An interesting story about a family who's youngest daughter Emily disappeared in 1935.

As Emily's sister Lucy is on her deathbed she decides to document her life and what happened to Emily. The chapters alternate between Lucy's diary and the modern day when her great niece moves into Lucy's empty house.

Personally I found the story a little slow paced. I was expecting a dramatic thriller. In reality the majority of the book is the story of the characters lives and less of a thriller. Although the mystery element does keep readers guessing until the end about how Emily disappeared.

I literally put my life on hold to finish this book
Loved the 2 timelines I had no idea how the story was going to end. Definitely highly recommend. Will be looking out for more from this author

I really enjoyed reading this book. The plot has many layers which unfolded the deeper you fell into the pages. The characters were believable, they were all important to the story. There were some things that I didn't see coming though there were some that I did.
A great read!

The Lost Girls is an atmospheric mystery thriller set across two timeframes: Justine in 1999 moving with her two young daughters into her recently inherited family lake house and Great-Aunt Lucy in 1935 on holiday at the lake house with her parents and sisters, Lilith and Emily.

During that fateful Summer, Emily (the baby of the family) disappears and the mystery surrounding what happened to her carries throughout the family impacting future generations down to Justine and her girls.

Heather Young has such a beautiful way of setting the scene, intertwining the two stories and building tension throughout. The story itself is a bit of slow burn but when you get a few chapters in, you just won’t want to put it down.

I loved Lucy’s perspective in particular, which not only recalled events and feelings of the past but also included more recent elements of what had happened to her and the other key characters (Lilith, her parents and the locals at the lake house) in later life.

The conclusion was perfect and this story is well worth adding to your Summer reading list!

It took me a while to get into this and at times I found it a bit confusing and perhaps a little depressing. However, it was a good read and I enjoyed it. There were twists and turns and not as expected.

Thank you to NetGalley for giving me an ebook copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

When Lucy dies she leaves everything to Justine. Justine, a single mother, moves to Lucy's home with her 2 children. Whilst there she learns about her families secrets via a journal Lucy wrote for her. We get to read this journal through Lucy's POV with each chapter alternating between her and Justine's stories. The main story of Lucy's being about her sister, Emily, and how she disappeared at the lake house in 1935.

This is the first book I have read by Heather Young and I was highly impressed. The story was told slowly so that no detail was missed out, and it was the perfect way to do so. The plot was fascinating and I enjoyed the detailed insights into the secondary characters too. The plot twist at the end was the perfect way to end.

Loved this book, gripped from the start till the end, could not put it down! Thank you NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read this book.

The Lost Girls is a beautiful story about a family of women and the secrets they have kept.

Told over two timelines – you learn about the past and the present generations. I love the sense of family and sisterhood that is running through the family.

The revelations at the end, are emotional, shocking and intense, I look forward to reading more of Heather Young in future.

A very engaging book , with great characters who's relationships will have you wondering what is round the next corner ,& if some of the things your getting a feeling for between the lines about them will be correct when all is revealed. Can Justine find the right way for her & her daughters to live a happy & stable life ,unlike the one she had growing up constantly on the road from one City or Town to another with her own mother Maurie & will her late Aunt Lucy's inheritance set her free.? Read this wonderful book to find out #FB, #Instagram,#Goodreads,#NetGalley, #<img src="https://www.netgalley.com/badge/c566f42be23a0e25d120e78a3454e2d427c4beee" width="80" height="80" alt="50 Book Reviews" title="50 Book Reviews"/>,#<img src="https://www.netgalley.com/badge/ef856e6ce35e6d2d729539aa1808a5fb4326a415" width="80" height="80" alt="Reviews Published" title="Reviews Published"/>, #<img src="https://www.netgalley.com/badge/aa60c7e77cc330186f26ea1f647542df8af8326a" width="80" height="80" alt="Professional Reader" title="Professional Reader"/>, #Amazon.co.uk, #vervebooks

I received a copy of this book to review from Netgalley and all opinions are my own.
A shocking, twist filled story that will keep you riveted from the first page. I was kept guessing about the truth until the very end. The writing is good and the characters complex and dark at times.

A slow-burning and atmospheric mystery, The Lost Girls is a beautifully descriptive story about a family of women and the secrets they have kept over a period of 60 years.

Told over two timelines – the past leading up to Emily’s disappearance, and the present as Emily’s grandniece takes over the house – I love the sense of family, sisterhood, and female strength that is seen through all of these characters. The story is told through five generations of women so it feels like a legacy, documenting the lives of these women and the bonds that have strengthened through their hardships.

