Forgotten by Nicole Trope

EXCERPT: Malia is certain that if she can pinch herself hard enough she will wake up from this nightmare. She came to the 7-Eleven for milk, and now her baby is missing and she is surrounded by police. The sun’s heat increases minute by minute and assures her that she is, indeed, in hell.

ABOUT ‘FORGOTTEN’: In a single day, a simple mistake will have life-altering consequences for everyone involved.

A moment of distraction, an unlocked car and a missing baby. How on earth could this happen?

All Malia needed was a single litre of milk and now she’s surrounded by police and Zach has disappeared.

Detective Ali Greenberg knows that this is not the best case for her, not with her history – but she of all people knows what Malia is going through and what is at stake.

Edna is worried about the new residents at the boarding house. She knows Mary would turn in her grave if she knew the kinds of people her son was letting in.

And then there is someone else. Someone whose heart is broken. Someone who feels she has been unfairly punished for her mistakes. Someone who wants what she can’t have.

What follows is a heart-stopping game of cat-and-mouse and a race against the clock. As the hours pass and the day heats up, all hope begins to fade.

MY THOUGHTS: Nicole Trope writes family dramas like no one else. She has my heart pounding, then stopping, my breath caught in my throat. At one point I felt like I had been punched in the gut, all the breath just went wooshing out of me.

Forgotten encompasses so many issues including mental health, gambling addiction, and child abuse all neatly tied into one tense and riveting story which is told from the viewpoints of four women: Malia, the mother of baby Zach who is abducted from his car seat; Ali, the detective who has a young child of her own; Edna, the elderly and childless resident of a boarding house; and Jackie, newly released from prison also resident in the same boarding house as Edna.

Forgotten is a hard-hitting, fast paced read that kept me engrossed from beginning to end. All the emotions get an airing with this read!

⭐⭐⭐⭐.5

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THE AUTHOR: Nicole Trope went to university to study Law but realised the error of her ways when she did very badly on her first law essay because-as her professor pointed out- ‘It’s not meant to be a story.’ She studied teaching instead and used her holidays to work on her writing career and complete a Masters’ degree in Children’s Literature. After the birth of her first child she stayed home full time to write and raise children, renovate houses and build a business with her husband.
The idea for her first published novel, The Boy under the Table, was so scary that it took a year for her to find the courage to write the emotional story.
She lives in Sydney with her husband and three children.

DISCLOSURE: Thank you to Allen and Unwin via Netgalley for providing a digital ARC of Forgotten by Nicole Trope for review. All opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own personal opinions.

For an explanation of my rating system please refer to my Goodreads.com profile page or the about page on sandysbookaday.wordpress.com

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