The Lost Hours by Susan Lewis
I give this book 4 stars

A perfect marriage…
Golden couple Annie and David Crayce have it all.Life couldn’t be better. Until the unthinkable happens…
A perfect crime?
A piece of damning DNA evidence has arisen, placing David as the prime suspect of a murder committed 20 years ago. It all comes down to a few lost hours.......
And suddenly Annie begins to doubt the one person she thought she knew best…
Her husband.

I cannot recommend this author enough,lve read all her books and am always eagerly awaiting a new one.
Such wonderfully written and believable storytelling with well developed family characters.A powerful and gripping crime drama that had me invested from start to finish.
The past never stays hidden forever,a whole family has to deal with the fallout and grieving parents finally find out what happened to their daughter all those years ago.
With thanks to Netgalley,Susan Lewis and Harper Collins UK for my chance to read and review this book

Another brilliant Susan Lewis read, a great story told well with an interesting mix of charecters, came to a satisfactory conclusion, loved it

When I started reading the book, having reminded myself of the synopsis before reading, it was like what is this I am reading... Then you get to chapter 4 and the book (to me) really begins there and wow, what a captivating book it is from then onwards. An interesting storyline and took a while for things to piece together but the more you read on, the more captivating you got with the book. Definitely one to recommend - apart from those opening 3 chapters, the storyline is excellent and the characters you immediately take to.

I love Susan Lewis's books and eagerly anticipated this one. As always it was superbly written, well plotted and kept me guessing as to 'who dunnit' til the very end! It wasn't who I expected it to be as it happens. A murder that took place 2o years ago is brought to the forefront again as DNA evidence links the death to one of the Crayce family - but who? Unlike the author's previous books this one was a slow starter for me and it wasn't until I was just over half way through that the action really kicked in and from there it was much more gripping. My main struggle with the book was the very high volume of characters which I found very confusing. This is just me and my personal issue with remembering (or not) who belongs to whom when multiple people and relationships are involved and this did spoil it a little bit in my case as I had to backtrack a number of times to check who, where and when these people fitted into the story and especially since it was based in two timelines, twenty years ago and the present day. Having said that, it was a clever plot with twists and turns along the way making it difficult to predict who the culprit was - something that wasn't revealed until the very last pages. Another great book from Susan Lewis. My thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for a pre-release copy in exchange for my honest, unbiased review.

I normally love books from this author but I found it hard to get into the storyline and keep up with the plot.

Although it was well written overall I didn't particularly enjoy it as much as her previous books.

Thank you to Netgalley and Harper Collins UK for giving me the opportunity to read this book.

I found this a difficult book to get into as the first 20% of the book details how Annie Crayce has the perfect family and the perfect life. It is all turned upside down when the police arrive linking her husband to a murder dating back to 1999. This is when the story really starts. A good psychological thriller but overly long.
Thank you to NewtGalley and Harper Collins UK for the advance copy of this book.

A detective crime story/family drama - Susan Lewis at her best! When Sienna Crayce’s teenage prank leads to her arrest and DNA profiling, it looks like a 20-year-old murder case might be about to be solved. For Sienna’s DNA provides a family link to the murder of 17-year-old Karen Lomax. Sienna’s father David is arrested for the crime, and suddenly the Crayces' happy family life is turned upside down. Wife Annie can’t believe he is guilty, but how can she help clear his name, when he can’t remember anything about the night of the murder?
With a cold case murder to be solved, and the continual hint of severe trauma in David's past, this story takes us to some very dark places, but it is essentially a family drama with Annie at its core. The extended Crayce family are rich, successful and even a tiny bit smug, but gradually they grow on you until you are as desperate as Annie for some miracle to clear David's name. As it's set in Kesterley. recurring Susan Lewis character Andee Lawrence puts in an appearance - she's always welcome but really not necessary this time, as there's another strong, sympathetic female lead in DS Natalie Rundle, who is so determined to get her man that she seems to overstep the mark on occasion. Has she got it right this time? The murder-mystery alone makes this a suspenseful and dramatic read, but add in the emotion of a family torn apart by suspicion, and you really won't be able to put it down.

Annie and David appear to have the perfect life, bringing up their three children and running their family business.

Sienna their sixteen year old daughter is arrested after her friends stole a teddy bear. The police take her DNA and she hopes that is as far as it goes as no further charges are made.

