Unfortunately, I did not finish this book. I have loved previous books by O'Neal, especially When We Were Mermaids, but this one I didn't see the point of. There were multiple perspectives in the story but I wasn't drawn into the story because I didn't feel like I knew why there were multiple perspectives. There was the storyline with the missing woman but I didn't feel like that was the clear main idea, it seemed just like some background noise.

The Lost Girls of Devon is about four generations of women who have experienced loss, betrayal and regret. The book is written in alternating perspectives( which can be hard to do as an author, and not confuse the reader) as the women work towards forgiveness and healing past hurt. I really liked this book and the lovable characters! Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I just bought and read "When We Believed In Mermaids" and I loved it!
I saw this was being released, and I had to read it.

Travel to Axestowe, meet some amazingly unique women
you will slip right in and become a part of the clan.

SEARCHING
- for a lost person - for the right path - for what's missing
- for family - for strength
- forgiveness - healing

If searching for a good book - you want this book.

The Lost Girls of Devon is about four generation of women who have experienced loss, betrayal and regret. The book is written in alternating perspectives as the women work towards forgiveness and healing past hurt. I really liked this book and the lovable characters! Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you for allowing me to read this book. Below is a link to my review on goodreads.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/49919774

The book was well written but I found myself not being drawn into all the different points of view. I thought it was going to be more of a family saga and not a mystery, obviously, that was on me not reading the description good enough, as it does plainly state that in the summary. I do however think I would read another one of the author's book as I did enjoy her descriptive writing

Gave this 4 stars on Goodreads:
Messy and complicated, this is a story of mothers and daughters and grandmothers that you don’t want to miss!

Do you know those books where the main character left home for one reason or another and has avoided going home for one reason or another and they are pushed to go home and must confront something - this is one of those books and I love this premise and will always!

Zoe Fairchild left a small English town a long time ago and never returned for a few reasons. When her friend has gone missing she returns to help with the search and must really reflect on the past in order to move into the future.

With four generations of women in one book and all taking turns to narrate, I highly suggest a sticky note with a small family tree to help keep all the ladies straight. Zoe is basically the main character, but her mother, grandmother and daughter each have their own stories and own things going on that make this book feel like a full story.

When describing this book to a few people I used these words - "This book is a mystery tied into a women's fiction book." Although at times I felt as though the mystery wasn't completely realized, it did fit nicely into the larger story of a woman confronting the things she needed to confront about her past.

I was surprised to realize when I finished this book that I have a lot of Barbara O'Neal's books on my want to read list on goodreads, but haven't read one. I will have to fix this and read more soon.

It was good book and enjoyed it....excellent storyline!

Hard to know which characters of mothers, grandmother and daughter Ute got it all of them in the book....How did it happened to two missing persons hmmm?

Thanks to Netgalley for the advanced copy....

The Lost Girls of Devon By Barbara O.Neal Reviewed on June 26, 2020 3+ sure was tempted to round up!
Story centers on four generations of women.
Lilian, who is the Mother of Poppy,
Grandmother to Zoe,
and is the
Great Grandmother to Isobel.

Love these ladies.
This is not my typical genre but I enjoyed this story!

Want to thank NetGalley and Lake Union Publishing for this early release granted to me in exchange for an honest professional review. Opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own.
Publishing Release Date scheduled for July 14, 2020

This book just did not entertain me. It was just kinda blah for me & it was irritating reading about Isabel's teenage drama which probably isn't as bad as she thinks. I'm sorry but I just had to DNF it. The family drama was eye catching so I'm sure alot of readers will enjoy this book. Thank you to Netgalley and Lake Union for my honest review

I thought this book would be more of a mystery. The mystery of the missing friend was really more of a backdrop to the larger story of 4 generations of women from the same family. I found the storylines of the women a little difficult to keep straight. I think the book might have been more interesting if it had centered a little more on the mystery. I rounded my rating up to 3 stars. It was good, but I would probably borrow the book from the library rather than purchasing.