But although you get a strong understanding of the many relationships, I wanted more mystery. The synopsis of the book describes how Emily went missing, leaving all of these people behind, lost and trying to find out what happened to her. It’s described as a “decades-old family mystery”, but I didn’t feel the significance of her disappearance until the very end. Emily is shielded by her mother in the past and kept out of sight so we don’t get to know much about her then, and then she’s only briefly mentioned in the present as a sibling who went missing.

The synopsis gives away much more about the plot than the story does itself, as everybody seemed more caught up in their own issues rather than what happened to Emily. I didn’t get the feeling that they were still curious about what happened to her or that any of the neighbours knew more than they were letting on. So the sense of mystery fell flat for me, which is what I needed to really grip me to this story.

The revelations at the end, however, are emotional and intense and really pack a punch. Everything comes together brilliantly to tie the story up. There was just too much set-up at the start and so many characters and generations to place in my head that I did feel a little disconnected from the story.

As a debut book, though, there’s a lot to be impressed by. I love Young’s vivid descriptions and the way she explores the themes of loss, guilt, hope, and redemption. I would definitely recommend this book if you don’t mind a slow pace, as the conclusions are certainly worth the wait.

Suspenseful, Emotional and Mysterious...........................

The Lost Girls by Heather Young is a masterpiece in itself. The book revolves around only two narrations and is written brilliantly. I liked the fact that the author has focused on the love between sisters and importance of family. The plot is marvelous with some astonishing secrets. The sudden turn of facts were so unnerving that you would not be able to put the book down. I would rather say that The Lost Girls is a 5 star book.

Also, I liked the cover of book as it totally reflects the plot. One of the best mystery and thriller book of this year.

As soon as I heard about The Lost Girls, I jumped at the chance to request it from NetGalley. Dual timeline? Historical mystery? Woman discovering herself whilst finding out long-buried family secrets? It all sounded like Unread Books catnip!

In the summer of 1935, six-year-old Emily Evans vanishes from her family’s remote lake house. Her distraught mother refuses to leave, staying at the family’s summer home in the hope that, one day, her lost daughter will return. Emily’s two older sisters, eleven-year-old Lucy and thirteen-year-old Lilith, also stay behind. Years later, Lilith’s granddaughter Justine receives word that her great-aunt Lucy has died – and left her the Lake House and all of its contents.

Stuck in a stifling relationship and with two small daughters to provide for, Justine jumps at the chance for a fresh start. But the Lake House is far from welcoming. The long Minnesota winter is just beginning and the house is more dilapidated than Justine remembers. Her only neighbours – a pair of quiet and reclusive elderly men – are cautiously friendly, but seem to know more about Justine’s family than they are letting on. With the arrival of her erratic and unreliable mother and controlling ex-boyfriend, Justine’s new start is soon in danger of repeating old history. And then her troubled eldest daughter starts asking questions about a long ago summer in 1935…

As you can hopefully tell from that brief synopsis, The Lost Girls is a page-turning and compelling mystery set over dual timelines. Alternating between Justine herself in the present day, an elderly Lucy writing down her recollections of that long ago summer, the mystery of what happened to Emily gradually unravels alongside Justine’s present day woes and conflicts to create a complete picture of a family haunted by long-buried secrets and betrayals.

Although compelling, the plot is relatively sedate for the first half of the book. There’s quite a lot of setup to establish the characters and the setting, which really helps to build the tension for what ended up being a pacy and explosive second act! I really loved the sense of place that Heather Young manages to convey. She captures both the nostalgia of Lucy’s childhood summers by the lake – all sunlit evenings and rising emotions stifled by the heat – and the cold isolation of the modern day Lake House, frozen in time just as much as it is frozen within the wintery Minnesota landscape.

The characters were, for me, a little harder to like. Although I could sympathise with Justine, I sometimes struggled to empathise with her inability to cut her ties and make a new life for herself and her girls. Although I don’t want to give any spoilers, there are a couple of characters in her life that I would have given the heave-ho much sooner – and before events turned dramatic!

Lucy was, for me, the more compelling voice in the narrative. Although often irrational and petulant, she comes across as a typical eleven-year-old girl, caught somewhere between childhood and her teenage years – and aware that her older sister Lilith is growing up and leaving her behind. The revelations about Lucy’s life and family are also utterly devastating – and really put into perspective some of the events that have come beforehand in the book, as well as some of the ripples that feed through to the present day narrative.

Although primarily a mystery, The Lost Girls does also deal with family dynamics and family secrets. Although it tackles the subjects with sensitivity, trigger warnings should be noted for sexual abuse, child abuse, gaslighting, and coercive control.

Overall, The Lost Girls is a captivating story of loss, guilt, hope, redemption, and escape. Its dual narratives are handled with great skill to make for an enthralling mystery of one family’s secrets and lies over the space of 64 years. Haunting and intriguing, The Lost Girls is sure to appeal to fans of Rachel Hore and Kate Morton, as well as to anyone seeking a compulsive and compelling read.

