Publishing year: 2013
The book starts with Lauren, an eleven-year-old girl, who is on her way home from school.
Lauren is a very imaginative girl, who loves painting and reading. As she is walking home, her attention is caught by a bird in her neighbours’ garden. She takes her pad out of her backpack and starts drawing. Immersed in her drawing, she is startled when a voice speaks behind her. She sees a man in a delivery uniform, holding a parcel, which supposedly is for the Millers. The man makes a few silly comments, and Lauren lets him know that she doesn’t live there, and before she knows what is happening, the man presses what she thinks is some kind of electronic signature pad against her neck, which leaves her paralysed, and she is barely aware that she is taken to the back of his white van.
Six years later we learn that Lauren’s parents still try to find her, especially her mother, Rachel, who is still campaigning to have her daughter found. Her father, Dan, has focused on their younger daughter Sierra, and we can see that since he and Rachel blame themselves for Lauren’s disappearance, he is too protective of Sierra. The girl, who is now twelve, hates the situation at home, and she feels neglected and ignored in favour of the ghost of her elder sister.
There are parts about Lauren, who is now seventeen, and still a prisoner. She doesn’t know where she is. The man who kidnapped her is Kevin, who we learn beats her when she doesn’t respect his rules, so Lauren, who Kevin calls Sisy, is very careful. We also learn that Kevin raped her shortly afterwards her abduction, and then she had a baby daughter, Mac, but for some reason the baby died. Did Mac die of natural causes or did Kevin kill her?
Now Lauren is alone, trying to work the earth on Kevin’s property. Then she is surprised when two men and a woman storm into the place. They are two policemen, and Paula, a social worker. Kevin tried to rob a supermarket using a stun gun, which is what presumably he used to kidnap Lauren, and when he was arrested, he told the police that he was worried about his sister who was on his farm. The police found out that Kevin is an only child, and he was charged for sexual attacks twice, but there was no record of this as he was booked as an underaged offender. The police think that the woman Kevin mentioned could be Lauren O’Neil, and they are right.
Lauren is scared to see these men and Paula, but thankfully, Paula reassures her. Unlike what one could have thought, Lauren is reluctant to go with her rescuers. Kevin has done a good job brainwashing her, and Lauren thinks that her family abandoned her when she was abducted. She believes that they could have found her if they had wanted to, and the feeling intensifies when she leaves the property and realises that she was so close to her old home.
Very intense beginning. I am afraid that Lauren’s return is not going to be the happy reunion her parents anticipate. Lauren is wary and has a grudge against her parents, who she thinks abandoned her to her luck, and Sierra might not welcomed her sister with open arms.
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