This book was hard for me to rate. I enjoyed most of the book until the mystery behind Diana's disappearance was finally solved. Zoe travels to England to see her grandmother and help find her missing friend. It felt like Diana was such a minor part of the book, even though her disappearance was the center of the story. The whole point of the book was to find out what happened to her. That happens near the end and felt rushed. I have so many questions. How did she discover what was happening? What did she do? I wouldn't describe the book as a mystery at all. It's about family relationships, love, forgiveness, friendship and so much more. I didn't love the characters, but I also didn't hate them. Zoe has so much hatred for her mother and wants everyone who is her friend or family to have nothing to do with Poppy. Maybe she would have know what was happening to Diana if she would have kept taking with her. Instead she was mad at her for talking and being friendly with Poppy. Lillian and Poppy turned out to be better grandmothers than they were mothers. Would Isabel really be able to bring her cat over without it being quarantined? I can't believe they can't find any pictures or videos that were posted online about Isabel. Once it's on the Internet, it's pretty hard to completely erase any trace of it.

Recommend giving the book a try. The description of the scenery was beautiful. The forest with the bluebells was magical. I wanted to be walking on the moors with Sage/Cooper and see the ponies. I LOVED "When We Believed in Mermaids" and "The Art of Inheriting Secrets," so I definitely look forward to reading more books by the author.

I received a complimentary copy of this book from Lake Union Publishing through NetGalley. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

I only made it about 13% into this book and had to stop. I couldn't find myself engaged in the story or wanting to read to find out what happened. I couldn't keep the characters straight and found myself feeling more confused than anything. I wouldn't recommend and won't be finishing this book.

Zoe and her troubled daughter, Isabel, return from an adobe in Santa Fe to her grandmother Lillian's manor house in the coastal Devon village of Axestowe.
Zoe's childhood friend Diane has gone missing and Lillian fears the worse. Something is happening in the town which threatens them all.
What Zoe has to face is a tapestry of betrayal, love, fear and abandonment in the past, before she can start rebuilding the life she wants for herself, Isabel and her new family.
This is a very evocative and emotional story with can be slow and repetitive in places.

Barbara O’Neal’s books always have 3 things in common: strong women discovering who they are and where they belong; the value of friendship; and a lovable pet who makes the tough things in life a little easier to bear.

The Lost Girls of Devon includes these themes in the best of ways. While When We Believed in Mermaids and The All You Can Dream Buffet may be my top two Barbara O’Neal books, The Lost Girls of Devon has now earned a spot in the top 3.

Zoe Fairchild returns to her roots, a village in Devon, when her childhood friend goes missing. Reeling with guilt from a rift in the friendship, Zoe is faced with searching for her beloved friend while still dealing with her own childhood trauma. Simultaneously, Zoe’s teenage daughter Isabel is in the thick of a trauma all her own, and has been locking everyone out. Add in a wise, mystery writing Gran, a witchy mother, and the one that got away, and Zoe is in for quite the emotional rollercoaster. Will the moors, forests, and open sea of Devon help Zoe and Isabel open up?

This novel is an engrossing, character driven mystery with themes of trauma, healing, and forgiveness. The complications of mother daughter relationships are set against a breathtaking backdrop of the forests, moors and a quaint and charming village in Devon (that sadly isn’t a real place; I checked!).

The setting is so lusciously described I had to Google early on if it was a real place I could visit, because it’s impossible not to want to go there. I’ve definitely added Devon to the list of regions I hope to visit one day. The landscape is a character unto itself, and rightly so. From the magic of the forests to the inspiration found on the moor, it is the natural world that helps Zoe and Isabel heal and face their pasts.

And the pets! I’ve always had an affinity for animals, and I love books that include them. From the herding dog to the giant cat to the quiet grief that accompanies Zoe despite her dog passing six months before the book begins, the animals are all top notch. At one point, Zoe is thinking to herself about missing her deceased dog, and describes missing him so viscerally and accurately that it brought tears to my eyes thinking about my own beloved dogs that have gone. Quite a lot of the descriptions of her dog, Simba, match that of one of my beloved dogs (who ironically thought he was a lion due to my The Lion King obsession!). Though I could especially relate to that storyline, the way the person-animal relationships are described is on point and will be a blessing to all the animal friends out there.

Trauma is a delicate subject, and there are multiple storylines involving it. Both the healing process and the role of the therapy are portrayed delicately and well. It is treated as the tender topic it is, and isn’t used solely to further the plot. We all bear scars from our past; Zoe’s former trauma and Isabel’s current one show just how long the healing process can be.

I just fell head over heels in love with this book. The writing is superb, the dialogue realistic, and Isabel’s character portrayal is loving and realistic. Teens often get the short end of the stick in fiction, but Isabel is a character in her own right and is treated with respect. I love her character arc, and how all the teens are portrayed.

