I like reading #netgalley #books on #amazonkindle because I don’t have the back book cover description to influence my reading. I went into this novel with no assumptions and loved the experience. It’s the story of three childhood friends that have lost their connection over the years. When one goes missing, the other two reconnect and search to find her. While mostly a #mysterynovel, it is also the story of a mother’s love and how relationships with daughters can be strained. There is also a wonderful #romancenovel plot line that made the second half of the book hard to put down. A great ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ novel by @barbaraonealauthor that will be published in July. I look forward to reading O’Neal’s other works. 📚📚📚 #booklover #bookrecommendations #netgalleyreview #thelostgirlsofdevon #lakeunionpublishing

reading breeds empathy.  Getting the chance to fully glimpse into a character's life and stay there for a little while makes the reading experience that much better.  O'Neal creates characters that imprint your heart.  this novel has 4 generations of strong women and throughout the novel I felt my heart break and heal.  loved every page.

Really enjoyed the multi-generational aspect to this story. Such a fun story!

Many thanks to the author, the publishers, and NetGalley for the ARC. All opinions are my own.

Although an actual missing woman is the catalyst for this story, it’s really about three generations of women in a family who are lost in the figurative sense, and how they find their way back to each other.  It’s about broken dreams, lost opportunities and second chances.  I was moved to tears both by the beauty of the prose and parallels it reflected in my own life.  The actual mystery also gets solved in an unexpected way, but the true power in this book lies in its ability to say something different to every reader,

Another great read by the talented Barbara O'Neal, who is fast becoming an auto-read for me. 

This is about four generations of women in one family.  Lillian (an author) is the eldest and lives in a big house in a small Devon village.  Her daughter, Poppy, is a free spirit and has fairly recently returned to the village after travelling the world 'finding herself' in Glastonbury, India, etc. and learning from masters about healing/tarot etc., so a very spiritual person.  Unfortunately in 'finding herself' she left her young daughter, Zoe, with her mother and didn't come back for her.  So Zoe has a very rocky/non-talking relationship with her mother.  And then we have Isabel, 15 year old daughter of Zoe, who has recently gone through a trauma, which she isn't telling anyone about yet, but is seeing a counsellor, and this eventually comes to light as the story progresses.

Zoe and Isabel live in the States, but visit Lillian most years and have come over to visit Lillian this time as one of Zoe's oldest friends, Diana, has gone missing in mysterious circumstances. 

This is an emotional book with the different generations trying to forge a way forward without upsetting someone else, with Poppy the main cause of the antagonism because Zoe can't forgive her for abandoning her when she was little, but Isabel really wanting to connect with her grandmother.  Dementia is also creeping up on Lillian which is getting worse and she needs more help.

There is also a real sinister feeling running through the background of the story because of the missing Diana, and also another missing/dead girl.  Very clever, mixing all the emotions of all the women along with the mystery of the missing girls.  I really enjoyed how the different chapters were centred on one character at a time.

A very compelling read that I thoroughly enjoyed.

Trying to keep these 4 women’s stories straight was tough. I was wanting to like this more than I did and I found myself struggling through the book. I did enjoy it but I felt like I wasn’t connecting to some of the characters which seemed to make me like it less. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this early release in exchange for my honest review.

Thank you Net Galley for a chance to know this author and enjoy this book, which I love , love love.  It is a great story, part mystery, part romance and mother’s and daughters and the way women care for each other.  I was glued to this book until I finished,  Now I will go back and look for all Barbara O’Neal’s other work. You should do the same.

A definite beach read, if the beaches are ever opened again, or when curled up in the corner of the couch on a rainy afternoon. This tale of multigenerational women in a small, coastal town in southern England pulls you into their lives with incredible prose and description. A kaleidoscope of pain and hurt weaves through the story, from the devastating bullying by social media and the heartbreak of dementia. These women, each strong and independent, find themselves interacting and communicating past old hurts and demons.

