This was a brilliant and suspenseful read!!!
I loved that all the way through we were drip fed information about Joanna and her connection to what happened, or what she think happened, in the estate she lives in. The big twist that we are given half way through hadn't even occurred to me!
I love how I just kept guessing and was wrong about what happened to Lily, and when revelations occurred, you could pinpoint parts of the story that contained hints. Another masterclass in thriller writing from Mara!

4.5 stars rounded up for this story surrounding a family recently moved into a house in 2018 that they discover is the home of a well known missing child case from 1985. I find the writing style so accessible and yet gripping, it just keeps you guessing. Many thanks to Netgalley and Random House UK, Transworld Publishers for the ARC.

4.5 stars rounded up

When Joanna and her family move into their new house, she's sure they've found their forever home. Until she learns about it's dark past: thirty years ago, it was home to three year old Lily Murphy, who disappeared during a game of hide-and-seek and was never seen again. Joanna is determined to find out all she can about the little girls disappearance and the inhabitants of the close=knit neighbourhood are all eager to speculate. But the more she learns, The closer she's drawn to her own dark family secrets - secrets she's spent years trying to hide.

Joanna Stedman, her husband Mark and their three children move into their 'forever' home in Dublin. Joanna is distressed to learn her new home is the house where three year old Lily Murphy went missing after playing hide-and-seek thirty years ago. The story has a dual timeline - the past, 1985, when Lily went missing and the present day. Joanna becomes obsessed with the mystery surrounding the missing girl. She questions the neighbours and she suspects the disappearance is connected to an event from her own past. There is lots of characters to try and keep track of. There's secrets, red herrings and revelations. With some people knowing more than they let on, we don't find out what happened to Lily until nearly the very end.

I would like to thank #NetGalley #RandomHouseUK #TransworldPublishers and the author #AndreaMara for my ARC of #HideAndSeek in exchange for an honest review.

I hadn’t read anything by Andrea Mara before, but saw a lot of people get very excited about a new book, do decided to jump on the bandwagon. I was not disappointed.
This book is about a three year old girl that goes missing. There are some connections to a couple that buy the house the child lived in several decades later. The 3 year old was declared drowned. But 30 years later, would a re look at the case solve anything?
It’s fast paced, page turner, with a very real seat of characters. Reminds me of some of the Lucy Foley mysteries - a mixture of a nice modern day social going inside, with a murky mystery hovering around.
I read via @Netgalley courtesy of Random House UK, Transworld Publishers and book is published 4th August

What happens when you find out your new home is where a little girl went missing from and then your daughter goes missing too?!
A highly suspenseful novel full of twist & turns.

What a fantastic book this is! The eponymous game of Hide And Seek leads to the disappearance of little Lily Murphy, and she is never subsequently found. Years later Joanna moves into the house from which Lily disappeared and her life is thrown into turmoil. The tight knit community into which she has moved is full of people with secrets and the revelations come thick and fast. A tremendous read.

When Joanna and her family move to Rowanbrook in suburban Dublin, she has no idea that the very house they've moved in to is the house where three year old Lily Murphy went missing over thirty years ago.
When Joanna starts to dig through the cold case she realises that the missing child might be connected to her own family.
Andrea Mara is fast becoming one of my favourite authors. Her books are so fast paced yet easy to read and always with a brilliant storyline.
Her latest one is no different, it kept me guessing to the very end with so many twists I didn't see coming. I absolutely loved it.

This was a very slow burner.. it was well written and I enjoyed the beginning and the ending but not the middle, I found it hard going and a bit repetitive and the main protagonist was too obsessive and very boring .

Not the page turner I was hoping for but thank you to Netgalley and Random House UK for this ARC.

Joanna and her husband Mark have just moved with their three young children to a new home in Rowanbrook, a beautiful Dublin neighbourhood where everyone seems to know everyone else. Joanna soon finds out that their new home once belonged to the Murphy family, who became well known in the 1980s after their three year old daughter Lily disappeared during a game of hide and seek. Lily was never found - and Joanna becomes slightly obsessed with finding out what happened to her.

There are a lot of people to keep track of in this book, but I promise you, it's worth it. I don't know how Andrea has done it again - she has woven this huge cast of characters, histories, secrets, revelations, mysteries and red herrings and tied it all together in an incredibly satisfying knot. One of our finest domestic thriller writers.

What's not to love about Andrea Mara? As usual with a twisty, turny thriller I feel lost for the first 50 pages or so but then when who's who and what's gone before clicks I'm glued.

Another confession is that Andrea's books sometimes give me the creeps. I'm easily disturbed and the most annoying part about a great thriller like this that you don't want to stop reading is that I have to when night falls. I admit it. If this was on the telly I'd be behind the sofa with my eyes shut.

However, my irrational fears aside, no one does thrillers quite as well as Andrea Mara. I've loved all her other books (some only slightly more than others) so when I got an advance copy from Netgalley I started reading straight away.

The story revolves around the disappearance of 3 year old Lily Murphy and the connection it has to Joanna Stedman who now lives in her house. Lily was never found and Joanna believes she knows more about this case than most because Joanna has a whole closet full of secrets herself.

As she tries to unravel her own past and that of the Murphy family the twists keep coming. In fact the very last twist is on the final page.

As usual a brilliantly conceived and tautly plotted thriller from an author at the top of her game.

Very highly recommended to anyone who loves thrillers and who has or hasn't read Andrea's previous books.

