The Missing Person's Guide to Love
by
Susanna Jones
As a fan of the author’s previous novels, I was looking forward to her latest offering, which is a chilling tale about the unexplained disappearance of a fifteen-year old girl called Julia.
The event had a devastating impact on her two best friends, Owen and Isabel, and sixteen years later Isabel has returned from her new life in Turkey to the North of England for Owen’s funeral, determined to find out what happened to Julia. Her theory is that she’s dead and that Owen was responsible for her murder, but she has no proof.
Cut off from her husband and child, and longing for the re-appearance of her beloved, bohemian Aunt Maggie - whose thoughts are interwoven throughout the book - Isabel starts digging into the past, and unsettling memories surface. She recalls how, when they were eighteen, she and Owen burnt down a local supermarket – a crime she spent time in a young offender’s institute for.
When a stranger turns up at the funeral, claiming to have known Owen in prison, Isabel finds herself drawn to him and her search for answers intensifies. What role did her Aunt play in Isabel’s move abroad, and who is the mysterious Leila visiting her husband and daughter whenever she phones home?
The Missing Person’s Guide to Love is an engrossing read, disturbing and quite mysterious at times. You’re never sure exactly what’s going on, past or present, and the truth’s not what you’re expecting.
It’s a clever, well-written and atmospheric novel with an unusual plot, and is bound to keep you turning the pages right up until its slightly confusing ending!
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