When The Stars Go Dark Book Review

When The Stars Go Dark

A Novel

By: Paula McLain

Random House Publishing-Ballantine

Ballantine Books

General Fiction (adult)/Mystery & Thriller/Women’s Fiction

Publish Date 31 August 2021

#WhentheStarsGoDark#NetGalley

I would like to first thank both NetGalley and Random House for giving me the opportunity to read and review this book. Again, I am a little behind on reviewing this book, but here it is now.

Good Reads Synopsis:

Anna Hart is a missing persons detective in San Francisco. When tragedy strikes her personal life, Anna, desperate and numb, flees to the Northern California village of Mendocino to grieve. She lived there as a child with her beloved foster parents, and now she believes it might be the only place left for her. Yet the day she arrives, she learns a local teenage girl has gone missing. The crime feels frighteningly reminiscent of the most crucial time in Anna’s childhood, when the unsolved murder of a young girl touched Mendocino and changed the community forever.

As past and present collide, Anna realizes that she has been led to this moment. The most difficult lessons of her life have given her insight into how victims come into contact with violent predators. As Anna becomes obsessed with the missing girl, she must accept that true courage means getting out of her own way and learning to let others in.

Weaving together actual cases of missing persons, trauma theory, and a hint of the metaphysical, this propulsive and deeply affecting novel tells a story of fate, necessary redemption, and what it takes, when the worst happens, to reclaim our lives–and our faith in one another.

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Paris Wife comes a novel of intertwined destinies and heart-wrenching suspense: A detective hiding away from the world. A series of disappearances that reach into her past. Can solving them help her heal?

Review:

I wasn’t sure I was going to like this book because it didn’t grip me right away. When the story line starting to increase is when the book gripped me enough to give it 4 stars.

The slow beginning is actually good because it leads up to what is actually going to happen. So, you need to give it time. I am glad I gave it the time it needed because I really enjoyed the story. The Good Reads Synopsis is very good and gives you the information you need to know about this story without giving too much away.

This book isn’t based on a true story, but it could. This book is about missing young teenage girls. Some from the past and some from the present. These girls have issues with their lives in some way and this makes them easy targets to weirdos. There are both happy endings and sad endings. What I like is that the book ends with the story of a real-life girl who actually changes things on how we look for missing children currently.

I highly recommend this book, but you need to be prepared for some sad points.