The Return of Ellie Black: A Novel

Emiko Jean

May 2024 · Sold by Simon and Schuster

About this ebook

A USA TODAY Bestseller

“The Return of Ellie Black is a page-turning suspense novel, a shrewd character study, and a captivating mystery, all at the same time. The last fifty pages are magnetic. I couldn’t put it down until I’d experienced every last twist and turn.” —STEPHEN KING

Detective Chelsey Calhoun’s life is turned upside down when she gets the call Ellie Black, a girl who disappeared years earlier, has resurfaced in the woods of Washington state—but Ellie’s reappearance leaves Chelsey with more questions than answers.

It’s been twenty years since Detective Chelsey Calhoun’s sister vanished when they were teenagers, and ever since she’s been searching: for signs, for closure, for other missing girls. But happy endings are rare in Chelsey’s line of work.

Then a glimmer: local teenager Ellie Black, who disappeared without a trace two years earlier, has been found alive in the woods of Washington State.

But something is not right with Ellie. She won’t say where she’s been, or who she’s protecting, and it’s up to Chelsey to find the answers. She needs to get to the bottom of what happened to Ellie: for herself, and for the memory of her sister, but mostly for the next girl who could be taken—and who, unlike Ellie, might never return.

The debut thriller from New York Times bestselling author Emiko Jean, The Return of Ellie Black is both a feminist tour de force about the embers of hope that burn in the aftermath of tragedy and a twisty page-turner that will shock and surprise you right up until the final page.

Ratings and reviews

This thriller will leave you absolutely breathless. It is intense. A teen girl is abducted and taken to a compound littered with evil. She mysteriously re-emerges two years later having escaped. Her own story of what happened is told in her voice but not to the investigating officer. The officer searches through the measly clues to try and find the abductor, running into walls she must destroy.It will keep you at the edge of your seat. I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

I was completely riveted by this book as this author led me into a tale that was dark, uncomfortable at times, and so twisted I was left gasping when all was revealed.

Good

About the author

Emiko Jean is the New York Times bestselling author of the young adult novels Tokyo Dreaming and Tokyo Ever After, a Reese Witherspoon/Hello Sunshine pick, as well as the novel Mika in Real Life, which was a Good Morning America Book Club pick. She lives in Washington with her husband and two kids.