The Lucky One by Lori Rader-Day
HarperCollins: 2/18/20
eBook review copy; 400 pages
ISBN-13:
9780062938077
The Lucky One by Lori Rader-Day is a very highly recommended novel of suspense.
Alice Fine volunteers her spare time on The Doe Pages, a website that
matches missing people with unidentified
remains. Her preoccupation with helping search for clues to help
reunite people with their missing loved ones is a result of her own
experiences. When she was three-years-old Alice was kidnapped from her
backyard, and, against all odds, found by her policeman father within
twenty-four hours. Alice knows how lucky she was to survive this
experience without any harm, unlike so many others. When she sees the
picture of a missing person on the Doe site and realizes it is a picture
of her kidnapper, she begins looking for him, with help from two other
Doe Pages participants. Finding him could protect others and give Alice
some closure.
Merrily Cruz is another woman searching for answers about the same
man. She considers him, Uncle Rick, a stepfather. Although he didn't
visit her, he has been a father figure to Merrily and sporadically texts
her. In their search Alice and her Doe friends come across Merrily, and
the women all undertake their search for this man, whose surname
changes, while trying to uncover what are lies and what is the truth.
The characters are all wonderfully flawed and believable characters
that you will feel empathy for immediately. It is understood that they
are all unreliable narrators. They don't know the true backstory of the
man they are all looking for. We are following along in their search as
they look into the past, uncovering information and clues. While
following new leads they are piecing together what they learn with what
they think they know.
The writing is outstanding in this well-paced novel. I was entrenched
in the story and totally engrossed in the twisty plot from start to
finish. The investigation the women undertake unfolds naturally as new
information and clues are uncovered. Alice has other clues she is
looking at related to her present life while looking into her kidnapping
as a child, which adds an additional depth to the narrative. All the
threads in the plot are wrapped up, although not in any way you would
expect. This is an excellent novel of suspense. The final twisty
denouement is what rocketed The Lucky One to my highest rating.
Disclosure:
My review copy was courtesy of HarperCollins.
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