This book took me on a journey far different to the one I was expecting to take! Our main character Chloe is a lost girl dealing with the stress of caring for her grandmother with dementia. As a form of escapism, she becomes fixated on the story of a girl who disapperead many moons ago... 

The story covers lots of themes, from mental health, loss, dementia - all interlinked to the mystery of what happened to Angie?  

Definitely a worthy read if you're a mystery fan.

A good and interesting read!

I would recommend this to everyone who loves a good story with captivating characters! Definitely a good read!

This book had me stumped. Sitting smug and thinking I had it all thought out, Wharton put me in my place. Finally we have a thriller that will keep you your toes. As with a number of authors I have been reading recently I cannot believe that this is the authors debut novel! I truly enjoyed myself and will be recommending it to anyone I see for the next few months.

Well, The Imposter eh? I wasn't too sure what I would think of this one but I found it ended up a bit of a page turner! Starting off with a fairly slow pace, (stick with it), Chloe ( a newspaper archivist) is the main carer for her Nan. Sadly Nan has progressive dementia, and after losing poor old Nan for around 24 hrs in a wandering episode, Chloe eventually succumbs to pressure to pop her in a home. Dealing with her loss and feelings of guilt, Chloe latches on to an old story of a couple who lost their 4 year old daughter (Angie) in similar circumstances. They just turned their heads for a few minutes and their loved one was GONE!.

Now that Nan is safely away, Chloe needs a purpose. She becomes more and more involved in Angie's story and she is obsessed with finding out he truth about what happened to her. As the story goes on, links are starting to appear. Who is Chloe really? What is the truth about the seemingly bereaved parents? Will the mystery be solved? While Chloe was a truly unlikeable character, the story was really engaging with some "hold your breath" suspenseful moments. A good read!

Chloe, a newspaper archivist in her late 20s, becomes obsessed with a local news story she has uncovered of a little girl who went missing when she was 4, but who would have been the same age as Chloe now. The story follows her trying to uncover the truth, whilst also balancing a complex set of family demands including a grandma who has dementia and who doesnt know who Chloe is.
Its an interesting story, reminds me of other stories that I have had the chance to read through Netgalley recently. A solid 3/5 stars. 
Thank you for the chance to read the ARC Netgalley.

Chloe works as an archivist at a local paper and struggles with managing her work time and living with and looking after her Nan who has dementia. After she wanders away from Chloe one day in the cemetery where they had been visiting Nan’s daughter Stella, Chloe is beside herself for the couple of days it takes the police to find her. As expected, social services insist she moves into a nursing home which leaves Chloe rudderless and without a purpose.

While digitising some articles at work one day about a local child that went missing 25 years before, Chloe becomes more and more obsessed with finding the child and reuniting her with her grieving parents imagining what it would be like to be part of such a warm and loving family. As the story progresses you realise that Chloe isn’t a very reliable or responsible person which makes her not particular likeable to the reader as she makes decisions that don’t really seem to make much sense and her behaviour in situations is very childlike which I did find rather incongruent for a supposedly independent young woman. 

It did take quite a while for the story to  get going but once it did, it kept my interest much more.  A clever ending which in hindsight there were plenty of clues throughout but well-hidden. 
For a first novel there are some excellent parts and I look forward to seeing how Anna develops her style in future novels.

I really enjoyed the premise of this debut novel by Anna Wharton, but I felt like there was something lacking there and I can't quite put my finger on what. I didn't really gain any attachment to any of the main characters, and I particularly had a dislike to the protagonist, Chloe, she seemed largely disconnected from a lot of the issues in her life. There felt like a lack of emotion attached to things that should have been major points (no spoilers here!), although you do learn later on that there could be years of issues causing this and so it may be understandable further down the line.

<i>"Why are people so tied to reality"</i> is a line that stood out for me in this book as you can tell  Chloe isn't quite in touch with the real world.

I would read other novels by this author as I think there is definitely potential there, this one just wasn't for me.

<b><i>Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for an advanced digital copy in exchange for my honest review</i></b>

Thank you to #netgalley and #theimposter for this ARC in return for an honest review. 

Chloe, lives with her grandma and goes to work as an archivist on a local newspaper and leads a fairly insular life with very little social interaction. 

During her working day she reads about a little girl who went missing years ago and the fact that her parents have never given up hope of finding her. 

Chloe’s grandma moves into a care home giving Chloe time to find out more about the missing girl and her family. 

I really liked the pace of this book it felt slower at the beginning as the characters developed, it maintained a steady pace throughout which I liked and this made it a page turner for me. 

There were some clever twists and some which were more apparent but all well written and thought through. 

I great book that I enjoyed that showed real people with real secrets to hide.

Thank you NetGalley for this advanced copy. It looks like this book is either one you love or can't get into. I couldn't get into it. It was super slow in the beginning. I tried skipping ahead a couple of times hoping it would catch my attention in the middle. It didn't I gave up fairly quickly. Not for me.

