I have just finished this book, and I am gobsmacked! What happened to the author who wrote the light and fun books that I like to read inbetween the thrillers I also like to read? She has only gone and joined their ranks, that's what! And what an incredible thriller debut this is too :)

Robyn Carter has been working as a PI with her cousin Ross after some serious personal events knocked her confidence whilst working as a police officer, and she took a leave of absence. She has excellent cop instincts though so when her case into a missing person reveals a whole other life that that person would have preferred to have kept hidden, she keeps on digging and rejoins the Force. What she discovers is a trail of lies, secrets and violence, the likes of which make the little hairs on your arms stand on end.

This is an incredible book, full of twists and turns, and just when I thought I had figured it out, nope, I was wrong again.

Highly recommended read :) I am already looking forward to reading the next book in the series.

I voluntarily reviewed an Advance Reader Copy of this book. Thank you to NetGalley and Bookouture.

My first read from author Carol Wyer, but definitely not my last! This is the first in a series featuring Detective Inspector Robyn Carter. DI Carter has been on bereavement leave following the loss of her husband and unborn child. She rejoins the police force with the case of a missing man. Soon she is trying to put together a puzzle involving the missing man, multiple murders, and a set of friends, each with deep secrets.
This is a fast paced read with multiple twists that kept me guessing until the end. And even when you have it all figured out, the ride just gets wilder as the loose ends are tied up. I can't wait for the next in this series!
A big thank you to NetGalley, Bookouture, and Carol Wyer for providing me an advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Wow! This book was fantastic. The twists and turns kept me guessing and the switches in timeline were easy to follow.
I cannot wait to read the next books in this series. For me they were up there with M.J Arlidge's Helen Grace series. Absolutely brilliant.

Last year I read 'Take a Chance on Me' by Carol Wyer and it was an enjoyable 'chick-lit' story. 'Little Girl Lost' is her first attempt at something darker and wow – she did good! I love a good crime or murder mystery, so maybe that may make me a little biased, but I found this book definitely outshone the first of her novels I read.
The prologue is a little full-on, but it definitely gets you hooked and gives you an instant understanding of several key characters' motivation. The book quickly jumps away from the events of the prologue and you are introduced to so many different characters, that I was completely engaged in trying to work out 'who-dunnit' and who was being false.
Inevitably you begin to understand who has done what, but that only made the story more tense for me as I urged the protagonist, Robyn, to save the day. Robyn herself is an interesting character. She is battling lots of demons and has only recently returned to the police force. I look forward to seeing this character develop throughout the series, I just wish I knew when the next book was out!

This is the first book I have read by Carol Wyer and very impressive it is too. It is the first in a series featuring Detective Robyn Carter and it is a real page-turner. It combines psychological thriller with detective novel and treats both genres skilfully. Robyn is a fascinating creation with an interesting back story and the twists and turns and revelations in the crimes she is investigating are breath-taking. I await future contributions to this promising series.

Can't review this book because the ebook sent by Netgalley is not a Rachel Carter mystery but another book entirely.

Another winner for Bookouture! They just keep coming. Fantastic book. Utterly unpredictable. I kept trying to figure out what would happen next with very little success. Very gripping. I'm excited and think this is the start to what will be a great series.

Detective Robyn Carter is taking some time off from the force after being hit with not just one but two personal tragedies. She's working alongside a family member who is a private detective. Mostly cheating spouses and insurance scams, not terribly exciting. But when they're contacted by a woman looking for her missing husband, things go up a notch. She initially doesn't want to go to the police, but as Robyn goes back to work, her and her small team get to work on the case. Bodies start to pile up and they all seem to be connected to the missing man... but is he a murderer? Where is he?

New mother Abigal is completely devoted to her baby, Izzy. She sees her friends less, leaves the house less, and certainly makes love with her husband less. Adding to her stress, someone is contacting her warning her not to keep secrets. Though her marriage has been a happy one, she hasn't been totally honest with her husband about her life before him. Her stalker escalates and eventually Robyn gets involved. It's up to her to unravel this tangled web before more people die.

I received an ARC of this book from Net Galley and Bookouture. My opinion is honest and unbiased.

As soon as I saw this book's beautiful cover and read its intriguing blurb I knew I HAD to read it. Now that I've finished it ... WOW! What a cracker!! Can't believe this is the author's debut thriller.

"Lies harm. Lies hurt. The truth liberates."

A wealthy, retired actor dies in a 'freak accident' while jogging, and his son Lucas vanishes into thin air at the same time. Where is Lucas? What happened to him? Did he run away? Or has something sinister happened to him?

