Local Woman Missing

Book Review

Local Woman Missing by Mary Kubica

One of my new favorite thrillers for the year! Local Woman Missing is a suspenseful read that will keep you up way past bedtime, hungrily flipping pages to find out just what happened in this once-peaceful neighborhood. (Keep reading for my full review!)

About Local Woman Missing:

(From the publisher): People don’t just disappear without a trace…

Shelby Tebow is the first to go missing. Not long after, Meredith Dickey and her six-year-old daughter, Delilah, vanish just blocks away from where Shelby was last seen, striking fear into their once-peaceful community. Are these incidents connected? After an elusive search that yields more questions than answers, the case eventually goes cold.

Now, eleven years later, Delilah shockingly returns. Everyone wants to know what happened to her, but no one is prepared for what they’ll find…

This post contains affiliate links; as an Amazon associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. My copy of this book was provided courtesy of the publisher, HTPbooks. All opinions expressed are my own.

Reader’s Thoughts

When it comes to suspenseful, thriller types of reads, I am all about the surprises. And with Local Woman Missing, I did not see ANY of the twists coming. Sure, like most thrillers, you have to suspend some disbelief (particularly the ending) but honestly, I think that’s 100% part of the fun when it comes to these kinds of books.

This story switches between several different points of view. It also jumps forward and backward through time. While there were one or two chapters where this confused me, for the most part it was very well done. This slow revealing of the truth kept me absolutely glued to the pages for the second half of this novel.

In particular, I enjoyed Meredith’s point of view. Her career as a doula is a subject that fascinates me in general and I loved the added discussion about a woman’s rights during birth.

My one critique was that there were some point of view conflicts. If the chapter is being told from Kate’s point of view, for example, it feels confusing to also have sentences like “Josh thought…” Eventually, I realized this was just a writing style but it did throw me off a little whenever it happened.

Overall, I found this to be a highly engaging and entertaining read! If you love thrillers, add this one to the TBR! I look forward to reading more by this author in the future.