Wow. This book was an absolutely brilliant! 

Chloe Hudson, a archivist at a newspaper is struggling to juggle a full time and coping with her Nan, Grace, who suffers from Dementia when she comes across a file about a missing girl called Angela Kyle, a four year that's been missing since the late seventies. This file fills Chloe with intrigue and it is here where after she collates the evidence and begins to weave the information together in order to try and find Angela and return her to the Kyle's, Maureen and Patrick that we realise that Chloe is actually quite lonely and really just wants to be wanted and seen, I feel that she feels she is bobbing through life wanting to be noticed and wanting to be seen, by her friends or even her colleagues, her obsession in the Kyle case quickly became mine, I was suddenly wanting to 

This book is such a good book for lots of reasons, from the title, it makes you think that you've read similar books about main characters posing as the returned child but they're actually imposters, but this one was different, you already know she's an imposter when you start reading but she also has this way of manipulating the people around her, including me, the reader. I liked Chloe, sure, she was lonely and she wanted a family, yes, she has Nan, but she wanted more, she wanted to be noticed by her colleagues as more than just a person who files files, she wanted to be noticed as the woman who brings back little Angie Kyle. But the author has more in store for you than meets the eye and I thought I'd know each time where it was going but no the Anna Wharton writes so powerfully and so well that this really does keep you guessing and shocked until the very end, leading you up false paths and bogus trails to you think you're on it, this one has to be it and then you realise, it's not. 

The characters are so developed in this, Chloe and her Nan, Grace, Maureen and Patrick Kyle and then her best friend Hollie. You think that you know them all. But they are just as complex as you and I, they have their secrets, their flaws and their little personalities just as you and I do, and that type of complex charater building is the time I love. 

The one that really stuck out to me and impressed me was how well Wharton writes of Dementia and how she displays the pain and grief people go through when they lose a child, she is well written and is knowledgeable but it's not just that it's powerful and emotional way of writing that sucks you in, she writes with mystery about Angie and the deeper in you go the more you can't believe the amount of nerve that Chloe has inserting herself into this broken and grieving family that are so lost, but she too is a lost soul, she too is broken, and she just wants to be wanted even if she knows she is not Angie, and that Maureen and Patrick aren't her parents. There are time when I thought the web she was weaving with lies was far to big but Chloe had confidence and she wasn't afraid, she had a frail, mentally ill grandparent, in her eyes she has nothing to lose and so she loves the warmth that Maureen has to give her and I just loved that.

The big reveal really is the BIG REVEAL in this book. I didn't see it coming at all and I'm guessing so many other readers will not and that is what makes this book sooo good, the emotional and touching story really is quite the cover for an exceptionally page turning read. I think this one will stay with me for a while, as it's not often I give 5 star reviews! 

I will be definitely be buying this book on publication, it was sooo delicious! I am so going to be recommending to everyone I know,  this is the book that everyone must read! I want to thank Anna Wharton for giving me the opportunity to read this wonderful book that kept me up late at night and unable to engage with family and friend desperately bumbling from chapter to chapter find out the ending to this great story!

Thanks to Netgalley and Pan Macmillan for this ARC!

This book has quite the pace that keeps you enthralled until the end. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this; it was right up my street. 

Emotions are real and written about so honestly and stay with the reader long after you’ve finished. 

I recommend this book for a fast paced, tense, emotional read that will have you gripping that mug of tea with excitement and fear

I thought I had this book all figured out. The plot twist seemed SO obvious that I was just waiting for it to unfold as I flicked through the pages. It wasn't until 70% that something suddenly clicked. The twist suddenly seemed too easy and the clues that had been laid down finally slotted into place. Even though I did eventually figure it all out, it was done so well that I was actually swearing out loud when it all took place in the final chapters.

We first meet Chloe when she is working in the archive section of a local newspaper, living with her nan with dementia who she is struggling to look after. After her nan goes missing and is then located and taken to a nursing home, Chloe becomes obsessed with the disappearance of a 4 year old girl 25 years previously and finding her for her distraught parents. She loses her job at the newspaper and soon dives further into her obsession.

This is such a fantastic read and I really recommend it.

Also, the cover has just been released and it's fab and really reflects the story.

The Imposter - Anna Wharton 

Thank you to NetGalley and Pan Macmillan for providing the eARC
Release date: 8-April-2021

Chloe is desperately juggling her job as a newspaper archivist with taking care of her grandmother who suffers from dementia. At work she comes across an archive pertaining to a 25year old missing child case of Angela Kyle. She becomes obsessed with the case beginning to fantasise about being the one to bring Angela back to Maureen and Patrick Kyle. She goes to great lengths to help the elderly couple. As her personal life begins to fall apart with her Nan being admitted into a care home Chloe finds herself moving into the Kyle’s home as a lodger.  

