This is an interesting idea, with a good twist near the end of the book. I did find it a slow read, which requires patience. I nearly gave up in the middle, but did find it an interesting psychological study of an isolated personality.

Chloe spends her days working in the archive of a Peterborough newspaper, 'peacefully among other people's stories', and her nights caring for Nan, stricken with dementia.
Chloe becomes obsessed with a historic case of a disappearance: a little girl, the same age as Chloe would have been, who went missing from a play area that's handily, in the present day, right next to Nan's care facility.
As Chloe digs deeper into the case, she grows convinced that something untoward happened on that fateful day... and vows to find out. But what secrets is Chloe trying to hide?
It's slightly difficult to review this without giving away/spoiling too much of the plot. The Imposter is full of little nuances, cleverly done. Take Chloe herself: she's longing for a mother-daughter relationship following the passing of her own mum, and zeros in on the missing girl's still-grieving mother to satisfy that. It verges on the unhealthy, and there is absolutely the touch of the predator in Chloe .
It's also an interesting decision to set the novel in the recent past, and I can't quite put my finger on why, apart from Chloe's job as a newspaper archivist, involving laboriously cutting out clippings and scanning them, a practice which went out of the window in local newspapers some time ago (I worked in a local newsroom for 15 years).
I found it a little hard to swallow when the disappearance was casually brought up in conversation by Chloe with her best friend, who claimed to remember it on the news - remember, they were both four-years-old at the time too. That is a small thing though - because Chloe's descent into full-blown obsession is a fascinating character study, on the power of love (or lack of it). It's also a tricky thing to pull off - liking a protagonist who constantly goes too far, and crosses too many boundaries, but author Anna Wharton manages it in spades.

I struggled with this book. It is a very slow read, only bucking up toward the end and I wasn't sure it was worth persevering with on the whole.

Chloe lives with her nan who has dementia. She works in the archive section of a newspaper and loves her job. When her nan goes missing for a few hours, social work takes over and puts her into a home (I'm not sure how realistic this is) leaving Chloe bereft and soon to be homeless as the house has to be sold to pay for the care home. At the same time Chloe loses her job, not surprising really as she seems to just suit herself as to when she goes into work. She becomes obsessed with cuttings about a couple who lost their daughter 25 years ago and wants to solve the mystery of what happened. She goes to see them in their new home out on the fens and finds they want to take in a lodger. You can guess what happens next.

I think there is a good book in here somewhere. The theme of loneliness is all encompassing throughout as is Chloe's longing for a family. Unfortunately, Chloe is not at all a sympathetic character and eventually comes across as sinister. As mentioned earlier, it is a slow read especially at the beginning. There is no real hook to get you going and the endless ruminations on the missing girl combined with interactions with her nan which focus on her dementia and are very repetitive make you wonder why you're reading it. At heart I think the structure is to blame and perhaps it would have been better to start at a more exciting part of the narrative and flashback to earlier slower parts. I also feel more could have been made of the relationship between Chloe and her friend Hollie as this is important in terms of character development.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

I wasn't sure what to expect with this advance offering. Newspaper archivist Chloe, single and in her late 20s, leads an underwhelmingly lonely life. Mum has died and she lives with her nan who has dementia. Her best friend is loved up and living in the perfect house with the dreamy man. While Chloe's life is unravelling, nan's social worker wants nan in a home and her boss is one of those gits who is entirely unsupportive about her nan-related absences. Little wonder then that Chloe is taken with the story of a neighbouring four-year-old girl who disappeared. The girl, who would be the same age as her today, pops up repeatedly in the papers Chloe digitises in the newspaper archives.
Jobless, about to be homeless and practically friendless Chloe tracks down the girl's parents in a local village ... and becomes their lodger. The slow build up of her relationship with the parents left me with my heart in my mouth at times.
This is a painfully tender portrayal of a woman who doesn't fit in and yet your heart breaks for her as she attempts to do so.
This tender evocative story about secrets and loss is a brilliant debut novel. I suspect this will be 2021's Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine. The ending is unexpected...I'll leave it at that!
I loved it, bravo Anna Wharton - looking forward to your next offering.

Chloe hasn’t had an easy life. As a child growing up in care she has had her fair share of being pulled from one place to another, never really knowing where home was. At least now she lives with her Nan, but she is struggling with the constant demands of Nan’s dementia. Sometimes she is torn between being at home for Nan and going to work. We meet her as they take a visit to the graveyard to leave flowers for Chloe’s mother. Chloe has to leave Nan by the grave to clean out the container for flowers. She is only gone a few moments, but when she gets back Nan is nowhere to be seen. Chloe frantically searches the cemetery, the copse behind the graves but she knows in the pit of her stomach this is it. If she calls the police because she has lost Nan they will alert social services. Nan’s social worker is pleased that Chloe wants to look after her Nan, but feels that the job is proving too much for someone working full time. She has been pushing for Nan to move into a home and Nan’s disappearance has made the argument for this even more compelling. While working she finds the story of a young girl who went missing from a playground and becomes fascinated with the case. Angela Kyle was at the park and disappeared while her father was distracted. Now she would be the same age as Chloe. As Nan is found and social services intervene, Chloe finds that the home they have recently shared will be sold for care fees. She then loses her job for taking the Kyle archive off the premises. Feeling totally adrift, Chloe wonders if she could be of help to the Kyle family. Maybe with her research she could help them find Angie.

