Ella's sister disappeared 10 years ago. She is now the same age and with the encouragement of her sister's 10 year old son, she attempts to find the answers to her disappearance. While the story sounds encouraging, I felt the promise of an exciting thriller was somewhat lacking. The first part half was slow with strange red herrings which were not followed up or explained adequately. Some parts were rather predictable and although the conclusion was quite exciting I was left unsatisfied with this book.

3.5 Stars
This is the second book by Claire Kendal that I have read and I enjoyed this more than The Book of You.
The Second Sister caught my attention from the beginning but sadly I wasn’t as excited by the book as I’d hoped.
Given the thrillers I have read over the years, I was expecting something more fast paced and darker.
This was well written and with an ending I did not guess but overall I found it to be a slow burner.

Thank you!

The Second Sister is a psychological thriller narrated by Ella. Her sister Miranda disappeared nearly 10 years ago and with the upcoming anniversary, Ella is pushing for new clues as to what happened to her sister.

The pace of the book starts slow, but picks up halfway through and then storms on to the conclusion. The plot is not perfect, but Ella and her tenacity kept me hooked. There is so much about Ella to like and that is inspiring, particularly her loyalty to family and her passion for her charity work.

I received a copy of this book via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I found the plot very slow to get going and I nearly gave up ,but I persevered as I wanted to find out what happened to the missing Miranda.I didn't find the characters altogether believable .Ella's constant dialogue with her missing sister was for me confusing .I did enjoy the ending ,though it took so long to get there !!!!

For a thriller, I didn’t find this particularly thrilling. I did really like the story and the writing, but I found the suspense wasn’t really there. There’s such a small cast of characters that there aren’t many possibilities as to who the bad guy is.

There are elements of this novel that are fantastic. Ella’s relationship with her family, and especially Luke, is well done. Her parents are really grieving the loss of their firstborn. There are a couple of twists in the plot that leave you guessing for a while, but I found too much was resolved before the killer’s reveal so it wasn’t much of a surprise to me. Maybe I’ve just read too many thrillers.

This is a great read for thriller fans, new or old.

Loved this book it got better and more exciting with every page. What do you do if a member of your family just disappeared and no one knew why. Is she alive somewhere living a new life or has some thing sinister happened. Ella didn't want to believe her sister was dead but also didn't like to think she'd just cut her family out of her life and moved on. After 10 years Ella still can't drop it and move on with her life and so she decides to investigate herself getting herself into all sorts of trouble along the way. You need to read this book to see if Ella solves the mystery of her disappearing sister. Highly recommended read.

Although this was a slow start and I found the voice of 10 year old Luke to be unrealistically mature, I grew to love this book and actually stayed up late last night to finish it. I didn't see the plot twists coming - which I often do, which increased my enjoyment. I cried at the end too!

The psychological thriller held my attention throughout. Everything Ella did, I was trying to read into it what had happened to Miranda, and who had been involved. None of it I saw coming, apart from the eventual perpetrator, although I hadn't worked out what he would do, and what he had done. Who is the evil Jason Thorne? What is his role? Why does Ella feel compelled to see him? What is Ted hiding? Who is Luke's dad? And what was Miranda's secret? How did she come to have so much money? SO many questions, which are ably answered as the story progresses. We see how the events of the past have shaped Ella's life complete;y. At the age of 20 she took on a lot of responsibility for her sister's child, she gave up university to set up and run a charity because of what happened to her sister. The whole family's lives have been affected for a whole decade by this uncertainty. By the end I was holding my breath, and it didn't disappoint.

A slow burner that revs up to an terrifying and unexpected ending. Very different from Claire Kendal's first novel, The Book of You.

Unfortunately, I struggled and struggled to read this, and just could not get into it.

An interesting read that has plenty of mystery and suspense. I enjoyed the twists in the story as the mystery unfolded.