DI Robyn Carter, the main character in this book, has suffered devastating loss, and is currently on a leave of absence from her job at Straffordshire police force. She's helping her cousin Ross in his private investigation business. Her latest job is to track down the missing Lucas Matthews. Delving into the Matthews family's past, Robyn begins to uncover disturbing secrets, lies and horrible deeds, and when people close to the family start to drop like flies, she realises that a serial killer is at large. She takes the case to the police force to tackle it in her role as DI. How many people will have to die before Robyn catches the killer? How long will it take her to find the key to it all and expose the killer's identity?

"Mummy told me I was a horrible little girl."

In a separate storyline, Abigail is the mother of baby Izzy. Her perfect married life begins to crumble when she begins to receive mysterious messages and phone calls threatening to expose her past and destroy her life and family. Someone is watching her every move and seriously messing with her head. Who is this person? Is it someone she knows? What do they know about her? Why are they hell bent on destroying her?

Well I really enjoyed reading this fab book. From the first unsettling chapter, it grabbed my interest and kept me glued to my kindle. As the characters were introduced and the past began to catch up with everyone, the plot thickened and the tension rose. The chapters from the pov of Alice were the most powerful. And I kept wondering how Abigail fits in the whole scenario.

Abuse, secrets and lies are all at the heart of this book. Little Girl Lost is extremely well written with very realistic characters - Robyn is a particularly interesting character. With a shattered mind and spirit and riddled by guilt, she's a brilliant police officer who's constantly fighting with her pain and the accusing voices in her head. I definitely want to meet her again in future books.

With suspense and twists and turns throughout, the well-thought out plot is very absorbing, rich and tangled and it kept me engrossed and turning the pages fast. The ending is simply breathtaking - an ending that made me bite my knuckles.

With thanks to Bookouture for approving my request to read and review this book thorough NetGalley. Highly recommended!

The story is narrated through multiple view points. I found each voice to be quite unique hence easy to differentiate so the narrations didn’t confuse me. I also like the fact that the villain is one of the narrators and that they use two timelines for the POV. The flashbacks helped in explaining the motives for the crimes.

At first, it was hard to guess how all the characters were connected. On one hand, there is Abigail, a new mom who is being harassed by an anonymous person. Through other chapters, we have the villain and then the detective. The serial killer’s MO is also sort of haphazard so it seems like some of the victims are not even related. I think not knowing the connection is what made this such a riveting read. I couldn’t guess what the link was until the last chapters of the book when everything started falling into place.

The book has everything that makes a thriller great. There are secrets, twists and turns, lies, unsolved murders and a lot of suspicious characters (and unsub who is one of the narrators). Some of the themes and scenes introduced in the book are quite heavy such as what I alluded to in the prologue. However, what stood out the most for me was the writing. Wyer has such a beautiful, flawless way of describing characters and scenes. I usually struggle with cop procedural novels and multiple POVs but this time, I just didn’t. Her writing style is captivating and it made me get hooked to the story. I was able to guess some of the major twists towards the end but the writing still had me eagerly turning pages in an effort to confirm my suspicions.I can’t wait to for the next book in the series!

An impressive introduction to a new series. The author is not a newbie, but this is her first thriller. In the acknowledgments section she thanks Angela Marsons, Robert Bryndza and Caroline Mitchell, so with those influences I knew that this book would be good. I was not disappointed, the plot is well structured and the characters fleshed out and believable. This series is about Robyn Carter, who is a private investigator while on leave from the Police. She's lost everything - her boyfriend and unborn child, but not her instincts, which will help her solve this case as she returns to the Force. She keeps her connection to the private investigation firm trough her friend Ross, and ex-cop and my favorite character. The case is tricky. Even if I saw the ending coming from the beginning, it was still interesting to try to figure out what had happened and how. The one thing that I think could be improved is that it was a little repetitive at times, when the characters recapped the plot. This is just a small issue in what was otherwise a great new series and I look forward to reading more about Robyn.

I requested a copy of this book from NetGalley because the blurb sounded interesting to me. I've been on a suspense/thriller kick, and this book sounded like it would fit the bill.

I really enjoyed this book, although I will warn you that it was sad. There are flashbacks to the past for one of the characters, and her life is oftentimes tragic, to the point where I just felt so sorry for her. This character is Alice, and it's immediately clear to the reader that she is the murderer, but it's not revealed until the end what alias she is now using. Although I knew "whodunnit", I was still frantically turning pages in order to figure who Alice was in the present.

