Little Girl Lost by Carol Wyer is a fast paced, edge of your seat thriller that you'll want to get your hands on asap! Trust me! This series ( yay , I need more stat!!!) follows the main character, DI Robyn Carter as she delves into murders that seemingly have no connections. It starts with a missing school teacher, a murdered famous actor, and your mind is reeling as Robyn races to connect the dots before any more bodies turn up dead.

More people turn up dead, others are threatened and receive mysterious threatening notes, phone calls and messages. This book had me guessing the entire time! I My nerves were on edge as I flew through the pages, my heart racing. 

The author did such an incredible job with this book. It started off with a bang and it never dropped a beat. It was an intense, and fast read that will keep you guessing the entire time. I highly recommend it and can't wait for the next book in this series!

There are a number of interesting characters in this story and the little girl lost could apply to a number of the female characters. Who is the Little Girl lost? A teacher has gone missing, a bereaved DI is working as an investigator before returning to regular police duties. A mother starts receiving strange messages and seems to be hiding something. Add a few dead bodies and you start to wonder where and how the dots will be joined. The book flicks between past and present keeping you guessing with lots of twists and turns. This is the first book in the series of DI Robyn Carter books and kicks things off to an exciting and sometimes painful start. 

With many thanks to NetGalley, the author and the publisher Bookouture for a digital copy to read and review. I look forward to the next suspenseful episode.

This is the first book I have read by this author and although it is a difficult and sensitive topic to write about and I felt the author did an excellent job. A teacher disappears, a millionaire is murdered and this sets the pace for a very interesting journey. Detective Robyn Carter is returning to the police force after a break away for personal reasons. She starts looking into this case just before she returns while she is working for her brother-in-law's private investigation agency. This book is full of characters with secrets and we all know how secrets can change lives and cause immense damage to many relationships. This is an engrossing tale, a psychological thriller that will draw you in and keep you turning the pages wanting to know what is really going on. Each time I thought I was on track the story would take another turn completely throwing me off again. Thrilling and gripping this was a five star read for me. (less). Thank you to Netgalley , the author and publisher for the chance to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

Huge thanks to Bookouture for an ecopy of this book in exchange for an honest review. Something which I'm more than happy to give.  

Wow, where do I begin? I began this book knowing it was a psychological thriller but at the same time expecting it to be a little bit light hearted because it was written by Carol Wyer - she writes humorous, laugh out loud books - something this absolutely was not!  

I'm amazed as the ability to switch genre and produce a book that is both captivating and gritty making me want to read on and on - if only lunch breaks were endless, yet at the same time aspects of it were difficult to read.

Robyn Carter is working at a detective agency whilst taking a recuperating break from the police where she is a detective - she finds herself embroiled in a private investigation that she quickly realises can only be dealt with by the police.  Due back at work shortly she returns early to take on the case.

Carol has woven the lives of the many characters intricately into the plot.  It took me a little bit of keeping up with at first - we have the missing person, an ex music teacher who Robyn was initially commissioned to look for as part of a Private Investigation.  Then a murder made to look like an accident whist out jogging.  A child is abducted and the realisation that all of them are connected in someway to Abigail who is being blackmailed by an anonymous source makes for many chest tightening moments.

The story is told in both the present and the past and by the victims and the murderer - how Carol Wyer kept all those balls in the air I don't know but I'm thankful she did.  This is a fast paced book with short snappy chapters that leave no time to ponder as the plot unravels at an alarming rate.  A grippingly, captivating story that is just that little bit too awful for words - a story that made me want to read between my fingers at times. To say this is Carol Wyer's first foray into the thriller world is beyond amazing and Little Girl Lost is just the first in a series.

Thank you Carol for such a brilliant debut thriller, I look forward to book 2.

Where do I start?? Carol's debut to the #darkside is an unforgettable one to say the very least!
 
This incredible book is so twisty-turny, topsy-turvy it will leave you completely dumbfounded. I still can't quite grasp what I read. I was left guessing, confused, shocked, and more than a little unsettled.
 
The characters are so richly drawn they become real. Their stories weave a delicate web, an intricate maze that culminates in an exquisite, disturbing story that is, at times, hard to read. Still, it's somehow done in such a delicate, sensitive manner that you really feel the pain and sadness they've suffered.
 