My true rating for this would be 3.5 out of 5 stars. I was attracted to this book because I had read The Book of You which I really enjoyed and also it is about a missing person which is a subject that always interests me. Ten years on from her sisters disappearance Ella decides that she is going to do some investigating for herself. Apart from the fact that we get to know the circumstances of Miranda's disappearance the first half of the book reads like a chicklit. We have an ex boyfriend whom she has known since she was a child, she kept getting angry with for silly reasons until she has a real reason to be angry with him. We also had the dishy psychologist who had worked in the same hospital as her sister ten years ago. Also a jealous female friend. I really like Clare's writing style but there was not enough tension and uneasiness for me to keep me reading late into the night. The second half of the book was better than the first half. I guessed the ending about halfway through. I finished the book feeling test there was a few loose ends that were not explained.

Ella's older sister Miranda vanishes without a trace leaving behind a young baby.
Ella is now the age that Miranda was when she went missing. There is evidence to suggest that a serial killer, already in prison, may also be responsible for Miranda's disappearance. Ella is determined to find the answer and in doing so forms a relationship with the doctor looking after the serial killer. All of course is not as it seems, the book moves at a good pace and has some interesting twists and turns. Ella is an engaging character and I felt very empathetic towards her and her family and their relationships.

I really enjoyed this thriller with a very complex and gripping storyline.

I was kept thinking all the way through and it was very difficult to put my kindle down to do real life things.

I'm afraid I had to give up after 20% of this book. It was very confusing to read, firstly because the two sisters in question have similar names beginning with the same letter: Melanie and Miranda. To add to the confusion Melanie was also known as Ella and the book is written in the second person, which is far from ideal.

Ella, with the help of her parents, help bring up Miranda's son after she disappears when he is a baby. When years later he begins to ask questions about his mother Ella decides to try and solve the mystery of Miranda's disappearance.

I didn't read Claire Kendall's first book The Book of You which was a best seller, so I can't compare The Second Sister with it. I cannot recommend it either as a good psychological thriller as it is nowhere near as good as Girl on the Train (likened to in the publicity blurb). Thanks to NetGalley and Harper Collins for the opportunity to read and review this book. Sorry to be negative.

Struggled to get into this book at first but I'm glad I stuck with it. Ten years ago Miranda Brooks left her infant son Luke with her mother while she went to a meeting and was never seen again. Her sister Melanie is convinced she can still find out what happened to her and when the police finally return some of her sister's possessions she starts finding clues to places and people Miranda was connected to that her family knew nothing about. There is also a link to a psychopath in a secure hospital. Melanie does all she can to discover what happened to her sister - is she dead or has she left her son to start a new life? What she finds along the way changes how she feels about someone she has been close to all her life and puts her in grave danger.

Thanks to Netgalley, the publisher and Claire Kendal for the opportunity to read and review this book.

Melanie, who prefers to be known as Ella, is still grieving the loss of her sister, Miranda, who vanished ten years ago. The police investigated her disappearance but with no success. Melanie can't let it go and her determination to solve the mystery is increased when the police return a box of Miranda's items.

I found the story slightly hard to believe and also slightly hard to follow at times as it's written in a mixture of the first person, second person and third person. The second person narrative, when Melanie is addressing her sister, is usually in italics but not always.

There were rather too many psychopaths for my liking and it got overly gruesome at times. The writing felt quite whimsical. Some of the characters grated, such as Sadie who was Melanie’s friend, but especially obnoxious. I also found the character of Luke, the 10 year old some of Miranda, implausible. Some of the dialogue he had seemed more suited to a thirty year old than a ten year old.

However the plot did move more quickly in the last third and kept my attention with plenty of twists and turns as the conclusion approached. It was a good plot despite my reservations about the writing style. It will be interesting to see how this author develops and I’d consider reading her future books.

Ella is the same age as her sister, Miranda, was when she suddenly disappeared, abandoning her son, who was then a baby. Now a new piece of evidence proving Miranda had contact with a notorious serial killer just before she went missing renews Ella’s resolve to find out what happened to her sister. Well-written, with characters who are for the most part believable, The Second Sister is fairly slow to start, but the pace builds effectively towards some dramatic scenes at the end. The twists don’t come as a great surprise and it falls short of being standout, but this is nonetheless an engaging, readable thriller.

I loved this book. It kept me full enthralled from beginning to end. Great characters and a fab story.

This is probably a really good read but unfortunately hasn't got me hooked, I'm waiting for something to happen and as of yet it hasn't so I gave up on it, I have read nothing but good reviews so far but it's maybe it's just not my cup of tea