This book is unusual in that a child has gone missing and has been gone for 40 years! Unknown to some of the family members another child in the neighborhood was taken in much the same way and has never been found either and has been gone almost the same amount of time. The thing that they had in common, they both sat for Miss Sorrel to have porcelain dolls made in their likeness. She gave the first doll she ever made that way to her Daughter Janey before she went missing. The other doll she never delivered to the family, she didn’t believe they would want it after their daughter went missing. Every year on the Remembrance Day, the anniversary of Janey being gone Miss Sorrell would place advertisements in newspapers all around the region for a cash reward if someone would return Janey’s doll, she would then have some clue as to what happened to Janey. She doesn’t believe the police department has done enough the longer it’s been that her Daughter has been missing, and then one year, someone returns Janey’s doll for the reward!
This book was quite the interesting read, with its background seeped in antique dolls, homemade porcelain dolls….. and missing children two in the same town. Lissie Woodham who was there when her sister was taken, she ran off following a puppy, and had no idea her sister was taken until she lost sight of the puppy and came back to the house and Janey was gone. She always blamed herself as she was supposed to be keeping an eye on her sister. There was an explosion and her Mother and Grand Mother were taken to the hospital, so she comes back home to help out. She finds out that someone has brought forward Janey’s doll. Her Grandmother in the hospital makes her promise that she will find the woman who brought forward the doll!
This book was a great read and I enjoyed the mystery and the up’s and downs of the book, never figuring out the end of the book before the book gave it up!
I won this book through Good Reads in exchange for an honest review:
An addictive novel of psychological suspense from the award-winning author of Night Night, Sleep Tight, about three generations of women haunted by a little girl’s disappearance, and the porcelain doll that may hold the key to the truth . . .
Seven-year-old Lissie Woodham and her four-year-old sister Janey were playing with their porcelain dolls in the front yard when an adorable puppy scampered by. Eager to pet the pretty dog, Lissie chased after the pup as it ran down the street. When she returned to the yard, Janey’s precious doll was gone . . . and so was Janey.
Forty years after Janey went missing, Lis—now a mother with a college-age daughter of her own—still blames herself for what happened. Every year on the anniversary of her sister’s disappearance, their mother, Miss Sorrel, places a classified ad in the local paper with a picture of the toy Janey had with her that day—a one-of-a-kind porcelain doll—offering a generous cash reward for its return. For years, there’s been no response. But this year, the doll came home.
It is the first clue in a decades-old mystery that is about to turn into something far more sinister—endangering Lis and the lives of her mother and daughter as well. Someone knows the truth about what happened all those years ago, and is desperate to keep it hidden.