I don't know what else I can say without giving anything away. I just need to advise you to read this book. And then the next one. DI Robyn will be a character I look out for! She's gona be a kickass heroine!

The minute I was half way through this book, I was anxious to write my review. This novel was absolutely brilliant. If you are a fan of M.J. Arlidge, I definitely suggest this novel for you. Even though it was very different, for me it still had a lot of connections in the way it was written. I received this read on NetGalley from Bookouture Publishing and I am so pleased to finally get this review out there.

This novel starts off following another female Detective Inspector named Robyn Carter. She has just previously returned to the force after a tragic loss in her life. Her first case back on the force is a missing persons case. The man’s name is Lucas Matthew’s and his wife reported him missing. As Robyn starts looking into the wife’s claims and making her way through the investigation Lucas’ father, Paul Matthews has been murdered. As Robyn begins to think both men are connected somehow, she can’t figure out how. While she is in the middle of the investigation, Paul Matthews’ house cleaner and Mary Matthews’ (Lucas’ wife) end up dead. The only thing Robyn has to go on is that a mother and wife named Abigail Thorne is somehow connected to every person.

I loved everything about this book. I will be honest though, I was a little confused at the beginning of the novel and it took me a few chapters to finally put it all together. Inside the novel you read chapters told from a few different points of view but the main ones you need to remember are Alice, DI Robyn Carter and Abigail. They are the three most important characters that will leave you breathless come the last chapter.

Little Girl Lost has just the right amount of thrilling twists and turns that it deserved. There was enough to keep me on the edge of my seat and more than enough to keep my heart racing in fear of something bad happening at the end. The minute I thought I had the killer figured out, the book proved me wrong. It wasn’t until about 70% of the way through the book when I realized who the culprit was but did not know in any fashion how the situation would end up.

After finishing up the book, I was pretty bummed that it was over. It was such a great gripping read that I didn’t want it to end. I definitely wouldn’t mind if Carol Wyer wrote more and made it a DI Robyn Carter series!
Thank you to Bookouture Publishing for providing me a copy via NetGalley. It was a great pleasure to provide an honest review.

I'll start with the positives of this book:

Structurally, it was good. There weren't any sentences or turns of phrase which jarred and aside from one or two little errors, it was generally edited well. Also, in terms of suspense, the book did keep you guessing. You knew pretty early on that Alice was the one seeking revenge - this is pretty much laid out in the first chapter. What you don't know is who Alice now is and who the other characters are and how they fit in. So in that respect, the book was very readable.

Now, on to the other side:

However, I felt that the whole premise, and in particular the denouement, was weak and stretched one's belief just a little bit far. I've seen this before in thrillers - where everything needs to tie together at the end, but all of the threads are just a little bit too convenient and therefore just not believable. Alice, throughout all of the interludes where we were invited into her mind, was a very damaged girl (unsurprising considering her experiences). But it felt like there was a huge gap between that girl and the one who was actually committing the crimes. When they were far apart in time, it was fine, but as the interludes caught up temporally with the action, the gap didn't close for me and therefore I was unconvinced.

Furthermore, I found the characters pretty wooden, in particular DI Robyn Carter. Yes, she was suffering from grief, but it just didn't feel real. She simply wasn't a sympathetic character for me and at no time did I manage to summon much care about her and her life. She felt too 'constructed', as if the author had made a list of the kind of person she was supposed to be and the kind of behaviours and personality traits she had, and then shoehorned them all into the story at convenient moments. As such, she was never real. And she wasn't the only character who didn't pull together for me - none of them did entirely. Abigail did work to an extent, but even she felt constructed.

The book wasn't bad - it simply required polish. Perhaps the author is fairly new, in which case it was forgivable and with luck and more experience both she and the characters she's trying to build might improve, but it didn't read like a professional read.

Oh, and a marathon and a 10K race are not one and the same thing. As a marathon runner myself (and something of a pedant, I will admit), that little error just grated.

I received this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This is one of those books that I think will linger with me for a while. The story revolves around DI Robyn Carter, who after the loss of her husband had taken a leave from the police. She instead was working with her cousin Ross as a Private Investigator. She is sent to look into the disappearance of a teacher by the name of Lucas Matthews, who had been reported missing by his wife. 

