The Story
Fourteen year old adopted daughter Lauren is writing an essay titled “Who Am I?”. At a loss as to what to say, Lauren runs an internet search “Adopted. Lost.”. Her research leads her to a website called “missing children.com”. Curious, she types in her name and birth date. Three results. One, blank. One, only lost five years. One, Martha Lauren Purditt. There is a slight resemblance between Lauren and an age enhanced picture of the three year old girl who went missing eleven years ago, when Lauren was adopted.
As Lauren’s parents refuse to tell her anything about her real family, Lauren secretly starts reading her adopted mother’s diaries. These lead her to Marchfield, the agency she was adopted from, on the east coast of the USA. Lauren manages to persuade her family to take a trip across the Atlantic and her best friend Jam joins them. At the stopover at Boston Airport, Lauren and Jam strike out in a different direction, in search of Marchfield and the truth. Lauren is desperate to know where she comes from.
This is the start of a real voyage of discovery. From the seedier side of town, to wolf inhabited forests, suburbia, to the sea. Could Lauren’s adoptive parents be responsible for kidnapping her? Could someone want to keep her from discovering her past, at any cost? Is Lauren’s real mother the one she has dreamed so much about? And most of all, who is friend and who is foe?
My Thoughts
I read this book in two days as it was so gripping. It was scary at times and perhaps best for early teens, but I can’t wait to read the author Sophie McKenzie’s other two novels in this series, Sister Missing and Missing Me. I hope you enjoy this book too.
