Since She Went Away

David Bell

Jun 2016 · Sold by Penguin

About this ebook

From the USA Today bestselling author of Kill All Your Darlings comes a chilling novel of guilt, regret, and a past that refuses to die....
 
Three months ago, Jenna Barton was supposed to meet her lifelong best friend Celia. But when Jenna arrived late, she found that Celia had disappeared—and she hasn’t been seen since. 
 
The only piece of evidence is a lone diamond earring found where Celia and Jenna were planning to meet, leading the national media to dub Celia “The Diamond Mom.” And even though Jenna has obsessively surfed message boards devoted to missing persons cases, she is no closer to finding any answers—or easing her guilt.
 
But when her son’s new girlfriend disappears too, a stricken Jenna begins to unwind the tangled truth behind Celia’s tragedy. And as long-buried secrets finally come to light, she discovers how completely lives can be shattered by a few simple lies.

Ratings and reviews

2.5 stars Had this book been written by someone other than David Bell, I would have given it a solid 3 stars, which is why I have rounded the 2.5 stars I actually awarded up to 3. After reading Somebody I Used to Know last year, however, I expected better from Bell. As was the case in his previous book, Bell sets up multiple possible solutions to the central mystery of what happened to Jenna's best friend Celia, but here they felt forced and contrived, as though Bell had a quota to fill and went through his manuscript checking off how many clues pointed at each solution before finally settling on one that came almost completely from left field. This book was way too long and would have benefited from the elimination of some subplots and red herrings. I received a free copy of Since She Went Away from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

this is a this is a great book so many twists and unexpected ending I'll definitely read more like this and maybe read this again at some point

About the author

David Bell is a bestselling and award-winning author whose work has been translated into six languages. He’s currently an associate professor of English at Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green, Kentucky. He received an MA in creative writing from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, and a PhD in American literature and creative writing from the University of Cincinnati. His novels include Bring Her Home, Since She Went Away, Somebody I Used to Know, The Forgotten Girl, Never Come Back, The Hiding Place, and Cemetery Girl.