Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for my review and honest opinion!

The Lost Girls of Devon was the story of 4 women who are struggling with family secrets and betrayal. A beautiful story of mothers and their daughters and how, through forgiveness and love, they find out who they really are with redemption. Lillian, Poppy, Zoe and Isabel take us on an unforgettable journey through their past, their present and their future, the good and the bad, the betrayal  and redemption, the hurt and the forgiveness. 
 This was my first time reading Barbara O'Neal, but won't be my last. This was a perfect summer read, would be amazing for discussion at book clubs and would make a wonderful gift to anyone who enjoys reading. The only reason I knocked 1 star off my review was that at times, the 4 story lines got a little hard to keep up with and I found myself having to back track to figure out which story I was in sometimes. Overall, a wonderful book that I found myself devouring!

Love love love this. Not only because its set in Devon, its near my home, but because its such an amazing story to follow. I loved each character. There is a chapter per character.
I was gripped straight away, a real mystery

Thank you to Lake Union Publishing and Netgalley for the opportunity to read this in exchange for my honest opinion. I think I expected more from the book and definitely would not label this as a thriller or mystery. It is more of a family drama with a bit of mystery and also touches upon a few social issues as well but doesn’t go too in depth into them. This was a slow paced read and at times I wanted to just shake the characters into speaking to each other and just communicating darn it!

The Lost Girls of Devon is richly written with words that flow together to produce a wonderful work of written art. O'Neal is a master at description. She transports you to places you have probably never been to by engaging all of your senses in the beautiful and flowing words she uses. You can hear the ocean waves breaking, see the brilliance of the flowers and feel the menace of the dark rolling clouds.
The real purpose of the book is multi-faceted. O'Neal deals not only with the complexity of family relationships, but also the topic of bullying and cyber bullying. The mystery in the novel explored another troubling issue of our times that I won't give away here.
It would be hard for me to say which of the women of the four generational family was my favorite. They all had their issues, but they were all intriguing and complex. Zoe was probably my least favorite because of her rigidity--at least until the ending which showed a different side of her. Up until that point, I would have said Isabel showed the most growth during the book. Or was it Poppy? See my dilemma? Whoever you like or dislike the most, they all come together to present the reader with an incredible and beautiful story that won't soon be forgotten.
I was given a complimentary copy of this book via NetGalley. All thoughts are my own.

Unfortunately this was not my favorite. I tried getting into it several time but just couldn't. 

Thank you NetGalley for this ARC.

I have really enjoyed this author before and I did also enjoy this book even though it wasn't my favorite of hers. But I liked the characters and the setting and there was a little bit of everything some family drama some mystery some crime fighting some romance some self discovery. It did feel. Little clumsy at time but nothing that was too distracting. I think Poppy was my favorite character.

I wasn't sure how there was going to be a link between a missing woman and a family who desperately needed reconciling, but Barbara O'Neal made it work. Her descriptions of landscapes and animals were lovely and built up beautiful pictures in my mind. An enjoyable read!

Zoe returns to the Devon village that she grew up in when her friend Who is also her grandmother’s caretaker is missing. She has to return with her daughter to try to help find her but doesn’t want to see her estranged mother who has moved back to the village after abandoning Zoe when she was a child. Mystery, family, relationships.

The four women who inhabit this novel are exquisitely drawn in great emotional and psychological detail. The story speaks to dedication, control, love, abandonment, betrayal, loss, all the aspects that can pull a family apart and knit it back together, sometimes. Lillian is mother to Poppy who is mother to Zoe who is mother to Isabel. We hear each of their stories, bit by bit, in their words, remembrances and actions. Some relationships seem broken beyond belief, making you wonder why you keep going when you know you are going to face nothing but loss. 

The disappearance of a close friend serves to bring these women together to confront their past mistakes and face the realities that have been plowed under. The mystery was an interesting contrivance that never gained traction other than to move the emotional discourse forward. As a story maybe not so earth shaking but as descriptive literature – Oh Wow!

Thank you NetGalley and Lake Union Publishing for a copy

Four generations of women - all strong willed and all thrust under one roof almost to manage as best as they could.

Zoe and her daughter Isabel are returning to the home of Zoe's grandmother who is now ailing. Lillian the matriarch is a well published writer but who is now beginning to show the onset of dementia.  Poppy her daughter abandoned her daughter Zoe at the age of seven and this wound has never healed for Zoe. Despite decades gone by Zoe does not want to have anything to do, or even see her mother. Living in the same small village, and knowing that Poppy has been a care giver for Lillian does not make it easier. Also realizing that she alone has held out against Poppy is gall, because even Isabel who is such a troubled spirit seems to find solace in Poppy.

The focus then shifts with the absence of Diana, a caregiver for Lillian who goes missing and who over a period of weeks is feared dead. The story of why and how this happened is a secondary story because it is the four women's story which is the primary one. It is an emotional, heart breaking one because the hurt caused by actions of abandonment and seemingly lack of love for a child is something that is seemingly un bridgeable.

