A great start to the book but I thought it was slow moving till the unexpected twist at the end.

After losing custody of her 4yr old daughter, Naomi finally gets her daughter to stay the night, then the next morning she finds her dead at the bottom of the stairs, Naomi panics and doesn`t want to loose her daughter so hide`s her dead body in a hidden bunker in the woods on her farm. She then tells the police she has gone missing, with everyone out hunting for her, the lies go deeper and she can`t get out of it.
It has lots of flashbacks to Naomi`s past has lots of twists and a good twist at the end.

Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest review

Naomi wakes in the morning to find her daughter Freya dead at the bottom of the stairs. What she does next turns her life into a nightmare.
Being a mother I find it hard to read anything about children getting hurt but this story is so well written that it made me keep turning the pages.
Naomi is divorced from her husband Aiden , he has remarried and has custody of their daughter . This is the first time Freya has stayed overnight with her mum.
I thought I had worked out what had happened but I was wrong.
The writer covers difficult topics such as post natal depression, anxiety and addiction very sensitively.and skill fully.
4.5 stars ⭐️
Thanks to #Penguin and #Netgalley for allowing me to read this book in return for a fair review.
Highly recommended.

Thank you NetGalley for this advanced copy. WOW. This is a great book! It starts off with a big holy cow and continues to have more throughout the story. Good suspense along the way as to what really happened that night. Total jaw dropping ending I did not see coming in more ways than one.

Definitely one that will have you wondering what on earth did actually happen.
And why would you act that way?
And what did happen in the past??



At times I was gripped by this book. Other times not so much. I felt the story was dragging out the answers.
Overall though,its a good read.

A good debut,and I'm reading the next book.

The morning Naomi Williams tells a lie, her life spins out of control.

In truth, Naomi lost control of her life some years before. When They Find Her examines both the consequences of Naomi's lie and the reasons for the unhappiness and confusion that led to it.

Lia Middleton's pacy psychological thriller explores motherhood, alienation, mental health and addiction, cleverly wrapped up in a race-to-the-finish whodunnit. The Alice in Wonderland allusions echo Naomi's fragile grasp on reality and called to mind Grace Slick's hallucinogenic song, White Rabbit, as well as the Lewis Carroll classic.

The twists and turns in the plot make When They Find Her a real page-turner. I do so love it when I half-guess a reveal a few moments before it's confirmed! I'd have liked to have seen a bit less of Naomi's internal monologue and a bit more of some of the secondary characters - Detective Jenning and put-upon Rupert spring to mind - but perhaps that would have slowed down the action.

Unsurprisingly, Lia Middleton's background as a barrister brings authenticity to the interrogation and court-room scenes. The back and forth of the dialogue had an urgency that ramped up the tension as we discovered who exactly was lying to who.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if When They Find Her is a huge hit next summer! Thanks for my advance copy.

It’s no surprise that fiction, the epitome of creative deceit, should have a love affair with lies as its subject matter. Some authors make a career of it, populating their books with various iterations of unreliable narrators, outright scammers and those with murderous intent behind their pretences. We love the vicarious thrill of seeing these characters get their comeuppance and sometimes, albeit rarely, their triumph, because, in the end, thrillers are essentially morality tales which appeal to our need to set the world to rights and re-establish the illusion of a status quo.

In the better examples of this type, however, these lines are blurred and the reader withheld from the binary satisfaction of black and white or good and evil. Instead, we are left with something which much more realistically reflects life in all its messy nuances. Lia Middleton’s debut, When they Find Her, is one such book: a novel in which there are no real villains and, more interestingly, no real heroes.

The lie of its central conceit comes early on, when Naomi, a young mother who has endured a reluctant and unhappy divorce with ex-husband Aidan, is begrudgingly granted access to their daughter Freya for a single and unsupervised overnight stay. The terrible conclusion of that night - at the end of chapter 1 - provides the momentum for the rest of the novel, and a good two thirds of the book focuses on these consequences in present time whilst also injecting flashbacks which build an emerging and increasingly blurred portrait of Naomi, Aidan and their intimate circle of friends. As a result, the reader is continuously encouraged to shift their own perception of events.

This is a clever thematic device, for as much as it reminds us of the non-binary nature of morality, so too does it illuminate the slippery quality of truth itself, a fact nicely referenced in the frequent allusions to Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland. For Naomi, we discover, mistrusts herself as much as others appear to. It’s impossible to be clearer on the reasons behind this without spoilers, but, suffice to say, there are issues here which are poised to ignite the most awful of events to their most extreme degree.

