Chelsea
Written on Apr 29, 2019
From the #1 New York Times bestselling author Kelley Armstrong comes a new romantic thriller that will leave fans trembling for more.
The only thing Winter Crane likes about Reeve's End is that soon she'll leave it. Like her best friend did. Like her sister did. Like most of the teens born in town have done. There's nothing for them there but abandoned mines and empty futures. They're better off taking a chance elsewhere.
The only thing Winter will miss is the woods. Her only refuge. At least it was. Until the day she found Lennon left for dead, bleeding in a tree.
But now Lennon is gone too. And he has Winter questioning what she once thought was true. What if nobody left at all? What if they're all missing?
"Like Stephen King, who manages an under-the-covers, flashlight-in-face kind of storytelling without sounding ridiculous, Armstrong not only writes interesting page-turners, she has also achieved that unlikely goal, what all writers strive for: a genre of her own." —The Walrus
- ISBN10 0385686420
- ISBN13 9780385686426
- Publish Date 18 April 2017
- Publish Status Active
- Publish Country CA
- Imprint Doubleday Canada
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 384
- Language English
- URL https://penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/isbn/9780385686426
Reviews
justine_manzano
Written on May 19, 2017
Missing is a really well written mystery, with a lot of fun twists and turns. What would normally be five stars became four because, while I loved the main character, Winter Crane, I found her highly unlikely. In Panem, I had no problem believing that a sixteen year old girl could hunt, set traps, and lead a rebellion. In modern day America, I had a little trouble buying that a girl of the same age had not only done this, but also was a very intelligent student, who worked at a doctor's office and had commandeered an abandoned cabin to stay in. It was just a little much.
Still, she turned out being fairly interesting in the end -- if you suspend disbelief a little. The other two main characters, brothers Lennon and Jude (yes, that's a Beatles joke), were very interesting and well-faceted characters. Lennon was charming and Jude was kind, but both were suspicious, and I enjoyed watching them work with Winter as you and they tried to figure out who exactly was responsible for all of this insanity.
All in all, this is a fun read and I definitely learned to love these characters. This one, however, took a couple of chapters to really get into. Once I was in, I was addicted.
Cocktails and Books
Written on Apr 27, 2017
I have to say, I haven't read a YA thriller before, but Kelley Armstrong made me realize these are books I should read more often.
Winter is stuck in Reeve's End hoping she's going to be able to get away from her father and fulfill her dream of being a doctor. And when she helps a boy she finds in the woods, she's suddenly in the middle of strange happenings and missing people.
This story had twists and turns. I wasn't sure if Winter should trust Lennon, the boy she helped, or what to think of his brother. There were times I was convinced she shouldn't trust both. But that's the great part of a thriller (at least to me) is never knowing who the main character should trust.
This is a fast-paced read with a heroine that I truly enjoyed. I wanted her to figure out who was behind the evil that seemed to be in her woods and that, in the end, she found a happiness her life previously lacked.
I'll definitely be checking out more books by Kelley Armstrong.
Leah
Written on Apr 4, 2017
Missing is one of those books you devour. And boy, did I devour it! I’ve never read any of Kelley Armstrong’s previous books (of which she has many) but as soon as I read the synopsis, I knew I wanted to read this book. I *had* to read this book! Teens going missing? A place no one cares that teens are going missing, because everyone thinks they’re just leaving town and not looking back? And a girl determined to find out the truth, who I aspire to be like, like no one’s business. I really got into this book, and Winter was such a great narrator, such a great PERSON, she was fearless, man, and I wouldn’t want to cross her, ever.
Missing is YA thriller, and it’s going to be quite hard to forget - Kelley Armstrong really sets the scene, Reeve’s End is nowhere, where people escape from at the first opportunity, so when Winter Crane finds a boy, Lennon, stuck up a tree, injured, she’s inclined to help (instead of y’know running away, but Winter is a far, far better person than I) it sets off a chain of events she could never have expected - especially when Lennon himself goes missing and his brother, Jude, arrives, anxious to find him and finds it hard to believe Winter isn’t involved in it all. So they make an unlikely alliance in a bid for Jude to find his brother, Lennon, and Winter to find her friend, Edie. It’s a great thriller, with a pretty creepy protagonist, like severely creepy, and I had no idea who it was.
