Already Gone

Bridget E. Baker

Jan 2019 · Purple Puppy Publishing

About this eBook

For fans of We Were Liars and One of Us Is Lying, Bridget E. Baker's Already Gone will leave you guessing until the last page.

Lacy Shelton and her sister Hope couldn't be more different, despite being less than a year apart in age. Lacy is captain of the debate team, poised to be Valedictorian of the high school and waiting for an admission letter from Yale any day. Hope is captain of the swim team, but will be happy if she gets into community college.

Hope has taken everything Lacy ever wanted, from pacifiers to high heels. But Lacy won't let that happen again, not this time. She won't let Hope take the new guy in school, and she sure as heck won’t let Hope ruin her chances with Yale. Until a shocking death changes all of Lacy's plans. Now stuck in a court-mandated psychiatrist's office, she's forced to relive the months leading up to the tragedy to determine whether Hope will take her future, too. 

Alternating between Lacy's and Hope's points of view, Already Gone pieces together a tense puzzle of sisterhood, betrayal, mistakes, and ultimately forgiving someone who can be gone in a blink.

keywords: suspense, ya suspense, suspence, romantic suspense, ya romance suspense, we were liars, one of us is lying, karen McManus, big little lies, romance, teen books, best books for teens, clean romance, clean ya romance, summer reads, depression, survivor, college, coming of age.

Ratings and reviews

4.5 stars. Bridget E. Baker is fast becoming a favorite author of mine. After reading her YA post-apocalyptic trilogy and her cute Christmas romance novel for adults and enjoying those I didn't hesitate to try this book. This is another YA novel, but this time around it's a mystery/suspense/contemporary fiction type story. One thing that really stands out to me is how versatile this author is. She does a great job with each of these genres. I'll say right off that this story is a slow build and the mystery and the suspense are very mild. You're just reading both Lacy and Hope's accounts of past events and waiting to find out what went down to cause Lacy to be in a court-mandated psychiatrist's office. The details are very engrossing despite the slow burn of the story. I'll admit I was expecting a lot of danger and ominous events, but somehow this book still did not disappoint me. Despite the lack of any real danger or suspense, the story pretty much grabbed me right from the beginning and I couldn't put it down. That's saying a lot for a book about teens in high school! I thought I was done reading those types of stories, but I'm not sorry I read this one. There was a twist that I did not see coming as well and that made the reading experience even better. There are quite a few themes touched on in this book, but I don't want to spoil the book so I won't talk about them here. This is a well thought out story about two sisters at odds, who also love each other, and in the end this ends up being a somewhat tragic but very sweet story. I highly recommend if you like contemporary teen fiction.

This book took awhile to pull me in. By the end, I was flipping pages like crazy, but it was a slow start. The ending was wonderful a mid unexpected and well worth the short read. Don’t give up too quickly on this one!

This isn't my typical genre, but I wasn't able to set it down. Bridget Baker did an amazing job capturing the real struggles of teenage sibling rivalry. The constant battle of two teenagers trying to balance their need to be better than the other and their unconditional love for each other. Already Gone has a great story line coupled with a bit of suspense, a few twists and an important message. I loved every page!

About the author

Bridget won her first writing contest in first grade with a story about a day in the life of a little spot of air. (Who says you need a good hook?)  

She hasn't stopped writing (or talking) since then, although she was briefly derailed by her pursuit of a legal career. Ultimately, boring words, well, bored her. She quit her job to spend less time counting gobs of ill gotten gains, and more time writing stories. 

She loves her husband and all five of her kids (most days). She has a bouncy dog, three pampered horses, the cutest rabbits on earth, almost a dozen backyard chickens, and two demanding barn cats. Every day is a battle between playing with kids, riding her horse Leo, and writing. If her publication speed has slowed down, you should probably blame the kids and the horse.

She makes cookies all the time, and thinks they should have their own food group. In a possibly misguided attempt at balancing the scales between overconsumption and exertion, she kickboxes every day. So if you don't like her kids, her cookies, or her books, maybe don't tell her in person.

Please sign up for her newsletter on her website at: www.BridgetEBakerWrites.com!