Detective Robyn Carter is returning to work after a leave following the death of her husband and unborn child. During her break she was working as a PI for her cousin looking for a teacher named Lucas who was reported missing by his wife. Meanwhile Abigail Thorne is happily married mother to a baby girl but she has secrets which might threaten her marriage .

Little Girl Lost by Carol Wyer is a start of a new psychological thriller series.Alternating between Alice’s flashback from the past and present along with Robyn's story , the book does do justice to all the characters. A little slow in the middle the book does pick up pace later and keeps you guessing till the end .

I would like to thank Bookouture & NetGalley for providing an ARC of this book in exchange for my honest and fair review.

This and more reviews at https://chloesbooksblog.wordpress.com/

It started out pretty well, but a lack of character development and some not very subtle hints made it pretty easy to guess whodunit. A pretty blatant reveal about 3/4 through the case indicated pretty clearly why things were happening and then came the ending which had all the plot complexity of a Lifetime movie. I would have rated it a 2, but the main detective shows promise.

‘Little Girl Lost’ is book one in the DI Robyn Carter series. Frankly, I will not be continuing with it.

The plot is a boilerplate one about a vengeful psycho serial killer who was damaged from a bad childhood and rotten parenting - hooray, right? We love dark validating mysteries! This is not the issue for me. (I did not spoil, gentle reader, no worries.)

The writing is flat. There is too much expository dialogue and it is void of life even when everyone isn’t explaining about everything. All of the characters talk the same. The writing technique dulled any excitement of the upcoming victim attack and the manhunt. The cruel killer’s self-talk in every other chapter was also written in a flattened voice. This book needed more tension. This is why I am disappointed.

For those who need to know about DI Carter: as the story begins, she is returning to work as a UK police officer after taking time off to recover from grief after a traumatic vacation. Her beautiful fiancé Davies was a black-ops guy who was on an assignment tracking down Islamic terrorist cells in Morocco. Robyn joined him as she planned to combine his assignment with a impromptu celebration of her unexpected pregnancy. Unfortunately, Davies was killed and the shock caused Robyn to miscarry. Although she was given a leave of absence, she decided to work with her cousin Ross in his private investigation agency for a short while. This busy work is almost at an end as she shortly will report to work and take charge of her team again. She is an orphan as well. Her parents were killed in a car accident.

First books in a series are often flattened by inexperienced writing or because the author is still honing their character, but this was really dulled-down boilerplate, too. The series isn’t for me.

Merged review:

‘Little Girl Lost’ is book one in the DI Robyn Carter series. Frankly, I will not be continuing with it.

The plot is a boilerplate one about a vengeful psycho serial killer who was damaged from a bad childhood and rotten parenting - hooray, right? We love dark validating mysteries! This is not the issue for me. (I did not spoil, gentle reader, no worries.)

The writing is flat. There is too much expository dialogue and it is void of life even when everyone isn’t explaining about everything. All of the characters talk the same. The writing technique dulled any excitement of the upcoming victim attack and the manhunt. The cruel killer’s self-talk in every other chapter was also written in a flattened voice. This book needed more tension. This is why I am disappointed.

For those who need to know about DI Carter: as the story begins, she is returning to work as a UK police officer after taking time off to recover from grief after a traumatic vacation. Her beautiful fiancé Davies was a black-ops guy who was on an assignment tracking down Islamic terrorist cells in Morocco. Robyn joined him as she planned to combine his assignment with a impromptu celebration of her unexpected pregnancy. Unfortunately, Davies was killed and the shock caused Robyn to miscarry. Although she was given a leave of absence, she decided to work with her cousin Ross in his private investigation agency for a short while. This busy work is almost at an end as she shortly will report to work and take charge of her team again. She is an orphan as well. Her parents were killed in a car accident.

First books in a series are often flattened by inexperienced writing or because the author is still honing their character, but this was really dulled-down boilerplate, too. The series isn’t for me.

Finally, my first 5 star review for 2017 is here! It took 6 books for it to happen, but it did! Detective Inspector Robyn Carter is returning to the police force after the death of her husband, and her first case lands her with a missing person's claim. Lucas Matthews has gone missing, and his wife is worried. As she starts her investigation, another man turns up dead, and the people nearest to Lucas start dying, too. Robyn Begins to think they are connected, but can't immediately figure out how, though a woman named Abigail seems to be connected to everyone somehow. The story alternates perspectives between Robyn's POV and Abigail's, who starts receiving threatening phone calls and notes from someone who is clearly watching her. How the puzzle pieces fit together is up to Robyn to find out.

