The Lost Girls by Heather Young
William Morrow
Publication Date: July 26, 2016
Date Read: November 5, 2016
Source: Won – LibraryThing Early Reviewer
★★★★☆
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 rest of her life at the lake house, hoping in vain that her favorite daughter will walk out of the woods. Emily’s two older sisters stay, too, each keeping her own private, decades-long vigil for the lost child.
Sixty years later Lucy, the quiet and watchful middle sister, lives in the lake house alone. Before she dies, she writes the story of that devastating summer in a notebook that she leaves, along with the house, to the only person to whom it might matter: her grandniece, Justine.
For Justine, the lake house offers a chance to escape her manipulative boyfriend and give her daughters the stable home she never had. But it’s not the sanctuary she hoped for. The long Minnesota winter has begun. The house is cold and dilapidated, the frozen lake is silent and forbidding, and her only neighbor is a strange old man who seems to know more than he’s telling about the summer of 1935.
Soon Justine’s troubled oldest daughter becomes obsessed with Emily’s disappearance, her mother arrives with designs on her inheritance, and the man she left behind launches a dangerous plan to get her back. In a house steeped in the sorrows of the women who came before her, Justine must overcome their tragic legacy if she hopes to save herself and her children.
I really enjoyed this book quite a bit. I am not always a fan of books that feature dual timelines but this one worked really well for me. I ended up liking both of the timelines equally and thought that Lucy and Justine both had an interesting story to tell. This story was really focused on the characters with the plot building slowly. I found myself really invested in this group of characters by the close of the book.
This book focuses on Justine and Lucy. When Lucy died, she left everything to her grandniece, Justine. Justine has two little girls and lives with her boyfriend in California but feels something missing in her life. When Justine inherits Lucy’s lake house in Minnesota, she takes her girls and moves there in order to get a fresh start. The transition isn’t as easy as Justine expects it to be.
Lucy has her own story to tell and decides to write everything down before her death. When Lucy was a child, her younger sister, Emily, disappeared from the lake house and has never been found. Lucy’s story tells everything that happened during the summer leading up to Emily’s disappearance. Emily’s disappearance was heartbreaking and shaped the lives of Lucy and her family.
This book really showed how one event can impact a family for generations. Emily’s sisters never really moved on with thier life after she disappeared. I liked watching Justine learn to take care of herself and really decide on what she wanted for herself and her girls. It takes a lot for her to learn to stand up for herself but I have a lot of hope for her by the end of the book.
I would recommend this book to others. It was a book that gave me hope and broke my heart all at the same time. The slower pace was a nice change and I thought it really gave me a chance to connect with the characters. I enjoyed Heather Young’s debut novel and look forward to reading more from this author in the future.
About the AuthorHeather Young earned her law degree from the University of Virginia, and practiced law in San Francisco before beginning her writing career. She received an MFA from the Bennington College Writing Seminars, and has studied at the Tin House Writers’ Workshop and the Squaw Valley Writers’ Workshop. She lives in Mill Valley, California, with her husband and two children. The Lost Girls is her first novel.
I have this on my list to read. I always like your choices.
I am glad you enjoyed this one, Carole. It does sound good and your review and the blurb have me wanting to know how everything will play out. I enjoy dual time line books, especially when both time lines are interesting. I think I would like this one.
I read this recently – it had been selected by my local book club. I really liked it, it was a powerful read. I agree that dual timelines can be jarring but the author pulled it off spectacularly. Great review!
Rebecca @ The Portsmouth Review
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