No Time For Goodbye by Linwood Barclay

No Time For Goodbye

by Linwood Barclay

On the morning she will never forget, suburban teenager Cynthia Archer awakes with a nasty hangover and a feeling she is going to have an even nastier confrontation with her mom and dad. She isn't. Instead, the house is empty, with no sign of her parents or younger brother Todd. At first she just thinks it's weird, then more and more scary, until finally the terrifying reality hits her: in the blink of an eye, without any explanation, her family has simply disappeared. Twenty-five years later the mystery is no nearer to being solved and Cynthia is still haunted by unanswered questions. Were her family murdered? If so, why was she spared? And if they're alive, why did they abandon her in such a cruel way? Now married with a daughter of her own, Cynthia knows that without answers - however shocking they might prove to be - she will never be emotionally or psychologically whole, living in daily fear that her new family will be taken from her just as her first one was. And so she agrees to take part in a TV documentary revisiting the case, in the hope that somebody somewhere will remember something - or even that her father, mother or brother might finally reach out to her...First nothing.
Then just a few crackpots and scam artists coming out of the woodwork. And then the letter, a letter which makes no sense and yet chills Cynthia to the core. And soon she begins to realise that stirring up the past could be the worst mistake she has ever made...

Reviewed by Eve1972 on

3 of 5 stars

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This novel seemed to have a lot of mixed reviews, so I wasn't really sure what to expect, but overall I found it to be a pretty decent read! It kept my interest with a lot of good twists and turns and an ending that I never saw coming, and in all honesty, seemed to be a bit of a stretch, but I still found it entertaining overall! This was my first time reading anything by this author, and I was impressed enough to check out his other novels!

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  • Started reading
  • 12 August, 2009: Finished reading
  • 12 August, 2009: Reviewed