Rating: 5/5
Genre: Domestic fiction/ Thriller
Plot: 
One of Travel + Leisure’s most anticipated books of summer 2020.
From the Washington Post and Amazon Charts bestselling author of When We Believed in Mermaids comes a story of four generations of women grappling with family betrayals and long-buried secrets.
It’s been years since Zoe Fairchild has been to the small Devon village of her birth, but the wounds she suffered there still ache. When she learns that her old friend and grandmother’s caretaker has gone missing, Zoe and her fifteen-year-old daughter return to England to help.
Zoe dreads seeing her estranged mother, who left when Zoe was seven to travel the world. As the four generations of women reunite, the emotional pain of the past is awakened. And to complicate matters further, Zoe must also confront the ex-boyfriend she betrayed many years before.
Anxieties spike when tragedy befalls another woman in the village. As the mystery turns more sinister, new grief melds with old betrayal. Now the four Fairchild women will be tested in ways they couldn’t imagine as they contend with dangers within and without, desperate to heal themselves and their relationships with each other.
My verdict: First of all thank you to the kind folks at Netgalley who allowed me to read this book prior to its release in July and for introducing me to a new author! I find Ms O’Neale’s writing to be very eloquent almost reminiscent of poetry and even the though plot deals with heavy subjects she strikes the right balance when it comes to gritty realism and emotional impact with a dash of romance and moments of levity for good measure set against the stunning backdrop of the Devonshire coast where her descriptions make me feel as though I am their along side the characters.
This book shows us how bad relationships and good relationships shape us and how it’s natural to become estranged from friends over time but that no bridge is burned beyond repair and how we can turn traumatic experiences into something positive and learn from them.
I particularly enjoyed the Wiccan elements in regards to Poppy’s character and how much we need to remind ourselves to listen to the rhythms of nature and even our own emotions and how they can foreshadow things to come. I particularly enjoyed Isabels rather analogue approach to life aside from her writing and photography especially after what she did experienced and it reminded me that sometimes we need to log off and not be so worried about what others think and instead think of what we want for ourselves. I loved The butterfly analogy used throughout in both Zoe and Isabels art and how it represents the metamorphosis of character, how Zoe went from a happy-go-lucky child to resenting her mother and how Isabel went from a depressed teenager disengaged with life to a brave young woman who managed to find the beauty in anything she saw.
I read this book in a matter of 12 hours and I am so grateful for net galley for introducing me to the wonderful world according to Barbara O’Neale and will most definitely be looking forward to reading and reviewing her next release... this lovely author is one to watch! Fans of Diane Chamberlain, Jodi Picoult and Shalini Boland will love this fabulous family saga.

Click the image to be taken to fantastic fiction so that you may pre-order your copy.

I was not able to access the title.  Unfortunately, I seem to have had technical difficulties with the Kindle download.

Another beautiful story by Barbara O’Neal.  I am always a fan of multigenerational stories and this one did not disappoint. I would highly recommend it to fans of Barbara O’Neal and I look forward to her next book.

If you're looking for escapism in these dark times, this book will sweep you away to Devon in the South of England, to a fishing village complete with quaint shops, white cliffs, fish and chips and an annual festival. As always, @barbaraonealauthor paints with all the senses, not just the sights, but the smells, sensations, colors, and taste of being there in her story universe, nestled in a village by the sea.
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A compelling, heartfelt tale of four generations of women, seeking to find their path and heal their pain; some of which they caused each other.
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Isabel is fifteen and has been traumatized by an experience with her High School friends that she isn't willing to talk about - even with Zoe, the mother she is so close to. Meanwhile, Zoe's friend in England has disappeared and so the two of them decide to cross the Atlantic to visit Zoe's ailing but proud grandmother in the same town.
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The novel touches on a universal theme of forgiveness, and how the inability to forgive can prevent us from moving forward and being happy in the now. And asks the question of whether forgiveness can really be an option for Zoe, who has never moved on from her own mother abandoning her as a young child?
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Lovers of intergenerational stories and those looking for an escape from today's reality, where you can be immersed in a different place and the lives of others, will particularly appreciate this uplifting exploring the bonds between women

I loved this book! Based on the description I expected a family saga set in a beautiful village on the coast of England. And yes, that is the premise of the novel but it is so very much more. It is a multigenerational look at family dynamics as four generations of women come together to heal and explore their roles and societal expectations. There are also other “lost” women in the story; a local teenage mother, a women on the cusp of finding happiness, refugees looking for a better life. A wonderfully written book.