Plus if anyone is listening can you put my name on the list for the next one please.

What a corker of a psychological thriller! Joanna Stedman, her husband and her 3 kids move into their “forever” home in a Dublin suburb. Joanna is disturbed to find out that 30 years earlier, three-year-old Lily Murphy lived in her home and disappeared during a neighborhood hide and seek game. Joanna becomes obsessed with this missing child mystery, questioning her in-laws and neighbors. Partly this is because the child lived in her own home, and partly is it because she suspects the disappearance is tied to an event from her own past. The story is told in two timelines, 1985 and the present, and the tension, dread and uneasiness never lets up! This is a smart, complex, multi-layered thriller that I absolutely loved.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the advance read of this book.
Wow, what a belter of a book! I was hooked from the first chapter and the twists kept coming right to the end. Andrea Mara has now become one of my go to authors and I intend on reading all the rest of her books. Do not miss this one! It's fantastic. Five stars from me. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Thanks to Andrea and NetGalley for letting me read Hide and Seek before the publication date.
What can I say but WOW,.
The story begins in 2018 in Rowanbrook, a well to do area in the south of Dublin.
The Stedman family have moved into a large house which is dark and dreary inside and needs to be decorated. Joanna is disturbed when they discover that Lily, a 3 year old girl, went missing from the house in 1985 and she questions how her husband Mark, who grew up there, didn't know that.
The story alternates between 1985 and 2018, introducing a multitude of characters and revealing long hidden secrets. They are not alone as Joanna also has her own secrets to conceal and she sets her mind to unravel the truth about Lily's disappearance.
From a relatively slow start, the tension builds as the reader is given an insight into the residents, both then and now.
There are red herrings aplenty as the pace increases and.......well I am not going to even hint how this will end,!
A great read with well crafted characters and a breathtaking thriller of a plot.

This is one belter of a crime thriller and so much more. I devoured this book in an afternoon. Yes this book is that good.. From the first to the last page I was fully immersed in the tale that was unfolding. In 1985 a three year old girl Lily Murphy went missing from her family home and was never seen again. Fast forward to the present and the Steadman family unbeknownst to them this is the same house that Lily disappeared from 30 years ago. Each chapter is given over to one of these two time periods and releases a little more of what actually happened. Truths, lies shocks, surprises and secrets. Heartbraking, emotional and so much more. Loved it!!!

Really enjoyed this and it kept me hooked to the end. It was different to what I was expecting and it was very well written. A really good read.

Gripping... Is a word to sum up this book.
I never ever have read such a book as this.
From the beginning till the end I was hooked. I was left shocked at some parts and had alot of wtf moments.
Each chapter has its own story and in each chapter the story unravels more and more., this book made it feel like a Christmas morning when you just sitting and tearing away the wrapping to get to the present... That is how this arc made me feel.
I honestly loved this arc so much. And had quite some fun reading on my tablet,just not the eyes sore and headache 😂.
This book I really would recommend if you someone who like a goo thriller, a good twist and a shocking end.

Overall I didn't really get on with this book, it was well written and I enjoyed the beginning and the ending but not the middle, I found it hard going, a bit repetitive and very slow for me and Joanna was way too much obsessive and boring personally.

Not the page turner I was hoping it to be but thank you to Netgalley and Random House UK for this ARC.

I liked the sound of this book, however, I found it to be very slow. I didn't really connect with it .I feel really gutted that this book wasn't a great read for me, hope other readers enjoy it more.

This was a really hard book to get into. The Stedman family - Mark and Joanna and their children Sophie aged three, Emily aged eleven and Ben aged nine move into a nice large house in Rowanbrook in Dublin. Joanna is taken aback when she learns that this is the house that 3 year old Lily Murphy disappeared from 30 years ago. I’m really still not sure why that is. She has many secrets and thinks she killed her sister, Lila, when she herself was still a child but I couldn’t work out what that had to do with Lily. The general consensus was that Lily had drowned in the river but the body had never been found.

Joanna becomes obsessed with Lily’s disappearance and talks to anyone in the area who knew the family. She tracks down photos and follows a blog about the story. It got really, really tedious. She recognises quite a few of the people in some of the photos from 30 years ago but I still couldn’t work out what this all had to do with her sister or why she was so obsessed with Lily. The story is in two timelines - 1985 when Lily disappeared and the present day in 2018. There were also too many characters to keep track of and so they were not as well developed as I would have liked.

Finally, in the last quarter of the book we get some answers. And I will admit that these are are quite interesting- certainly more interesting than the first three quarters of the book. Of course I can’t tell you about them as that would be spoilery. What I can say is that the ending raised the book from a certain 2 star rating to a 3. But it was a lot of hard slog getting to the good stuff. If you like a really, really slow burn this could be a book for you. Many thanks to Netgalley and Random House UK, Transworld Publishers for the much appreciated arc which I reviewed voluntarily and honestly.

When Joanne moves into her new home, she hears about a horrific event that happened over 30 years before. When 4 year old Lily went missing whilst playing hide and seek - never to be seen again. As Joanne digs deeper into the mystery, she starts to realise everyone in that neighbourhood has secrets - and that the truth could be closer to home than she could ever realise.

What an absolutely incredible book! I was do happy to be accepted for this one, as I loved Andrea's books in the past.

This is a book that will make you nervous to take your eyes off your child, wondering who can be trusted. It's a book filled with suspense, secrets and twists. It's not a book to miss out on!