Twenty years ago teenager Karen Lomax had gone missing, and her body was discovered in a railway hut. The police have used Sienna’s DNA as it is familiar to the DNA left on Karen’s body, meaning it could have come from any male in her family.

The family are horrified when David is arrested for the murder of Karen. Does Annie really know her husband? The perfect family starts to crumble as everyone looks at all the males with suspicion. Are they covering up what David did? Why are they so secretive about the night Karen died?

This was such a gripping read. I love how Susan Lewis drops a family into their worst nightmares as we casually sit back and observe what secrets and how far they will go to protect their family.

I was completely hooked as I tried to work out who had murdered Karen.

A must read book!!

Thank you to Netgalley for my copy in exchange for a review.

The Crayce family are a close knit, countryfied family with 2 teenage children and extended family nearby. 
Karen Lomax was found dead the day after she went missing in 1999. Now due to familial DNA being discovered in another case the murder is reinvestigated.
As the case is pieced together and lives are blown apart will the truth come out? You are left guessing and trying to piece the evidence together.
A really good read and a great brain workout as you try and get to the answer before the police!

As usual in my reviews I will not rehash the plot (plenty of reviews like that out there if that's what you are looking for!)

I've read several other books by Susan Lewis, so was delighted to be invited to read this latest novel!

Essentially a teenage girl's "moment of madness" leads to the reopening of cold case that blows apart the lives of several generations of her family, and many other people. The truth will out...

Without giving anything away, there are many twists and turns, and a few red herrings to keep the little grey cells working! The characters and their interactions are well written and believable. You find yourself drawn in to their world - now and in the past.

As usual I was gripped from the start, read the book in one go, and stayed up very late late to finish it...and as usual I wish I had more patience - as now I have to wait ages until Susan's next novel is published!

If you haven't read any of Susan Lewis's books before, this is a great one to start with.

My thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for an ARC. All opinions my own.

When Annie Crayce’s daughter gets arrested by the police for a silly prank with her friends, no-one can predict the chain of events that is set in motion. The dna sample taken by the police brings back a familial link to evidence discovered with the body of a local girl 20 years before. As suspicion falls on all the men in the family, Annie has to fight to hold it all together

Susan Lewis has the ability to get right to the heart of a family, her characters are always believable (if not always likeable) and while the events portrayed don’t happen to everyone they could. A total page Turner. I loved it

The plot is set in a small town where everyone knows everyone, adding to the mystery and intrigue.
With well drawn characters, whose lives are entangled with family connections, this will definitely keep you guessing to the end.
A complicated tale, with a dark back story and lots of twists, this book draws you in from the beginning
A brilliantly written mystery with an ending you'll never see coming

The Lost Hours by Susan Lewis is one of the best books I’ve read in a long time. It’s billed as the emotional, gripping fiction novel of 2021 and I couldn’t agree more.

Annie and David Crayce have it all. A happy marriage, three gorgeous children and a successful business. Life is pretty perfect until the unthinkable happens. Due to an unfortunate incident a piece of DNA evidence is linked to a murder from twenty years earlier, placing David as the prime suspect. Annie is sure he’s innocent but does that then point the finger at David’s brother or father? Will this totally rock Annie’s happy existence?

From page one I was hooked and taken on a total rollercoaster. I enjoyed the whole dynamic of the book and found myself questioning who had actually done it changing my mind with each chapter. The whole plot flowed at a constant steady pace and I found myself thinking I’ll just read one more chapter unable to put it down.

Thank you to NetGalley, Harper Collins and the author for the chance to review.

I love this author and I was only few pages in and was gripped.

The story with Annie, David and family is fantastic.

This book is the definition of truly psychological - a complicated unsolved murder mystery that makes you question every single character who is under the spotlight.

Karen Lomax, a wild and carefree teenager, was found murdered and brutally dumped in 1999. Fast forward twenty years and the murder has gone unsolved until now when police suddenly get a familial match for DNA that was found on Karen’s body at the time - and they end up at the door of David Crayce. Wife Annie is horrified as she watches her husband get arrested and led away from their home and the tension only increases as it transpires that the familial match found on Karen belongs to one of three Crayce family members...