Crucibles are the life-blood of this genre: the environment, setting and context that bonds as well as destroys, and families are one of the most volatile. What is both brilliant and ultimately tragic in Middleton’s tale is the portrait of a marriage dissolved not through lack of love, but lack of understanding, a fault which lies with neither party as much as both of them. The choices we make and the things we choose to say and not to say, though often motivated by good intentions, can often be the unkindest decisions of all and it is in this complex moral compass that the story’s power resides.

Elsewhere in the novel, Middleton handles the tropes of her genre - misdirection, tension, and the ticking clock which prompts increasingly desperate and impulsive decisions - with ease, although her concentration on inner character sometimes causes the pace to lag in the second act. This is not a fault so much as a caveat to those expecting the break-neck speed of others in the convention, and is more than made up for in the third act of the book which ramps up both the jeopardy and the reader’s desire for the reveal at a nerve-biting rate. Of particular note are the elements of police procedural throughout the novel which - given the author’s profession as a barrister - are unsurprisingly authentic in their detail.

Middleton writes with assuredness and clarity, setting out the stall of her characters and their inner lives with unapologetically simple prose; the initially curious lack of a larger world ultimately contributing to the feeling of claustrophobia and psychological realism. At several points of the novel I was reminded of Nikki Smith’s equally compelling debut, All In Her Head, and whilst Smith’s narrative exploration is less nuanced and more viscerally terrifying, both these authors tackle their extremely difficult subject matter with huge sensitivity and empathy.

Above all, this is a book to spark discussion; the most impressive and highest aim of an author, irrespective of the moral conclusions we reach. A highly recommended read.

My sincere thanks to the author, and for her editor Clio Cornish at Michael Joseph for the ARC in return for an unbiased review.

Lia Middleton has certainly hit the spot with her chilling debut. Not only does it draw you in with its shocking opening, but it keeps you there through every pacy chapter.

When Naomi is allowed to have her daughter to stay overnight she is thrilled, All she wants is for them to be the family they were before. But after a shocking accident and one terrible decision, Naomi finds herself in the middle of a police investigation.

As the story unfolds, you begin to really understand Naomi and her true motivations. It is quite an achievement to have a reader feel compassion for what seems like a truly flawed character, but the author does this brilliantly. Middleton deals with the full gamut of emotions, while managing to keep the reader hooked in the suspenseful and twisting storyline.

When They Find Her is as clever and compelling as it is gripping. Thank you for my advanced copy.

When They Find Her is the gripping debut by Lia Middleton. When Naomi’s daughter comes to stay, she wants nothing more than to re-build her family but following a tragic accident, Naomi tells a lie that she can never take back.

This is a thriller that grabs you and holds you there until the very last page. Fast paced and skilfully written, with a twist that will keep you guessing until the very end.

Middleton doesn’t shy away from some of the most complex of human emotions, but hits them head on. Unimaginable grief. Postnatal depression. Betrayal. These are all handled with the utmost care, giving not only a fast paced thrilled but an emotional and compassionate read that does not in any way detract from the nail biting suspense.

When They Find Her is unputdownable, from the first page to the last. Thank you for my advanced copy.

Lia MIddleton delivers an unputdownable thriller with her debut, When They Find Her. This is a bold novel that starts quickly with an unimaginable horror befalling the protagonist, Naomi, and doesn't let up the pace until the last page. When Naomi lies about what happened when her daughter came to stay, she sets off a chain of events she has little control over, and the reader gets to see the fall out of that lie. If this were the plot itself, it would have been a satisfying read, but Middleton skilfully uses flashbacks and Naomi's own doubt about what actually happened to keep the reader guessing at the truth, leading to a genuinely shocking twist.

Middleton's real triumph in this fast=paced novel is her ability to appal the reader with Naomi's questionable actions while simultaneously creating great sympathy for her. Amid the bustle of a police investigation, Middleton provides enough private moments for Naomi to reveal the depths of grief and the pained reasoning behind her actions. The gradual use of flashback builds a picture of not a terrible woman but a pained one. By the end of the novel, despite her actions, Naomi elicits great compassion and the emotional pay-off to the story is just as accomplished as the nail-biting suspense throughout.

When They Find Her has the hallmarks of a huge hit and deserves to be so. Thank you for the advanced copy.