Have You Seen Me? and The Half Sister

Another catch up post. Two books where something is missing. Both 4 stars from me.

Location - Manhatten, NYC

Players - Ally Linden. Ally's  husband Hugh. Ally's former boss. Ally's brother. And misc other characters.

Basic plot - Ally shows up for work at a financial company only to be told by her former boss and ex that she hasn't worked there in 5 years. And so begins her journey to find out what she doesn't remember.

I think that the plot was very interesting and the unraveling of the mystery was paced quite well. I listened to the audio version and was very unimpressed with the narrator. The narration was very flat in my opinion. There wasn't a lot of emotion coming across in the telling that I would expect would have come across in someone's quest to find out what happened during missing days.

In spite of the narration, the story kept me drawn in so that I wanted to continue through to the end and for me, that speaks volumes about the story.

All of that and a great twist at the end!

Location - London

Players - Sisters Kate and Lauren and their families and their mother Rose. And Jess who is a half sister. Maybe.

Plot - Jess shows up to a family meal one Sunday and claims to be their father's daughter. The father who passed away months ago. Lauren is full accepting immediately, but Rose and Kate don't buy the DNA results right away. And so begins the search for the missing information.

Told from Kate and Lauren's points of view mostly, the story unravels as Kate is dealing with fertility treatments that she is hiding from the family and Lauren is dealing with an unhappy and emotionally abusive marriage that she is hiding from the family. The story unfolds very well with twists and a shocking ending that I didn't see coming.

I really enjoy reading stories with messy family situations! And Sandie Jones does a great job of adding in twists and very unexpected turns. And a lot of times in her books, I find myself switching who I am rooting for or agreeing with by the end of the book - and sometimes multiple times.