It was not easy to keep track of four different stories - but the fact that they are divided into separate chapters helped.

Family drama and mystery hit the right spot. When Zoë came to know her friend had disappeared, she packed her bags and came to her family home in Devon to search for her while avoiding the mother who had abandoned her years ago.

My first book by this author, I was transported to a new land with the rolling vibrant discussions. Told  in multiple POV, I got to know the characters and their situations. It was quite a surprise and delightful read

Zoe Fairchild is living in Santa Fe with her 15 year old daughter Isabel, when she gets a call that her childhood best friend Diana has disappeared.   So, Zoe and Isabel pack their bags and travel to Zoe's childhood home town on the Devon sea coast of England.  The small village is scenic with thatch roofed buildings and quaint shops and gets lots of tourists.   It also holds many memories for Zoe, some happier than others.   She remembers running around with her best friends Diana and Sage. 
 When Zoe was just seven, her mother Poppy left Zoe to live with her grandmother, Lillian, in an old manor house.  Poppy took off for India and didn't return for over a decade, leaving Zoe feeling abandoned and bitter.  

Now, Zoe and Isabel are living with Lillian, while Zoe tries to avoid Poppy and look into what happened to Diana. There are many tensions and things left unsaid between the 4 generations of Fairchild women.  They all try to work their way through it while also trying to figure out what is going on in town.   

This novel was a good mix of family drama and mystery.   The chapters alternated between the perspective of the 4 lead female characters.  The village itself was charming and I could totally picture it in my head after my visit last year to some English villages (though I didn't get to Devon).    It made me want to go back to the English countryside.   So, good character development and a scenic charming atmosphere made this a satisfying read for me.

From the time I was an infant, I've loved my maternal grandmother better than pretty much anyone else I can think of, so I knew I absolutely had to read the latest novel by Barbara O'Neal. The Lost Girls of Devon is about a woman who returns home to find her missing best friend, but even more importantly, to help her grandmother deal with the dementia she's recently been diagnosed with. From the start of the book, I was utterly captivated by Ms. O'Neal's writing. The struggles of her characters resonated very deeply with me, and I'm so glad I picked this book up, even though it's not always an easy read.

It's been years since Zoe Fairchild has visited the small village where she grew up. She's in close touch with Lillian, the grandmother who raised her, but Devon holds disturbing memories Zoe isn't quite ready to face. Plus, Poppy, the mother who abandoned Zoe at the age of seven, has returned to town, and Zoe is determined to stay as far from her as possible.

All that changes when Lillian calls Zoe, telling her that Diana, Zoe's childhood best friend, has gone missing under mysterious circumstances. Lillian begs Zoe to come home in order to help with the search, and Zoe grudgingly agrees. She and her fifteen-year-old daughter Isabel pack up and head to Devon where Zoe will be forced to come face-to-face with all manner of ghosts from her past.

When Zoe arrives at her grandmother's house, she is instantly struck by how frail Lillian appears. It's obvious she's dealing with some memory issues, and it doesn't take Zoe long to realize she won't be able to return home the way she initially planned. Instead, she's going to have to help care for Lillian as she grows increasingly more forgetful.

As Zoe begins digging into Diana's life in hopes of uncovering some hidden fact about her disappearance, she is forced to join forces with Sage Cooper, her first love, and the boy she betrayed nearly twenty years before. Both Zoe and Cooper are determined to learn what happened to their missing friend, and it doesn't take them long to put the past behind them and fall back into the kind of close relationship they'd once enjoyed. I really appreciated this aspect of the story, since there was a lot of room for angst here, and I worried I would get frustrated by their inability to make amends. Fortunately, Cooper and Zoe are both relatively self-aware, and neither seemed willing to hold drawn out grudges.

Some might call this novel a mystery, but despite the search for Diana taking up quite a bit of the page count, The Lost Girls of Devon is first and foremost a story about relationships. Lillian, Poppy, Zoe, and Isabel each have some kind of internal struggle to contend with, something they're not dealing with very well on their own. Finding peace will require each of them to come to terms with the mistakes she's made in her past, something that proves more difficult than any of them expect.

Poppy was the only character I struggled to like. She abandoned Zoe at the age of seven and made a new life for herself in India, and when she eventually returns home, she expects Zoe to instantly forgive her. No one, aside from Zoe herself, seems to hold Poppy’s selfishness against her, and I found myself more than a  little annoyed by her inability to understand why her daughter wasn't ready and waiting to repair their relationship. Fortunately, Poppy does wise up toward the end of the book, and I was able to empathize with her a bit, but she definitely was not my favorite person.

One of the very best things about Barbara O'Neal's writing is her ability to transport readers to whatever setting she's describing. Here, the Devon countryside feels incredibly real, almost like a character in its own right. It's a part of the world I've never visited, but reading Ms. O'Neal's vivid descriptions really is the next best thing. Not all authors possess the ability to bring a setting to life in this way, and I'm so glad Ms. O'Neal continues to share her amazing talent with the world.

