A twisty, multiple layered thriller where the past and present clash in a maze of suspense. Best friends Francesca and Sophie tell their tales with nearly 20 years separating them. In 1997 Sophie disappeared, she was 21 with plenty to live for, in 2016 Francesca returns to the seaside town when she learns a body has been found. Claire Douglas gives the the two women a conversational, realistic voice, and as more and more layers are revealed, my feelings and thoughts about Francesca and Sophie bounced inside my mind and altered. With corkscrews of secrets and hidden thoughts being slowly released, it made me ponder just how clean and true our memories actually are. With an ending drenched in drama, ’Local Girl Missing’ is a suspense filled read. ~ Liz Robinson
The old Victorian pier was once a thing of beauty. It's also where twenty-one-year-old Sophie Collier vanished eighteen years ago. Francesca has spent the last twenty years haunted by the disappearance of her best friend. But when she receives a phone call from Sophie's brother saying that a body has been found, she knows she can't keep hiding from what happened. With her own secrets to keep, Francesca doesn't relish the idea of digging up the past or returning to Oldcliffe. But it is time to go back to where she grew up, and it looks like she isn't the only one there hiding truths.
Claire Douglas has worked as a journalist for fifteen years writing features for women's magazines and national newspapers, but she's dreamed of being a novelist since the age of seven. She finally got her wish after winning the Marie Claire Debut Novel Award, with her first novel, The Sisters. She lives in Bath with her husband and two children.
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