The Lost Child by Devon-resident author Ann Troup is her contemporary psychological crime thriller set in a small and somewhat creepy Devonshire village, centred around the residents' long-buried but ongoing reactions to a decades-old mystery surrounding a missing child, free courtesy of publisher Harlequin UK's Carina UK imprint, which apparently is some sort of completely divorced parallel-continent never-shall-the-twain-meet twin of the Harlequin mothership's Carina Press imprint.
Currently free @
B&N UK,
Amazon UK, and
Kobo (probably just available to the UK, since this was decidedly unfree when I spot-checked a bunch of worldwide regional Amazon stores, though YMMV). Price-drop-check linkage for
iTunes UK, and may already be free at Google Play UK.
Description
Mandy Miller disappeared from Hallow’s End when she was just 3 years old. She was never found.
Thirty years on, Elaine Ellis is carrying her mother’s ashes back to Hallow’s End to scatter them in the place that she once called home. Elaine has never been there, but it’s the only place Jean talked about while she was growing up – so it seems as good a place as any.
As Elaine settles into her holiday cottage in the peaceful Devonshire village, she gets to know the locals; family she never knew she had, eccentric and old-fashioned gentry, and new friends where she would least expect them. But she is intrigued by the tale of the missing girl that the village still carries at its heart, and which somehow continues to overshadow them all. Little does she know how much more involved in the mystery she will become…