There's a lot more I could say about this book and all the complicated feelings it evoked in me, but I don't want to risk ruining the magic for you. This is by far my favorite of the author's many books, and I hope many of you will pick it up and fall in love with it the way I did. It's a deep book, but I never felt overwhelmed by the complexity of the plot, and I hope women's fiction fans everywhere will give it the chance it deserves.

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The Lost Girls of Devon is a very nice summer read. I felt transported to the English seaside and loved the descriptions in the book. I can not wait to be able to travel to this area for myself. The story itself is a multi-generational novel centered around mother-daughter relationships and a mystery disappearance that brings the characters together.

Thanks to Lake Union Publishing and NetGalley for an advanced copy in exchange for my review. 

I wanted to like this book more, but I really struggled getting into it. It is an extremely slow start and it took a while to get each of the characters figured out. I also felt like the mystery part of Diana missing was thrown in there, and made to seem like a bigger part than it actually was. 

I've loved her other books and will continue reading, but this just wasn't one of my favorites.

Perfection from the first page...Everything you want in a good book: an intriguing, well-written, thoughtful story with characters of real depth that you fall in love with. This book was charming, heart-warming and deeply satisfying. It was well written and the characters were believable with realistic responses instead of cliches. It was hard to put down and had some twists that I didn't see coming. 

Overall, I would read more from this author and I definitely recommend this book, as it was so captivating, Barbara O'Neal is a great story teller. She did an amazing job of drawing me into the story and making all the characters seem real, especially with Lillian. I found myself wishing I could meet her and have a cup of tea. It is rare that I read a book that causes me to have such emotional reactions to the behaviour of the characters.

Telling a great story is like baking a cake.. you need the right ingredients - a bit of mystery, a dash of intrigue, a splash of humor, throw in some heart-tugging tears for good measure... and if it’s mixed just right, after baking you end up with a heartwarming piece that goes great with an afternoon cup of tea. This book had all of that and more. Hope, love, second chances. I am looking forward to reading more from Barbara O'Neal, I can't believe I haven't read her books before now.

Absolutely loved this book! This book is about four generations of women. Pained by events in the past. The family come together when Zoe’s best friend Diana goes missing. In uncovering the mysterious disappearance, the family members heal. The book is set in a quaint small village in the UK and it grabbed me from the beginning. Such beautiful writing, it was sad to leave these characters at the end of the story. Thanks NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to be introduced to this author and wonderful story!

This is my first Barbara O'Neal book and it likely won't be my last! I was so intrigued by the premise of this book. Women's Fiction and a Mystery? I love that blend of genres. The mystery is what kept my interest the most in this story. I wanted to know what happened to Diane, and I also wanted to know what traumatic event had happened to Isabel that we learn about later in the story. I also really enjoyed her writing style. I appreciated the alternating perspective of storytelling (although it did take me a few chapters to get all of the character's names straight). This allowed for each of her characters to have a voice. There is some romance but it isn't directly what the story is about, which is a common trope of women's fiction. This story is about family. It's about mothers and daughters, making mistakes and amends, and learning from the past. It's about caring for our elders and being protective of our young. It was a wonderfully told story with a descriptive setting that I could bring to life in my mind. 

I think fans of Sally Hepworth would enjoy this novel because of the mystery aspect and the themes of family and womanhood.

“The best advice was all the same: listening was the thing that could cure most ills, mind or body. No magic. Only listening.”

The Lost Girls of Devon is about four generations of women and the secrets and betrayals that define and unite them. New Mexico based Zoe Fairchild has been away from her home in Devon, England for years when she gets a frantic call from Lillian, the grandmother who raised her. Her best friend from childhood, Diana, has gone missing, and Lillian needs Zoe’s help to find her. Zoe and her daughter Isabel return to England to help, but Zoe is dreading seeing her mother Poppy who left her with Lillian as a child and never returned.

Part mystery, part family drama, The Lost Girls of Devon explores the ties that bind, the power of forgiveness, and the importance of family. The story is told in alternating first-person between all four women, with the main perspective being Zoe, now in her late thirties, as she explores her relationship with the other three women, and Diana, her friend who goes missing at the beginning of the story. I loved this style with alternating perspectives. Each of the characters were wonderful and getting to see their views as individuals added a dynamic element to this story.

I also loved the town in Devon where the story took place. It sounded so charming and cozy, every place that was referenced. I especially loved Lillian’s manor and her gardens, as well as the forests where Isabel is fond of exploring and taking pictures.

Easily one of 2020's best books. Magical and lyrical this book lures you with it's vivid mastery and all of a sudden you realize hours have gone by and when you finally look up your dog is standing in front of you with her legs crossed whining to go outside. An absolute must read. Pick up this gem of a book and prepare to be dazzled. I wish I could give it more than five stars. Happy reading!