This book is just wonderful from start to finish, and I can’t recommend it highly enough. I always read Barbara O’Neal’s new releases, as she reliable creates such wonderful worlds and characters that I can’t help but jump in to each new release. I’m grateful to Net Galley and Lake Union Publishing for an advanced copy to read such that I could write this review.

The Lost Girls of Devon will be released July 14, 2020.

It was overcast the morning Zoe's mother left her. She loves staying at her grandmother's house. Her grandmother's house is huge on a cliff above the sea on the Devon coast.Lillian is in her eighties and believes something is going on in the village. Her granddaughter is Zoe. There are a lot of tourists now. Zoe has a daughter Isabel.Diana is a nurse with a catering business.She has gone missing. Zoe has a graphic design job not painting like she use to love. Zoe and Isabel move to Devon at least temporary. Zoe is wary of her daughter dealing with the divorce and her social media crisis. Isabel is suspended from school for fighting a girl she use to be friends with. Isabel enrolls in an online school. I loved that there were multiple points of view. Poppy is Zoe's mother and a tarot reader.jennie is in a bit of trouble and has a baby. Diana had been helping Jennie.Isabel has a secret that has to do with her social media crisis.i loved the characters. I loved the unexpected reason the girls were missing and the ending.

2.5 stars. I didn’t dislike it, but I didn’t love it either.

I thought it might focus more on the mystery of the missing friend and it might have been more interesting if it had.

The storylines of the 4 women were somewhat confusing. They definitely have a very complicated relationship. Many reviews I’ve seen describe Zoe as immature and controlling, but I think I understand her and her inability to forgive Poppy. And I don’t think that Poppy deserves to be forgiven so easily. I think Poppy’s expectations of Zoe are unrealistic. The relationship (or lack of) between the two certainly influenced all of Zoe’s other relationships.

Small issue, but sometimes the dates didn’t add up. For example, in 1991 Zoe was 11, but in 1992 she was 16. Another, earlier in the book Diana had been missing for a few weeks. Then toward the end it was only one week. Hopefully these will be corrected in the final editing.

I felt like a lot of the chapters were more of the same, no real new information and lots of descriptions about the land, the animals, and the views. I grew bored. Once I hit the 50% mark I mostly skimmed. Things did pick up about the 60% mark. Overall, not my favorite Barbara O’Neal book.

The Lost Girls of Devon is an intimate story of four generations of women as they work their way though loss and betrayal. All of the women are wonderfully portrayed—none of them perfect, all with regrets and mistakes, but with a passion to love and connect.

The Lost Girls of Devon
Barbara O’Neal
July 14, 2020

This familial tale gives us the story of four generations of women. Their love and faith in each other explores their histories. We see Lillian, in her eighties, a writer, a gardener, a matriarch of the family. Poppy is her daughter. She is a traveler, a counselor, a soothsayer and a mother who couldn’t live with her child. Zoe is young, recently divorced from Martin, her husband. He is a musician and singer and they could not live through their time apart. Isabella is Martin and Zoe’s daughter. The spitting image of her grandmother Poppy, who she has never met. Living in Sante Fe, New Mexico with her mother and grandfather, Ben. In the past school year she has become a victim of bullying so severe that she refuses to attend school in the fall. She wants to be homeschooled.
Zoe receives a disrupting call from Devon, England. Her best friend, Diana has gone missing. Her texts have stopped. Her usual daily luncheon visits with Lillian sieced without any messages or visits. Zoe has decided to spend time in Devon with her grandmother, Lillian and look into Diana’s unusual departure. Isabella chooses to go with her mom to leave the problems in Santa Fe behind. All of these women have parts of their lives to remember, recover, and celebrate. By being together in Grandmother Lillian’s large house hopefully their worlds will run smooth again.
Barbara O’Neal’s English journey takes us through these women telling of the times they ventured with their partners as well as struggled with familiar ties. It is quite a diary of these strong women. The book was full of historical features of England and New Mexico to make the paths followed interesting and authentic. I have read many of O’Neal’s books and each are tales of strong women. This is an extremely soothing read. The voices of characters attempt to pull their worlds together by forgiveness and reaching out to each other. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and encourage women’s fiction readers to indulge in The Lost Girls of Devon. It will be published on July 14, 2020 by Lake Union Publishing. I would like to thank Lake Union and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this novel. It is excellent and I highly recommend it.