As the mystery of what happened to Angela deepens, Chloe’s loneliness and obsessions are amplified with her actions being quite sad and touching. Chloe is a wallflower and her superpower is being able to blend into the background which she is able to utilise expertly. Details of Chloe’s life are peppered throughout the book and revealed cleverly to the reader as the plot unfolds. 

Wharton deals expertly and brilliantly with the sensitive topics of a missing child and dementia - both types of familial losses one more physically obvious than the other.

This book was impossible to put down. An engaging and brilliant read.

What a fantastic read. 
Really superb writing that evokes a suff0cating sense of dread. 
It is very difficult to write a review for this book without the fear of giving the plot or twists away. 
I really felt engaged with Chloe and was caught up in her tale. I really wanted things to work out for her. 
She has a very childlike quality and a deep desperation to belong, this need causes her to take risks both personally and professionally as she seeks to solve the case of a missing child. 
Highly Recommended

I did struggle at first with with book but once I got into it I enjoyed it, Chloe manages to get her self in with Maureen and Patrick to investigate the disappearance of their daughter which she learnt about in the newspaper clips whist she worked in the archive section of the newspaper..

Thank you to Net Galley for the copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I found this book took a little while to get into. I did predict the outcome but did enjoy the read overall. 

#netgalley #theimposter

Note: Thanks to Netgalley for providing this book for a fair and honest review.

Oh NetGalley, you promised so much and delivered so little. The Imposter is my fourth venture into the world of the as yet unpublished and regrettably, the second which had me scratching my head as to how it ever got picked up  The writing is so simplistic as to be underwritten, a characteristic which extends to its rather underwhelming cast. 

Our protagonist, Chloe is completely detached from reality, and whether by design or accident, this disconnect sweeps through the pages of the Imposter out to the reader. We never believe or feel anything for her plight simply because she doesn't. She is fired from her job in a page, a job we are told on numerous occasions she adores, and the matter is never mentioned again. It is simply an event that happened, landed without effect on plot or character. 

You could omit the entirety of the first third, and not miss anything important. 

Worse still is Chloe's internal logic, which is akin to a small child's. Various times throughout the book, she jumps to implausible conclusions, lacks any deductive or reasoning skills and is without emotional depth. Things happen around her, not because of her. What do we really learn about her, about her life, about her friends? 

She's nothing, and nobody in her own story.

This is one of the best books I've read for a while. I love a thriller but this offered something different. I found the book slightly difficult to get into but about a third of the way into it, I was hooked. I didn't find the characters particularly likeable but this didn't hinder the book in any way for me. Despite having read hundreds of thriller books, the ending still shocked me and I loved it.

Based on the books description was intrigued instantly. However, the book was nothing like I expected and not in a good way. Although the beginning of the book was slow, I did find myself invested into Chloe's life and felt for her as she was dismissed by everyone in her life and never taken seriously. The plot of the novel and the plot twists I didn't find that intriguing; most character developments felt forced and the ending especially seemed too unrealistic. Most plot devices could be seen from a mile away but I do hand the author that she is very good a building suspension slowly. 

I was invested to finish the book to see where Chlow was taking this journey she had started but overall I wouldn't describe this as the mystery thriller it was sold as. After completing this plot, I wouldn't be as excited to read any sequels.

This was incredible.

Chloe is a newspaper archivist and a lonely soul. She’s someone who blends in, the wallflower you never notice. The only person she has at home, her nan, is succumbing to the potency of dementia. The stresses of life weigh on Chloe heavily, and when she finds cuttings detailing the disappearance of a child in 1979, she becomes enthralled with the emotion involved in such a case.

We follow Chloe through her obsessive journey in finding more information on the disappearance, watch her tracking down the parents, see her descend into a mist which will not allow her to see anything else. Small details of Chloe’s life are peppered throughout the pages, cleverly, subtly, and we begin to see she’s fraught with problematic thoughts.

Wharton deals with some seriously sensitive topics here, and she does so brilliantly. The emotions involved with a missing child are complex, horrifying, but mostly tragic. The way the child’s mother is characterised felt deeply realistic, her heartbreak was palpable, and her unwavering hope ran through her like a sickness. Wharton contrasts this immediate vanishing of a family member with a disappearance all the more subtle - a loss by dementia. 

The pace is excellent, the suspense masterful, and I found myself entirely glued to Wharton’s words. She has a skill for setting and slowly increasing tension. There were some real terrifying moments where my heart was in my throat, but throughout the entire story I was on edge, as though I were on a tightrope. It was so wonderfully evocative, so original, and the twistiness was delicious.

It’s impossible to believe this is a debut novel, and equally as impossible to put into words how engaging and brilliant Wharton’s story is. Set your alarms for April 2021.