Chloe work in the archives seems to take place at a similar time to when I was working for my local newspaper. A time when old-fashioned jobs like those who worked the printing press were being made redundant. I remember the warm, print smell in the afternoons and the smell of our archive, complete with a severe looking librarian who spent all day painstakingly cutting out and filing stories, and lending them out begrudgingly, as if she was lending her children! I remember our printing press being shut down. I remember the archive becoming digital. I used to sell advertising space then sit and design the advert on A4 requests with invoice slips attached. A man would collect them once a day and physically drive them to our art department who would magically turn them into adverts that appeared in features. Then it all became digital. I guess this gave me a way into the story, and a sense of what Chloe did and how it feels when your job is defunct. However, for Chloe it’s her whole purpose gone at once since she’s no longer her Nan’s carer. She visits the home, but Nan is only there sometimes and often protests she doesn’t have a granddaughter. I could feel Chloe’s sense of being adrift, without anything to anchor her.

She visits the fenland village where Maureen and Patrick Kyle now live. It is in the middle of nowhere, and their house is even outside the tiny hamlet set down a long drive. I live in Lincolnshire and can appreciate the endless flat fields and open sky, being able to see for miles and at night a huge expense of stars. By coincidence she sees an ad in the village shop for a lodger in the Kyle’s home. What better way to get to know the Kyles and try to solve the mystery? She can also solve the problem of losing her home. So she moves in with Maureen and Patrick and starts to get to know them, being honest about her past in care and her Nan, but not letting on that she knows about their daughter. She pretends to work in insurance and takes the bus every day into town, sometimes visiting Nan and other times visiting the playground where Angie went missing. However, lies are often found out and Chloe hasn’t fully thought through the implications of finding out the truth.

It was very hard to get to know Chloe and find out who she truly was, despite being party to her thoughts and feelings. I wondered if she was suffering borderline personality disorder, often categorised as a lack of cohesive self. She certainly fits the pattern and came from the type of disordered background that can lead to this type of mental illness. She was certainly exhibiting impulsive behaviour that she hadn’t fully thought through and formed intense but unstable relationships with others. Her friend Hollie, who had also gone through the care system, seemed like the only constant in her life. Although at times even she struggled to understand Chloe’s motivations and behaviour. I felt that the author treated Chloe’s behaviour sensitively and honestly. As Maureen started to behave in a motherly way towards Chloe, she responded like a daughter, possibly because this was the type of maternal affection that had always been missing from her life. This meant that she humoured the use of a special ‘Bunnikins’ plate and small cutlery for her at teatimes, where maybe someone else might have asked for something different. The pair bond very quickly, but she doesn’t cultivate the same bond with Patrick who seems to ask a lot of questions or Maureen’s friend Josie who seems suspicious of her presence. Chloe listens out for clues and finds Patrick slightly overbearing with his wife. They do have rows which she tries to listen to, but they also have a padlocked room that has no explanation.

The tension ratchets up slowly, starting as Patrick asks questions about where she works and Chloe getting a glimpse of what is hidden in the locked room. As she edges closer to the truth, she is in danger of being expelled from her new home or if someone in the house is responsible for Angie’s disappearance, could she be in serious danger? The need to know what had happened all those years before became addictive and I read the last chapters quickly and greedily! I was also fascinated by the dynamic building between Chloe and Maureen, who starts to suspect that Chloe might be her daughter. All the love and longing this mother has had for her missing girl starts to be lavished on Chloe and what’s so sad is that this is exactly what she has needed her whole life. There’s a point where the scales start tipping and I wondered if Chloe was starting to believe there could be some truth in it. She doesn’t remember her earliest years, so could she be Angie? Patrick goes along with this fiction, he doesn’t want to see his wife grieving another ‘daughter’ but he is uncomfortable and I started to wonder if he knew more than he was letting on. The ending when it comes is not sensational, but is sad, human and utterly tragic. However, there is another revelation coming that blew my mind a little. It was a bit like seeing The Sixth Sense then wanting to watch it again immediately with your new found knowledge. I thought the title was very apt, because Chloe is an imposter. She has no idea who she is, so becomes what other people need her to be. I truly hoped for a happier future for the character and her sense of isolation touched me. This was a great read, both as a mystery, but also has an exploration of what happens when we have no roots or anchor in life.

I enjoyed this story. I got a little bit frustrated at times by the lead character and wanted to shout at her. I do find it annoying at times when characters in a story believe that they are better at investigating cases than the actual police! However, I enjoyed the story and it was certainly unusual, with an interesting twist. Worth a read.

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!

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..