Three year old Lily awakes from her daytime nap and calls for her Mum. Mummy never comes. Lily is alone in the flat with just Archie, her bear. In a hospital not so very far away is a young woman is in a coma. Her last word was "Lily"........

This story started really well. We had various threads - Lily alone in the flat, the unknown woman in the hospital, the elderly lady in the flat below Lily and Lily's Father Michael who is hoping to visit. These all progressed very well with an element of tension building up as Lily is alone for a while. Unfortunately, however, these threads all came together about a third of the way through the book removing the tension and turning this rather promising story into a run of the mill domestic. We have some love interest, everyday lives, the unknown woman recovering & Lily saved. The tension that was there when Lily was alone in her flat was gone leaving behind a story which isn't terribly special. I was quite cross really as this was building into an excellent story but I was left rather deflated.

There is no doubt that the author can write a good story. The characters are good and are still very clear in my mind several days after completing the book. The characters did start to get a bit rounded and loose their distinction towards the end but thankfully enough had been done at the beginning to make them diverse.

I did enjoy this book but felt the author shouldn't have taken the comfortable option but turned the story a different way. The author could have continued or increased the tension and left the comfortable domestic story behind. I would be interested in reading other books by this author - hopefully the next one will be a little more daring.

I received a free copy of this book via Netgalley.