#TheMissingGirl #JennyQuintana #BlogTour

*My thanks to Annabelle Wright at EDPR and Mantle for an advance copy of this book* 

 I must say the cover for the proof copy I received is beautiful, suggestive of the type of story hiding within the pages and very eye-catching. There's something very haunting about it and although this is a story about the mystery surrounding a missing girl, it's more an exploration of the impact of grief, loss and unanswered questions decades after the girl's disappearance rather than the immediacy of a police investigation and the clock-ticking intensity to solve the crime. 

The Missing Girl is about Anna whose older sister, Gabriella, went missing when she was a teenager. Thirty years after the event, Anna is forced to return home following her mother's death. After spending the last thirty years trying to hide from what happened to her family, sorting through her mother's things means she has to confront the full impact Gabriella's disappearance has had on her. She has to find out what really happened to her sister. 

The novel has a dual timeline which is not identified at the start of each chapter but it generally alternates from Anna and Gabriella's childhood and the run up to her disappearance, to the present day with Anna sorting things our at her mother's house. Despite the lack of chapter headings or specific dates, it is very easy to keep track of the time and place and the dual narrative is very well handled. The flashbacks between the past and the present work really well as a device in this story as it provides a contrast, adds depth of character and also gives the Gabrielle a voice which is intriguing and powerful. I enjoyed both narrative voices; they are different enough, distinct enough and yet compliment each other very effectively. Anna's younger voice is brilliantly captured, evoking all the feelings of a child unable to fully understand the conversations around her, the behaviour of her teenage sister and grasp the significance of some of the details. Anna's present day chapters are more reflective, poignant and contain some beautiful prose which requires the reader to pause, soak up the weight of the words and admire the author's use of language.   

The writing is lovely. It is fluent, evocative and full of vivid imagery. I really enjoyed the description and the author's use of language. I enjoyed the dialogue and interaction between the family members in the chapters from the past as well as the references to the 1980s. I enjoyed the time the author took to capture the complexity of the protagonist and to explore the dynamics within the family and the relationship between the sisters. I really enjoyed that the author chose to look at the crime from the victim's younger sister's point of view and how she coped with the disappearance, how she dealt with the impact of the mystery at such a formative time in her life and how she has never really recovered since. The title of the novel reveals itself to have a double meaning and I liked the exploration of 'missing' and the various ways in which the characters are indeed 'missing' in different ways.

Quintana seems interested in the long term effects of a crime on individuals and this is a book that I feel is much more of a slow burn, something to be valued for it's characterisation and nuanced writing than the shock of the missing girl. Quintana's sentences are skilfully crafted, her descriptions resonant and the thoughts of her protagonist very well conveyed. The atmosphere is heavy, tense and sad, maintained throughout the whole book and used to create a sense of danger, threat and mystery until the end. All of these factors make The Missing Girl refreshing and a novel to savour. I'm really enjoying this trend in Crime Fiction to look at the incident, crime or mystery from a slightly different angle and to blur the lines between literary, commercial and crime fiction further to create some well crafted, thoughtful stories. This is a really great novel with a good story, a good hook, great characters and lovely writing. 

The Missing Girl by Jenny Quintana is out now, published by Mantle in hardback and priced at £14.99.  

Don't miss any of the other stops on the Blog Tour for The Missing Girl.

JENNY QUINTANA

Jenny Quintana grew up in Essex and Berkshire, before studying English Literature in London. She has taught in London, Seville and Athens and has also written books for teaching English as a foreign language. She is a graduate of the Curtis Brown Creative writing course. She now lives with her family in Berkshire. The Missing Girl is her first novel.