I really enjoyed the second half of the book. I think the first half really dragged for me and it was difficult for me to keep reading. The writing was beautiful, but the hook wasn't there in the first half of the book. I think the whole Sage/Cooper name switch around Chapter 21 confused me. It wasn't until later that I realized he goes by both names. I would pick one and just explain early on he goes by two names. Also, I think some flashbacks of Diana would make me more emphatic and eager to find out what happened to her.

Solid Tale Of Intergenerational Drama. This is my third book from O'Neal, after 2018's The Art of Inheriting Secrets and 2019's When We Were Mermaids, and she continues to show her strength as a storyteller in continuing to spin new tales with new emphases on different things, all while being solidly centered on a woman's (or a few womens', in this case) perspective. Here we don't see quite the wistful what-could-have-been of Secrets, nor do we get anywhere *near* the waterworks and trauma of Mermaids, but we do get a solid tale of four generations of women who have each had their own issues with the others of their line, and who each have to work to resolve those issues. It touches on so many different issues, some in the zeitgeist of the last few years, others more muted in discussions but felt internally nonetheless, and it does all of them a fair degree of justice in its explorations from several angles. For example, the third generation has decades of resentment for the second, after the second abandoned her to the first while she went off to a far away land. We get the tales of both the third and the second, but we also see perspectives from the first and fourth on how they see the drama between second and third having played out in both of their lives, and how it has impacted the lives of first and fourth themselves. And that is just one of the many issues we see, all of them featuring similar complexities in storytelling. The bit of action near the end does feel a bit out of place, but adds another less explored bit of zeitgeist commentary into the book even as it feels a touch tacked on. All in all, a truly solid effort and very much recommended.

I received this book "The Lost Girls of Devon" from NetGalley and all opinions expressed are my own. There was a lot going on in this story, maybe a bit too much. I liked the characters and the main story line. Zoe was a bit controlling over every little thing and she could have at least listened to Poppy and heard her out. I liked Poppy a lot and she was magical. Overall, the secrets, romance and suspense worked and made it an interesting read.

I want to thank NetGalley, Lake Union Publishing, and author Barbara O’Neal for providing me with an ARC of this novel!

This title is part of our summer book camp for Booksparks, and I am incredibly grateful that I was able to grab it early! This was a wonderful novel about four generations of women coming together. The setting of a cute little Scottish village made the story even better. Family secrets and heartbreak abound, and you won’t be able to put this down once you pick it up. I also loved that a murder mystery was thrown in – as if it couldn’t get any better!

Thank you to those named above for the chance to read and review this novel!

Thank you for the advanced read of The Lost Girls of Devon.  Very enjoyable read. Did not want to stop reading once I started..

DNF at 35%. There is too much going on in this story. 4 generations, 3 different POVs, 2 missing girls, it needed to be whittled down. Poppy is irritating in her approach to life...so little is required of her and yet she does so much wrong to so many. The grandmother is inaccessible as a character - I do not see the point. Isabel and the mother are great, but im getting bored with Isabel's harboring of her secret.

I hadn’t read the blurb about this book. I had no idea what to expect. I stumbled upon this lovely book based on the cover art. It is a lovely story of mothers and daughters. 

Lillian is the mother of Poppy. Poppy is the estranged mother of Zoe. Zoe is the mother of Isabel. These four generations of women come together in a cute Scottish village. Zoe’s friend has gone missing. Something devastating has happened in Isabel’s life. There are so many secrets all around. 

We hear the story from multiple perspectives throughout the book. Each character has a unique voice that comes across. Sometimes books written like this confuse me, but this one did not. 

The characters are well written and complex. I even enjoyed the secondary characters, who are intriguing on their own. The story moves along at a good pace. Overall enjoyable!