I loved Winter. So much. Her abilities in the woods, the fact that she had to hunt for her food or not eat (which creeps me out, and there is a bit of me that feels sad for the animals but I’m a hypocrite because I eat chicken and beef and sausages so what’s the difference?), I loved her cabin in the woods (although the snakes are a no-no for me, just no. NO NO NO NO. Hell to the no. But otherwise I could have a cabin in the woods. Perhaps not in Reeve’s End, considering everything Winter goes through, but it sounds nice and all until a stalker comes a-calling. What I liked is the fact I thought this was going to be a romance between Winter and Lennon and I was so wrong. Sooooooo freaking wrong, but in the best way possible because JUDE WAS EVEN BETTER. I loved how much depth Jude had - he wasn’t just coming to Reeve’s End for a romance with Winter, he was coming to save his brother, and he was pragmatic and level-headed and wasn’t taking Winter’s nonsense (that wasn’t actually nonsense) and they just had this vibe that worked, which is weird since they like hate/don’t trust each other at the start, but what can you do? But I liked the way they both opened up to each other, because they were the only ones looking for Lennon and Edie, so they had to rely on each other and I loved it.
Missing had a few scenes that made me want to puke. Mostly the animal abuse, by which I don’t mean the rabbit or the deer Winter kills, but the feral dogs. I know they’re feral, I know they couldn’t help it in one of the cases, and I know they are fictional dogs but it doesn’t make it any easier to bear, I am never, ever comfortable killing animals in books and it always makes me feel sad inside, in my bones. But apart from that, which is a personal thing that likely comes from being lucky enough to never go into woods with wild animals who might skin me alive, I suppose, this was a captivating, pulse-pounding read. This is apparently a new direction for Kelley Armstrong but hopefully it’s a sign of many more fantastic books to come because I devoured this. I hardly wanted to put it down and it kept me sucked in from beginning to end.
girlinthepages
Written on Mar 5, 2017
I've been a huge fan of Kelley Armstrong ever since I read The Darkest Powers series back in high school, and loved her YA thrilled The Masked Truth (seriously, if you want an INTENSE YA thriller I implore you to go read it immediately). When I saw Missing on NetGalley, I had to snatch it up because I know that if anyone can write a thrilled that's going to keep my on the edge of my seat and actually raise the stakes (AKA not everything is going to wrap up neatly into a nice, happy, YA ending for everyone) it's Kelley Armstrong.
Missing starts off in a very small, rural town in Kentucky called Reeve's end- perfectly atmospheric for a thriller where teens are disappearing and the woods serve as both a refuge and a danger. Winter Crane starts to notice the string of teens that leave Reeve's End never to return (including her own sister) and once she meets a boy in the woods who is clearly running from someone, she finds herself unable to ignore the two situations and determines they somehow must be linked. When Lennon disappears after clearly being stalked by a psycho, Winter teams up with his brother Jude to find him, her sister, and answers to what happened to the other missing teens.
Setting wise, Armstrong crafted a perfect narrative- there are wild dogs, abandoned mine shafts, long-forgotten roads, and woods that serve as both sanctuary and prison. I felt an undercurrent of unease my entire experience reading the book, which is exactly what I hope to feel when reading a thriller. However, though I liked Winter as a protagonist well enough (she's smart, resourceful, and an aspiring doctor) I sometime felt that she was too clever and too analytical, putting together pieces of the mystery too clearly and neatly to be believable. Couple her with Jude, the extremely honest, logical, and rational thinker, and it took some of the excitement away from reading the story because they were often able to figure out what was going on ten steps ahead of everyone else which lessened the excitement and anxiety of the reading experience a bit.
That issue aside, I was super intrigued by Jude and Lennon's family and their ties to old Kentucky money and politics through their parents, and the comparison between their upbringing and Winter's upbringing in Reeve's end serves as an important social commentary regarding class and socioeconomic divisions that can exist mere hours away from each other. Just like Armstrong addressed the stigmas and social reactions to mental illness in The Masked Truth, I felt that she did a good job addressing social attitudes toward wealth and poverty without making her story feel like an issue book.
Overall: Missing is a thriller that sets the stage perfectly for its genre, with an atmospheric setting, a chilling antagonist, and plot points that don't hold back. However, sometimes the main characters almost proved too competent to be realistic teenagers and it took some of the suspense from the story. Yet I know I'll continue to pick up Armstrong's thrillers because they provide an atmospheric reading experience that stands out among most YA books in the thriller genre.This review was originally posted on Girl in the Pages