Emily, Gone by Bette Lee Crosby– 398 pages

Finished copy sent by author in exchange for an honest review.

Book Blurb:

When a music festival rolls through the sleepy town of Hesterville, Georgia, the Dixon family’s lives are forever changed. On the final night, a storm muffles the sound of the blaring music, and Rachel tucks her baby into bed before falling into a deep sleep. So deep, she doesn’t hear the kitchen door opening. When she and her husband wake up in the morning, the crib is empty. Emily is gone.
Vicki Robart is one of the thousands at the festival, but she’s not feeling the music. She’s feeling the emptiness over the loss of her own baby several months before. When she leaves the festival and is faced with an opportunity to fill that void, she is driven to an act of desperation that will forever bind the lives of three women.

My Review: 4 stars

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Emily, Gone was about love for your child and will pull at all your mama heart strings. This is one of those books that will break your heart then put it back together, just pieced together a little differently.

The author is a brilliant story teller and she’s been doing it since 2007 with a huge fan following. This is my first book by Crosby and I’m glad I finally got around to reading her. As you all know, too many books and so little time. I usually try to avoid books about missing kids and/or kidnappings, but because the reader knows from the start what happened, it was a little easier for me to fall in the story.

Told from alternating POVs of Rachel and Vicki, the mother and kidnapper respectively, was a wise way to tell the story. Through their viewpoints you learn about mental illness, post-partum depression, amending torn relationships, strengthening current relationships, different ways to handle grief, marriage and forgiveness.

This book is a great escape, will bring on the feels and take you deep into the 1970s South.

Quotes I liked:

The heart of a mother is a deep abyss at the bottom of which you will always find forgiveness.” 

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