The bodies start to pile up when first his father Paul Matthews is killed, his wife is poisoned and his father's housekeeper are all killed. The motive is one of revenge, but you are never quite sure why the others must die. Is it simply that they want no loose ends or is there even deeper and darker motives? 

The second storyline is that of a young girl named Alice and about her tragic life and circumstances far from her control and the dark and twisted spiral that occurs. This storyline is important as it explains why the killer became who they did.

 The story climaxes with the abduction of an infant from her mother's vehicle after an elaborate ruse. Why is the child taken you ask? I guess you are going to have to read this thrilling novel that kept me guessing!

Alice is eight years old and she and her widowed mother have moved in with her mother's new boyfriend and his two children.  Something unspeakable happens one night and she and her mother are no longer welcome at the house.  Mary is looking for her husband who's gone missing although she thought he'd gone on holiday to Thailand.  She enlists the help of DI Robyn Carter who's currently working for her private investigator cousin - she's taken a break from the police force after two traumatic losses.  Paul is a former actor and dies suddenly while out jogging.  Abigail is a young woman who seems to have everything - gorgeous pilot husband, beautiful baby daughter a large house and expensive cars - so who could be tormenting her and accusing both her and her husband of keeping secrets and threatening to make her pay.  Can Robyn find the link between all these people and discover the awful secret that has led to years of resentment and led someone to kill.  Really enjoyed this book and look forward to more in the Robyn Carter series. 

Thanks to Netgalley, the publisher and author for the opportunity to read and review this book.

This is a hard book for me to review because I almost gave up very early on in the story when without giving any plot away an incident was described in too much detail for my comfort. However I did carry on and found the rest of the book to be very well written with a clever twist or two along the way.

I would like to thank netgalley and bookouture for this ARC I received in exchange for an honest review.
Wow what a book! This tense thriller is a read that takes quite a lot of thinking about, it is extremely well written and when I put it down to go to work etc I did find I was trying to work out who was who and how did they know each other.
You start off by reading the prologue here this I have to admit is the most hard to read part of the book and certainly the most graphic so don't feel like it is all like this because it isn't but is needed to set the story off. In the prologue you meet Alice and her mother who have moved into Paul's huge house, Alice's father died earlier in the year and paul is Alice's mums fiancé. Paul has two children Natasha and Lucas. Paul and Alice's mother go to an awards evening and what happens in that house that night shapes Alice's future forever.
Chapter one introduces you to D.I Robyn Carter who is at the end of her year leave after losing her husband and unborn baby. We pick up with her at the end of her time working with her cousin who owns a private investigation business. The book then goes on to the next main character which is Abigail Thorne who is married to Jackson and has baby Izzy and bit by bit her friends.
This is the first in this series and will be afraid to read the next in case it's not as good as this one as this is the best book I've read of this genre. The book flows well with the chapters coming from either Robyn, Abigail or 'then' which really worked.
Robyn obviously has the dective side in her chapters and is a likeable character then you have Abigail who has started to receive threats and suggestions her husband is having an affair making her question everything in her life and the you have then which is told by Alice with events through her life that have made her who she is.
A great read, trying not to give anything away as this is definately a book that makes you think and then makes you go 'why did I not see that??'
I haven't read anything by carol wyer before but will definately look out for her name in the future.

It is great that some of the best fictional detectives over the past couple of years have been strong female characters with personality and intelligence and I suspect the fact that a lot of these have been through Bookouture is no coincidence. Carol Wyer’s latest book is her first foray into the world of the suspenseful thriller and she has really found her calling here with Detective Robyn Carter.  
Robyn is just returning to the police force after a personal tragedy and her first case concerns the disappearance of Lucas Matthews. His wife had thought that he was on a short break in Thailand with friends but she has been unable to contact him. When she finds his passport in a drawer at home she knows that something is seriously wrong and looks to Ross, a local private investigator, to help locate him. 
As the bodies start piling up and a young baby is kidnapped Robyn has to unravel an intricate and disturbing account going back a couple of decades. Little Girl Lost is a fascinating story dealing with complex family relationships  that will keep you guessing right up to the last few pages.  I simply didn’t want to put this one down! 
Supplied by Bookouture and Net Galley in exchange for an honest review. 
UK Publication Date: Jan 19 2017. 412 pages 
<a rel="nofollow" href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B01M9ETOCA/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=B01M9ETOCA&linkCode=as2&tag=angelrevie-21">Little Girl Lost: A gripping thriller that will have you hooked (Detective Robyn Carter crime thriller series Book 1)</a><img src="http://ir-uk.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=angelrevie-21&l=as2&o=2&a=B01M9ETOCA" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" />