In the summer of 1935, six year old Emily Evans vanishes from her family's vacation home on a remote Minnesota lake. Her disappearance destroys her mother, who spends the life at the lake house, hoping in vain that her favourite daughter will walk out of the woods. Emily's two sisters stay too. Sixty year later, Lucy, the quiet watchful middle sister, lives alone in the lake house. Before she dies, she writes the story of the devastating summer in a notebook that she leaves along with the house to her grandniece, Justine. Soon Justine's eldest daughter becomes obsessed with Emily's disappearance.

The story spans five generations of one family and each new generation adds more layers to the complex plotline. It's told in the past and present day with the addition of a journal which reminisces about the past. This is a creepy, haunting and atmospheric mystery. I did feel that the story dragged out in places. It's also quite a haed book to review as I don't want to spoil the book for potential readers. This is a bit of a slow burner but it's quite a good debut novel.

I would like to thank #NetGalley #VerveBooks and the author #HeatherYoung for my ARC of #TheLostGirls in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for giving me a chance to read The Lost Girls.

This book will likely stay with me for a long while. I've always loved stories that go from one era to the next in the form of journals and diaries, so I really enjoyed this. Emily's disappearance will have you second-guessing yourself as to who had a hand in her fate. I will say that it affected me more than I realised when (the night I finished the book) I had a nightmare about my daughter in which she died. I woke up and just spent the morning sobbing.

I loved reading of Lucy's past and I loved reading about Justine's present. There were so many complicated characters but it worked so so well. I recommend this to everyone.

I enjoyed this deep dark mystery. It tells of a girl gone missing which in turn changed her families lives so drastically forever. Mum and her sisters basically stop in time. as they never stop waiting for their girl to come back. This story is told in 2 timelines and keeps you gripped to find out what happened to Lucy , there are quite a few characters to get to know which a found hard to remember sometimes but it did not affect my enjoyment of the book and I would definitely recommend
Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read this copy.

**Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advance copy of this title in exchange for a fair and honest review**

This was an interesting book. I enjoyed the gradual revealing of the truth behind Emily's disappearance between the 2 timelines. I did get lost a few times with all of the characters.

I love when I find a book that draws me in so completely that I become attached to the characters within it, and am sad when it comes to an end. The Lost Girls is one of those books, with good depth of characters and a strong atmospheric narrative which makes you feel like you are right there with them at the lakeside cabin in the forest.

This book is told from two aspects, the first being set in 1935, where Lucy, a young girl is spending the summer in her family’s holiday cabin on the lake with her older sister Lilith whom she idolises and her younger sister Emily whom she sees mostly as an annoyance- the apple of her parents’ eyes , who can do no wrong. When six year old Emily disappears at the end of the summer, the family is changed forever, and the secrets which they guard will influence the rest of their lives. In 1999, Justine, Lilith’s granddaughter inherits the lake cabin when her elderly aunt Lucy passed away. Eager to flee from an abusive relationship she packs up and moves her two daughters to the cabin where she spent one summer in her youth. Before Lucy passed away she decided to finally write down the secrets which had haunted her since her youth, hoping that maybe her grand-niece might understand.

Set in a lakeside forest with a number of holiday cabins where families came year after year to enjoy their summers, this book shows a dark underside to the facade of happy families which Lucy and her family strove hard to maintain.

One summer, Lilith and Lucy's little sister Emily goes missing when they are at their lake house. The mystery of what happened to her lasts throughout generations, with Lilith's daughter Maurie, and her daughter Justine, and her daughters Melanie and Emily, all touched in various ways by the legacy of this family tragedy. But it is only when Justine returns to the lake house that the mystery can finally be laid to rest.

This is an emotive story, and once I got into it, I thought it was really good, but at the start the pace was so slow that I didn't think I would finish it. I'm really glad I stuck with it because my persistence was rewarded with a moving story from memorable characters that will stay with me for some time.

With thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for a copy of this book in return for an honest review.

There are two timelines in this story which are in the summer of 1935, and in 1999. For me, I have a painfully slow reading for this story but I really like the story. It is the story that keeps me wanting to know what happened as I went through the book. The story is told from Lucy and Justine's perspectives. I really immersed myself in their telling, especially Lucy’s parts. The story is slow and emotional. For me, the theme of the story is regret. It is how your choice has affected other people’s lives for decades, causing decades-long pain and tragedy. This story has mystery in it but for me, the way the story moves is not really like a typical mystery novel. The mystery is still there, but for me, the strength of this novel is its descriptive story-telling of what happened, not really the mystery part. The characters are okay for me even though I don’t like some of the characters. Plus, I like the writing of the story, it suits me. I give this story ⅗ stars.