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Whistle in the Dark    by Emma Healey Amazon.com order for
Whistle in the Dark
by Emma Healey
Order:  USA  Can
Harper, 2018 (2018)
Hardcover, CD, e-Book
* *   Reviewed by Mary Ann Smyth

Jen and Hugh Maddox have survived an agony no parents would want to go through. Their daughter Lana had been missing for four days. She was discovered disoriented, bruised and bloodied, but claiming she didn't remember where she had been or what she had done to be in such poor physical condition.

Jen doesn't buy that story but can't seem to reach Lana. Is it the old story, that the teenage years are the worst times for mothers and daughters to savor a good relationship? Jen is afraid that Lana had meant to carry through with her threat to kill herself but changed her mind at the last minute. Does she still harbor that feeling?

Whistle in the Dark by Emma Healey explores the relationship between Lana and Jen, taking the reader through a distressing journey of a mother's love and the pain of a fifteen year-old girl who can't seem to find her place in the world.

This novel can be hard to read at times. It could easily be non-fiction rather than a tale of a mother and daughter who find life extremely difficult. At times, it seemed a tad too long. But it is a gripping story about an experience that I am so glad I never had to go through with my two girls.

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