Grace is Gone by Emily Elgar (Review by Stacey Lorenson)

Rating: 4.0

If you’ve ever read a mystery novel that has you firmly in its grip to the point you can’t put it down ( I mean, reading with one eyelid propped open because you don’t want to sleep until you’ve finished the book), Grace is Gone is your book!! It should come with a warning; disregard piles of laundry and dishes in the sink until you are done with this book!

Grace is Gone is a combination psychological thriller and mystery novel. The story is set in a suburb of England where a terminally ill girl, Grace, disappears and her mother, Megan, is found murdered. A close family friend of Grace and Megan’s, Cara, and a journalist, Jon, unite to try and unravel a trail of clues that consistently do not add up to the story Megan and Grace told their friends. Why would Megan lie about her daughter Grace’s condition? Who murdered Megan? Where is Grace? These and other searing questions kept me awake at all hours, desperate to know the answers!!

I wish every book I read was this skillfully written! Emily Elgar draws from a true-life story, a Missouri mother and daughter, Dee Dee and Gypsy Rose Blanchard. The mother was found to have Munchausen syndrome and inflicted years of pain and unnecessary operations on her daughter in order to collect money, praise, respect, and sympathy. Elgar was inspired by this story and created a riveting fictional narrative through multiple points of view and diary entries. The characters of Jon and Cara are written in a way that exposes their flaws as well as their strengths. It is through their collective vulnerability that they manage to trust each other to ultimately solve this horrific crime.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go out and buy Emily Elgar’s 1st novel, If You Knew Her, because that is how good Grace is Gone was!