Blog Tour | The Missing

Title | The Missing 

Author | C.L. Taylor 

Publisher | Avon

Publication Date | 7th April 2016 

Source | Review Copy 

Rating | 4/5 


You love your family. They make you feel safe. You trust them.

But should you…?
When fifteen-year-old Billy Wilkinson goes missing in the middle of the night, his mother, Claire, blames herself. She's not the only one. There isn't a single member of Billy's family that doesn't feel guilty. But the Wilkinson’s are so used to keeping secrets from one another that it isn't until six months later, after an appeal for information goes horribly wrong, that the truth begins to surface.

Claire is sure of two things – that Billy is still alive and that her friends and family had nothing to do with his disappearance.

A mother's instinct is never wrong. Or is it?

Sometimes those closest to us are the ones with the most to hide…

Books by Cally Taylor are ones that grab your attention from the off - and that's just by looking at the cover! The Missing is the first of her books that I have read, with her previous titles, The Accident and The Lie resting on my bookcase, so I was unsure what to expect.

The Missing, instantly grabs you when you read the opening chapters as you discover yourself in the middle of a families turmoil six months on after their teenage son first went missing. The parents are naturally still very much in shock but desperately clinging to hope, and the other son is battling his own demons that have resulted in his brother going missing.

The book is far too captivating for me to divulge any detailed information about the book other than throughout every page, Cally takes us deeper into the hidden depths of just what goes on when a family is trying to cope with a missing child.

I really liked how the storyline involves a teenager rather than a young child going missing because this touches upon a very different aspect of missing people and children. Throughout the book I found myself grappling with my own suspicions of what happened to Billy Wilkinson, what led to his disappearance, and wondering what the outcome could be. Although Cally's storyline was far better than what I imagined in my scenarios. 

The twists and turns in this plot had me on the edge of my seat, reading easily 100 pages in a single sitting (there are 469 in total!), and I am still in the state of post-book scenario hangover here as I try to fully comprehend what happened. I feel as though I was living with that family through their turmoil, and felt huge empathy for the characters. The Missing is one of those books you finish reading and struggle to put back on the shelf because then you have to accept that the book is "done". 

I'm already hugely anticipating Cally's next novel, but in the meantime I will be diving into her previous works.