Susan Lewis is very gifted in that she can take an everyday family with normal lives and place them in extraordinary situations that are shocking but feel entirely realistic. Every time I thought I had sussed who the killer was, a new titbit was thrown in about a character which made me repeatedly change my mind. The amount of detail that has gone into embellishing the Crayce family and their lives is so intricate, it’s so easy to feel that they are a family you know well. I think what also made this book feel so realistic to me is that it’s set at the beginning of 2020 in the UK and regularly mentions the beginning of the pandemic just before it arrived in the UK - it felt so surreal to read about life back then, even though it’s fictional, as for me personally 2020 feels like years ago!

This book is a highly captivating and enigmatic mystery that will keep you reeled in and guessing the whole way through.

Thank you to NetGalley and HarperCollins UK for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This is one of the best Susan Lewis books I have read I thoroughly enjoyed it. Would highly recommend this to anyone.

One of the best Susan Lewis books I have read.
An almost perfect family have their world turned upside down, the story was great a bit gritty in places, and the fact that they mention that they cancel the holiday In Italy because of a virus makes it so real!
Looking forward to reading the next susan Lewis book.
Thank you NetGalley

From one small adolescent incident, a massive chain of events begins with love, loyalty and trust sorely tested within what everyone wanted to believe was a close knit family. Acutely written to the point that even the reader feels betrayed as the ending unravels.

A suspenseful, captivating read. David is arrested following a juvenile incident where his daughter's DNA is taken and a familial link is found for a crime committed twenty years earlier. We as readers explore and unpick the complex relationships bnetgalleyetween all involved to find out whether he could be guilty of Karen's murder despite seemingly having no recollection of the night in question. A great read thank you netgalley.

#TheLostHours #NetGalley

The Lost Hours really is Susan Lewis back on top form. Perhaps it's about the crafting of this narrative or the way characters jump from the page into the crevices of your irritation, anger or empathy. Either way,
the book is is atmospheric, enigmatic and a mystery that feeds the reader's curiousity from start to finish.
Presenting the story of the seemingly accomplished, happy family unit of the Crayces, an old crime in the community rears its head and puts everything into question.
Wife Annie is left with a ream of unanswered questions and husband David teeters dangerously close to damning DNA evidence, pulling him into the role of suspect number one. Add to this complexities of family ties, in-laws, children and the longevity of childhood friendship, and you are already too far involved in this book to stop and walk away.
Lewis seems to, when one of her books hits home like this one, have the uncanny ability to write about the human condition in a way that is empathetic - even when there are acts of deceit or violent crime! Throughout the novel, uncertainty and twisting opinions of the main protagonists work together to keep a shifting undercurrent of secrecy. As readers, we are then left with unease about where the conclusion will fall.
The only lesser successful element in the constructions of the novel are perhaps the integrity of how peripheral characters are not drawn in as much depth, or given as much time to be fully understood. Consequently, at the latter quarter of the story questionable gaps remain. Then again, perhaps the surprise elements of the resolutions in the story would pack less of a punch without this veil of mystery - maybe that is a deliberate construct.

The best part of the book, and where Lewis' true writing skill shines, is in the depiction of the Crayces as a family unit, who are drawn initially within a hopeful bubble of love, affection and support, despite the difficulties they face. Parenting is adept and the couple remain strong, despite doubts cast because of the central mystery unfolding. Alongside this, The Lost Hours unfolds against cleverly placed jarring descriptions of the family shooting business, which Lewis uses to invoke a palpable sense of setting and place, from the short bursts of surprise when gunshots are heard in the background, to other key scenes.
The prose frequently returns to details of disturbance to nature, like how for Annie: '...as she got out of the car the crack of a gunshot rang through the skies, puncturing nature's benign tranquility like a wayward thunderbolt and echoing on for a moment or two into the silence. No birds stirred, nothing stirred at all. Two more explosions boomed into the stillness followed by two more, and yet more.'
What overrides the whole book is a threat of peace being disturbed, or the status quo being wholly, finitely disrupted - a metaphor if ever there was one, aligned with the essence of what the thriller element of this story does to the Crayce family.
The overall register of the book, adeptly ties some beautiful prose with the traditional thriller genre conventions, meaning that it is gripping and a joy to read from start to finish; leaving the reader to question: how well do they really know the ones they love?