Local Woman Missing by Mary Kubica

Lindsay’s review

Pulse-pounding from start to finish!

A small town neighbourhood. One woman goes missing leaving her newborn baby and husband behind. Weeks later another local woman and her young daughter don’t come home. The town is shocked and devastated. Could there be a link between these families?

This story gripped me from start to finish — I was hanging on every word feeling a strong sense of unease and tension. The mystery is intense, fast-paced, anxiety-filled and something that I felt extremely invested in throughout. The writing was outstanding! I cared for each of the characters and the situations they found themselves in. My mind was whirling with trying to piece the parts of this engrossing story together.

Warning that there are some deeply disturbing scenes involving children, especially at the start. Though the scenario is extremely upsetting and creepy, it was written in such a way that I simply couldn’t put it down. I was completely consumed by this book.

The theme of motherhood is woven deep within this story. I thought the author did a phenomenal job portraying the struggles and successes of the women within this story. Very well developed characters overall!

My one critique would be the ending felt like it didn’t fit with the “amazing-ness” of the rest of the book. The ending seemed unrealistic, yet I was able to roll with it because the writing was so addictive and well done. Overall, an extremely entertaining and suspenseful novel that I highly recommend!

Brenda’s review

Local Woman Missing starts with a good hook that creates tension and suspense and increases with each chapter. I was fully invested in the story and had many questions I needed the answers to. I flew through it quite fast.

Mary Kubica takes the “woman and child gone missing” trope and weaves in a fresh and exciting take on it. I had no idea where the story was going, and that at first added some excitement to the story trying to figure out where it was going. However I did start to lose a bit of patience with that and wished the story was better layered to pick up some clues. There are plenty of “shocking twists” that are not convincing. Often when I find some twists hard to buy into it doesn’t bother me; however, when I can’t buy into the characters’ motivations, the story misses the mark for me. Unfortunately, I couldn’t buy into the motivation here with a character. While I thought this was an intriguing and unique read, that final reveal was too absurd or layered enough to be convincing or entertaining.

Thank you to Edelweiss and Park Row for our copies!