Let me just say that I loved this book! It did take me a little bit to get used to all of the characters. Aside from Robyn and Abigail's POVs, we also have part of the story told from a third perspective - "then" which is told through child Alice's eyes. Alice is a troubled child who has been through some significant trauma and acts out in rage. We aren't sure who Alice is and how she relates to the story yet. In addition to those 3 POVs, each of them has family and friends/coworkers who are part of the story, which leads to a huge number of characters in the beginning of the book. If you're like me, and you're struggling to keep them all straight, don't worry! Keep reading and it will eventually all make sense and come together.

There were a lot of things I loved about this book! It was such a wild ride, in the best possible way. It was really fact paced, and the twists and turns kept coming! Just when I thought I'd figured it all out, something else would happen and I'd change my mind, and that happened over and over! I loved that it kept me guessing, and the the last 20% of the book had me on the edge of my seat trying to figure out how it would all be resolved!

I also really loved that I felt like the book was written with a lot of intricacies in the plot. You could tell that the author really took her time in thinking everything through. A lot of books rely on one big twist or shock, and I felt like Little Girl Lost had several, but they all tied together perfectly. All of the loose ends were tied up, and everything clicked into place.

All in all, an excellent book that I'd highly recommend for fans of the thriller/suspense/mystery genres! A huge thank you to Netgalley, Bookouture, and Carol Wyer for providing me with an advanced copy of the book in exchange for an honest review. Little Girl Lost comes out January 19, 2017 so mark your calendars for this one! You won't want to miss it!

All of my reviews can be found at https://damppebbles.com/

I received a free eARC of Little Girl Lost via NetGalley but that has in no way influenced my review.

So this is Wyer's first crime novel. Before turning to the 'dark side' Wyer was well known for her romantic comedies, so I was intrigued to see what she would deliver. I was blown away! This book is so beautifully dark and twisted. I had to stop and ask myself 'where did THAT come from??!'. I have read several other books by other writers where the author has turned from the light and fluffy to the dark and devilish, but I've always been left feeling a little 'meh' afterwards. Not with Little Girl Lost. No siree. This book packs one heck of a punch!

DI Robyn Carter has taken a break from the force to heal after personal tragedy. During her leave she does some work on the side for her cousin, Ross, who is a private investigator. When a Lucas Matthews is reported missing by his wife, Robyn begins to dig into Matthews' past. What she discovers makes her return to work and puts her at the forefront of the case. But what starts as a missing person escalates at a terrifying pace...

The book opens with a devastating prologue which was hard to read in one sitting. From there we're introduced to the brilliant Robyn Carter who I instantly liked. She felt damaged from what life had thrown at her, but determined to not let it beat her. I feel as though she has quite a way to go yet though, so I'm delighted that there are another four books featuring Robyn after Little Girl Lost. I'm looking forward to investing time in watching this particular character grow.

The plot is twisty and gripping from start to finish and once I had made it through the heartbreaking prologue, I struggled to put the book down. The story is told from three different perspectives; that of Robyn, Abigail - a young mother to Izzy who is receiving threatening calls and messages from an unknown number, and Alice - a young girl who suffers the most horrific abuse. We watch as life for Abigail deteriorates and no one, not even her husband, believes what she is going through. Then, in one of the most brilliantly written scenes I've read, Abigail's daughter is snatched from the back of her car. It's so tense, so nerve-wracking and I loved it!

Would I recommend this book? Yes, I would. Little Girl Lost gave me so much more than I expected. So much darker and ten times more sinister, and I loved it. I'm looking forward to reading the rest of the DI Robyn Carter series, and then making a start on the Detective Natalie Ward series by the same author. Dark and twisty fiction, just how I like it! Highly recommended.

Wow! great read!

I very much enjoyed reading this novel, the first in a series featuring policewoman Robyn Carter. I was thoroughly engaged in the plot and couldn't wait to find out how it all would end. There were enough twists to keep it interesting but not enough to totally confuse me. I did kind of guess who the murderer was but I didn't guess the whole story which makes this book a good mystery/thriller. There were a few inconsistencies in the story that had me confused but nothing that made me want to stop reading. I look forward to the next in the series which, I assume, will be just as good.

Great read from beginning to end

The characters were brought to life in this mystery. And even though I thought I had it figured out, I was misled along the way. Thoroughly enjoyed this book and look forward to more from the author.

Aaahh, that was another great thriller from Bookouture! It was confusing at first but I love how everything was explained and was it all connected in the end. I'll definitely grab the next book 😁