Francesca "Frankie" Howe could not be more shocked when she
receives a phone call from Daniel, the brother of her long
ago best friend, Sophie, informing her that they may have
found Sophie's remains. It has been 20 years since Sophie
vanished and Frankie is jerked firmly back into the past.
Daniel asks her to come back to her hometown so that
everything can possibly be resolved once and for all.
Frankie agrees to take leave from her job of managing her
families' hotels in London and returns to what used to be
home for her. When she arrives, she is assaulted by memories
everywhere she looks. She had warned Sophie about dating the
very handsome Leon so many years ago but to no avail. She
has always held him responsible for Sophie's disappearance.
Frankie is happy to see Daniel again. He has set her up in a
nice condo for the duration of her stay. He enlists her help
in a little investigative work to see if they can finally
get to the bottom of what happened to Sophie. Frankie is
fine with that but, from the first moment she enters the
tasteful condo, she is uncomfortable. She hears things in
the night as well as other things that cannot be explained.
In short, there are frightening things happening to her
every time she is in that condo.
Then, one night, she swears that she can see a ghostly
figure on the end of an abandoned and derelict pier. That
figure looks exactly like Sophie. The end of this pier is
where Sophie liked to go 20 years ago. Could that really be
the ghost of Sophie haunting the very place that she was
last seen before disappearing?
Told in multi-voices of LOCAL GIRL MISSING, it grabs you
from the very beginning. The tension seems to build with
every chapter until you find yourself biting your nails and
turning on all the lights in the house. Frankie and Sophie
had a close friendship, but they could also be described as
"frenemies." The way that Claire Douglas lures you into her
world is fascinating and I dare you to be able to put this
book down until you have finished it.
One of the things that I truly loved about LOCAL GIRL
MISSING is how Ms. Douglas spins a tale that could have been
ripped from the headlines of any newspaper today. Then, she
takes that and weaves a plot so filled with mysterious
occurrences that I had a difficult time leaving it to do
some of those mundane chores such as cleaning, cooking, etc.
LOCAL GIRL MISSING is not a complicated book. Anyone can
read and understand it. The thing is that what you are
witnessing is not what is actually happening. The ending of
this tale will truly make your head explode. You will not
see it coming yet, when you are treated to the finale, you
will understand that there were clues left for you all
along. They were just so subtle that you passed them by.
I felt "movie" all over the place as I read LOCAL GIRL
MISSING. I even mentally chose the actors to play these
characters in said movie. If you have not had a chance to
read LOCAL GIRL MISSING, do not wait any longer. Grab a copy
today and you will see how a great writer can truly use his
or her gift to make you devour a book and have it stay with
you a long time once it is finished.
The old Victorian pier was a thing of beauty until it was
allowed to decay. It was where the youth of Oldcliffe-on-
Sea would go to hang out. It’s also where twenty-one-
year-old Sophie Collier disappeared eighteen years ago.
Francesca Howe, known as Frankie, was Sophie’s best
friend, and even now she is haunted by the mystery of
what happened to her. When Frankie gets a call from
Sophie’s brother, Daniel, informing her that human
remains have been found washed up nearby, she immediately
wonders if it could be Sophie, and returns to her old
hometown to try and find closure. Now an editor at a
local newspaper, Daniel believes that Sophie was
terrified of someone and that her death was the result of
foul play rather than “death by misadventure,” as the
police claim.
Daniel arranges a holiday rental for Frankie that
overlooks the pier where Sophie disappeared. In the
middle of winter and out of season, Frankie feels
isolated and unnerved, especially when she is out on the
pier late one night and catches a glimpse of a woman who
looks like Sophie. Is the pier really haunted, as they
joked all those years ago? Could she really be seeing her
friend’s ghost? And what actually happened to her best
friend all those years ago?
Harrowing, electrifying, and thoroughly compelling, Local
Girl Missing showcases once again bestselling author
Claire Douglas’ extraordinary storytelling talent.
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