Thank you to NetGalley for my copy of this novel. 

What did I just read?? It was suspenseful, mysterious, and exciting with excellent characterization. The story had just the right amount of twists & turns and I enjoyed reading. I am looking forward to what this author does next!

What a brave move from Carol Wyer to make the transition from writing funny, lighthearted books such as the fabulous Life Swap to something so intensely dark and disturbing in Little Girl Lost.  A move which completely paid off, I might add.  I found Little Girl Lost quite uncomfortable to start with as there are some disturbing opening scenes but real life is unfortunately filled with such darkness.

There are a lot of characters at the start and I found it slightly confusing, but out came my trusty notebook to jot down all the relevant names.  In a 'before' setting we are introduced to Alice who's about to become the stepdaughter of actor Paul Matthews.  Paul has two children of his own: sick and twisted Lucas and goth-girl Natasha.  Alice still hears the voice of her dead father speaking to her through her toy bunny and when something terrible happens to Alice and her mother's relationship with Paul breaks down, she only has her bunny for comfort as nobody believes her.

Meanwhile in a 'now' time setting, Abigail is happily married to Jackson and they have a beautiful baby called Izzy.  Abigail starts to get texts, emails and phone calls telling her that Jackson is having an affair.  She doesn't believe it at first, but then photographic evidence turns up in her inbox.  Her tormentor takes things a step further and tries to alienate Abi's friends by hacking her Facebook account and posting vicious messages on friends' pages purporting to be from Abi.  It becomes clear that her tormentor must be somebody who is close to her and has access to her house...

So what does Abi have to do with Alice, you might ask.  Well, Carol Wyer has managed to cleverly weave an intricate web of secrets and lies that ties your brain in knots!  I haven't even mentioned the excitement of bodies starting to turn up with toy rabbits placed at the scene.  Alice is back for revenge and she may very well be hiding in plain sight.  Nobody is safe, however tenuously linked to her past, in her quest for retribution.

A cracking first thriller from Carol Wyer that had me reading late into the night - I absolutely could not rest until I had discovered all the dark secrets of Little Girl Lost.

I chose to read an ARC and this is my honest an unbiased opinion.

Little Girl Lost doesn't only belong to one of my favorite genres, it also involves a serial killer. It might sound weird, but serial killer thrillers truly fascinate me... And the killer in this one definitely is a 'beauty'. Twisted, disturbed, messed up childhood and a touch of humanity, all put together in a huge bowl of REVENGE: that is basically the description of the perp in Little Girl Lost. The true identity is hidden for a long time, although it's quite easy to guess who it is before you reach the ending. 

Little Girl Lost is the first book of a new detective series and I'm glad I listened to the positive reviews. It's without doubt a worthy psychological thriller! The writing style is really enjoyable to read and there were lots and lots of plot twists to enjoy. The new main character of this series surely stumbles across some very disturbed and twisted characters during her first appearance. Robyn Carter is your typical DI main character with cliche messed up past and impressive detective skills, but I've grown to like her during the story. It wasn't love at first sight, but I will be looking forward to find out what happens to her in the future. Some of the other characters were on the border of annoying, but I guess some of them are supposed to be unlikeable/unreliable in the first place. The plot itself was a mix of messed up, intriguing, shocking with a healthy dose of paranoia. I'm sure most of the twists and revelations will surprise you, even though (part of) the ending was a little predictable. If you are looking for an entertaining, well written and twisted psychological thriller, Little Girl Lost is without doubt a great choice.

