the same way she did every day. Only one person claims to have chatted with Charlie as she cycled by, but most of her customers had called to complain because their paper never arrived. Having no more information after speaking with Charlie's friends and anyone else who might have seen her, Nina is in a full-blown panic. She admits to herself that Charlie can be difficult and confrontational, often secretive but not sadistic. The lonely search for her child sends Nina into psychological places no parent should have to visit.

The knuckle-biting race to find Charlie will capture readers with or without children. The nightmare every parent dares not think about is brought to the fore full force --- the fear, the adrenaline rushes, the hope that turns to hopelessness and back again, the fatigue, the breathless moments when the heart feels that it is going to burst and the gruesome pictures of violence and death that spin in and out of the searcher's mind. Nina is a very believable first person narrator, and this story could not be told with such bone-chilling reality any other way. Readers sympathize and empathize with her and with Charlie as well; after all we don't know what has happened to her either.

LOSING YOU is written without chapters, which speeds up the pace of the narrative. The straightforward plot races like a tsunami as it rushes to its frightening climax. With two devices --- the island with a rising tide and the looming vacation --- French offers readers a riveting experience. The story is universal, the emotions are viscerally human and the length is such that some may choose to reach the conclusion in one sitting.

LOSING YOU is the ninth book from the husband and wife team of Nicci Gerard and Sean French, who are masters at writing hair-raising thrillers. Each of their novels has a gravitas that keeps readers involved and panting. For fans and those new to Nicci French, this is a novel you should not miss.

Losing You was a great book and a quick read. I loved it. Wanted to keep reading straight thru to the end. I was happy to have found this author. A very worthwhile read!

This book was not as riveting as previous novels. I always finish what I start, but this book can be put down again and again.