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Release date: July 11, 2017

Publisher: Berkley 

Genre: Mystery/Thriller

Blurb:

In the breathtaking new thriller from David Bell, bestselling author of Since She Went Away and Somebody I Used to Know, the fate of two missing teenage girls becomes a father’s worst nightmare…. 

Just a year and a half after the tragic death of his wife, Bill Price’s fifteen-year-old daughter, Summer, and her best friend, Haley, disappear. Days later, the girls are found in a city park. Haley is dead at the scene, while Summer is left beaten beyond recognition and clinging to life.

As Bill holds vigil over Summer’s bandaged body, the only sound the unconscious girl can make is one cryptic and chilling word: No. And the more time Bill spends with Summer, the more he wonders what happened to her. Or if the injured girl in the hospital bed is really his daughter at all.

When troubling new questions about Summer’s life surface, Bill is not prepared for the aftershocks. He’ll soon discover that both the living and the dead have secrets. And that searching for the truth will tear open old wounds that pierce straight to the heart of his family…

Review: 

A couple of weeks ago I participated in a special blog tour to celebrate Bell’s newest release, if you missed it here’s my review of  The Forgotten Girl. I’m a huge fan of his novels and BHH is hands down my new favorite! It was shocking, compelling and ultimately a satisfying read. 

Bill is an average man, a father still grieving after the sudden loss of his wife when the unthinkable happens and his teenaged daughter, Summer goes missing. This was unique in that it begins after she was already missing for a few days and wasn’t told from the POV of a police officer, it’s told from Bill himself. Beyond that, I don’t want to discuss the plot because it was full of twists and turns that were shocking. 

This was straightforward storytelling with no alternating timelines or various points of view and I didn’t realize how much I missed books being told this way until I picked this up. It was really nice to read something told in a basic linear matter with no extraneous devices used. The pacing was really fast and the writing style was so fluid and polished, Bell is a truly gifted writer. 

I spoke of the twists earlier, but I want to point out again how blown away I was by the way they were executed. There was a subtlety to them and they were wholly believable. You know how oftentimes you have to suspend disbelief when you’re reading a thriller? There isn’t any of that here, scenarios are realistic and so are the characters Bell crafts. Bill broke my heart he was so raw and vulnerable, he was really relatable and I connected with him instantly. 

If you haven’t read a Bell novel before, start here. I think it’s his best work so far and it was such an engrossing tale, definitely going on my list of top reads of the year.

Overall rating: 5/5

Thanks to the publisher for my review copy.