This was a gripping, page-turning novel with lots of twists and turns. I loved the main character, Detective Inspector Robyn Carter. Her character is well-developed and readers definitely will identify with her. As for the plot itself, I kept changing my mind about what was happening and trying to guess the outcome. I had no clue! I love to be surprised, and this book certainly delivered. This was my first Carol Wyer book and it will not be my last! Thanks for the wild ride!!

Sadly, I did not love this book as much as everyone else seems to.  With nearly a 4.5 star rating on Goodreads, I was really expecting to love it!

For me, this book just tried too hard.  I think a lot of the subplot was confusing and distracting - sooo many people with sooo much going on.  A lot of it just felt unneeded.  It was kind of unrealistic that so many people had connections to each other while all being unaware of each other.

I think the main story was really good.  Girl suffers childhood trauma and grows up to take revenge on those she sees responsible.  But the story just veered too far from this and got a little strange.  All the red herring characters didn't do much to add to the story and they didn't really disguise who was really "the bad guy"  it was all pretty easy to figure out.

I'd be interesting to read something else in the future by this author - but in the end this was a book I was just not thrilled with.

This book I am unable to review because as soon as it was available to download it was archived.  Very disappointed.

This is the first novel I have read from Caroly Wyer and I thought it was a pretty good read. 

As the book begins 9-year-old Alice is upset because she doesn't want her mummy to go out that evening. Her mother tells her to be a big girl. But Alice has her reasons for being nervous.

"It was going to happen again - even though he wasn't in the house. She just knew"

She asks her mother again if she has to go out. Her mother tells her this is their chance for happiness. Her mother is to be married to Paul. Alice feels that it's too soon as her daddy has only been gone less than a year. Her mother thinks that Alice should be happy....soon she will have a new step-father and a new brother and sister, Natasha and Lucas.

Natasha seems okay and Alice thought that Lucas was okay too. But that was before the other night. Alice tries not to worry because Lucas is out, staying at a friend's house overnight.

But something happens that night that will change the course of all their lives.

**I have to say that I had a really hard time with the prologue. It felt like there was a lot of graphic detail and I thought I might have to stop reading but I kept on. It did settle down after that but the first part was definitely upsetting and hard to read.

Present day we meet Detective Robyn Carter. After a devastating loss, she has been working as a PI with her cousin while she recovers. However, she's feeling stronger and will be going back to work with the police soon. But when a PI case looks like it's connected to a double homicide, she ends up going back to work sooner than she thought.

Abigail Thorne is married to Jackson and they have a beautiful daughter, Izzy. Her husband Jackson works as a private pilot. It's been an adjustment for everyone since Izzy was born. Between Jackson's odd hours and Abigail's focus on Izzy, they have had no real-time for each other and they are both stressed out. But Abigail has another reason to be stressed. She's been keeping secrets from her husband and now it seems that someone else wants these secrets to come to light. However, after receiving another anonymous text it seems like she's not the only one keeping secrets.

Someone wants to destroy her marriage. But who? and why?

And what does a murdered millionaire and missing teacher have to do with Abigail? Do they have something to do with the messages she's been receiving?

The first part of the book took awhile to get a grasp on. There are a lot of characters and there's a lot going on. The story is told in a then and now format and was a bit confusing but eventually I caught on.

In "then" Alice's story continues....we learn more about her childhood. In "now" Abigail's life continues to spiral out of control. Someone is out to make her life unbearable. They tell her that the worse is yet to come. Are her and Izzy in danger? After more threatening messages and a particularly horrible incident she speaks with Detective Robyn Carter.

So how are all of these incidents and people connected? And who and where is Alice now?

I would think I knew what was happening but then something would send me off in another direction. I had to know what was going on. How were these characters all connected?

This was a fast paced and gripping read. Intense and with twists and turns right up until the very end. I honestly didn't guess the ending, though I may have had a few things right. However, even if I had guessed who did what, I think I would still have been just as interested. 

Detective Robyn Carter is a really interesting character and I would love to read more about her. She's a great detective. Having suffered through such a devastating loss, she was determined to prove to herself that she hadn't lost everything. I think that this has the opportunity to be a very good series. I know that I'm looking forward to book two.

Thank you NetGalley, Bookouture, and Carol Wyer for providing an advanced readers copy of this book for me to read in exchange for my honest review.