Then She Was Gone

Finished July 3
Then She Was Gone by Lisa Jewell

This suspense novel revolves around Ellie Mack, a bright, pretty, 15-year-old girl who goes missing on her way to the library shortly before her exams, and her mother Laurel Mack, devastated by the unanswered question of what happened to her daughter, Laurel's story begins ten years after her daughter's disappearance, when she finally finds a way to move on.
We go back and forth between Laurel's story, and Ellie's, and sometimes other voices at the moments where their stories cross those of the mother or daughter.
Laurel's marriage to Ellie's father Paul didn't last, and she didn't spend the time on her two older children, Hanna and Jake that they needed, causing distance to grow between her and them. Now that she is ready to move forward, she isn't sure how to start. Enter Floyd, a man near her own age, that she meets in a cafe, and begins a relationship with.
She meets Floyd's daughters, Sara-Jade, a young woman who lives with her mother, and Poppy, a nine-year-old girl older than her years in some ways, and more naive in others. And Laurel begins to reach out to her own children. To Hanna, who has lived quietly alone, spending most of her time at work, and whose apartment Laurel cleans weekly. And to Jake, who lives further away, with his partner Blue, a young woman Laurel barely knows. Laurel also goes to see her mother Ruby, who lives in a nursing home, but still shows Laurel the love and support of a mother,
As the story unravelled, I surmised and suspected parts of the story, but not all of it, and the story is a story of love and want, of sadness and hope. A great read.