Robyn, the DI in this novel, has a great rapport with her fellow officers and cousin Ross, a private investigator who ended up playing a huge role in her solving this case. She has her own personal issues that she is dealing with, development that humanized her as a character. I enjoyed reading about her personal life as well as her insights into what was going on with this case.

This book as advertised as being the first in a series, and I hope that's true. I would love to read more by this author and to follow Robyn as her life develops, both professionally and personally. This book kept me hooked until the end, with excellent suspense and enough gruesome details to keep a gore fan like myself interested. I definitely recommend.

Oh my goodness, if this is going to be the standard of books about Robyn Carter, then I'm going to buy them all as soon as they come out! Beautifully plotted with characters you really care about, drawn so well that you can see their good and bad sides. At first you wonder how the stories will fit together, but when you do realise, more shocks are in store. I literally couldn't put it down; reading the last few pages in the car, even though I knew I would get travel sick. The best thriller I have read so far this year.

Detective Robyn Carter is very likeable character with sad past , I liked how realistic she looked (felt very human person), you can see that this character is complicating and build up for new wonderful series , the backup character were very lovely and interesting ( I loved Ross and his wife).
The book had dark undertone and dark incident at the beginning .It starts with very graphic scene which I wasn't comfortable with. But after that the story is fast and you are wondering always about who done it, by 50% I couldn't stop reading , just to know who is this person!!

Published by: Bookouture (19 January 2017)

ASIN: B01M9ETOCA

Source: NetGalley

Rating: 4*

Synopsis:
Abigail lives the perfect life with her doting husband and adorable baby Izzy. But someone knows a secret about Abigail and they want the truth to be told.

When Izzy is snatched from a carpark, it becomes as case for Detective Robyn Carter. Someone has been sending threatening messages to Abigail from an anonymous number. What is Abigail hiding?

Robyn’s instincts tell her there’s a connection between Izzy’s abduction and two murders she is investigating. But the last time she acted on impulse her fiancé was killed. To break this case and earn her place back on the force, she must learn to trust herself again – and fast. Robyn is on the hunt for a ruthless serial killer. And unless she gets to the twisted individual in time a little girl will die ….

Review:
This story is told from the perspectives of three different people; Robyn, who is working as a private detective whilst taking a break from regular police work; Abigail, who is clearly hiding something; and eight year old Alice, whose story begins in the past. There are other central characters that add rich layers to this darkly compulsive, well written tale.

Robyn isn't one of those characters I warmed to immediately, but more of a slow burner. By the end of the novel, I found I'd grown to like her. Setting her interact with people outside work, particularly her cousin Ross and her fiancé's daughter and ex made her seem so much more human. I'm really looking forward to catching up with Robyn on her next case. Thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for the ARC.

Wow! What a brilliant book, I was blown away by just about everything, the writing, the plot, and the characters were everything I look for in a book. I have read other books by Carol Wyer, and was interested to see her delve into thrillers instead of her usual romantic comedies. Detective Inspector Robyn Carter returns to the police force after the death of her partner and the loss of her unborn baby. She is tasked with uncovering what happened to a missing teacher but also finds a connection to the sudden murder of another man. The story reads in the POV of Robyn and Abigail, a happily married mother with a dark secret who is somehow connected to everyone involved in the case. Robyn fights to put the pieces of the case together and uncover the truth behind the murders to catch the serial killer before they harm more people. The way Wyer wrote the book keeps you guessing until the very end and the stories of the different characters connect beautifully and flow well. Little Girl Lost is a perfect start to this series and I am anticipating the next one.

The tag-line on the cover indicates that this a thriller that will have you hooked. It did not exaggerate. It opened on a dark note, and only managed to get worse from there. Worse in all the best, anxiety driven, thrill inducing ways. There were multiple plots open at the same time, which brought about the kind of uncertainty and confusion that really make for a compelling thriller.

“Never mind who I am. Who are you? I am watching your every move. And, I am going to destroy your life.”

The mystery behind this book wasn't so much who did it, but who they really were. Knowing somebody wasn't who they said they were, knowing that everyone had secrets and not knowing whose were whose. That is what made this one of the most compelling thrillers I have read recently.

“She would control the voices and keep the pain caged. Heaven help her if ever they became unleashed.”

Robyn makes the perfect protagonist in this new series. She has so many scars, the kind that haunt her dreams. This makes her more of a person, easier to relate to in a way. Yet she is still so strong, so persistent that you can't help but admire her and cheer her on. The characters she brings with her are going to be strong back-ups in future books, the kind that will make it easy to slip back into her world, and see what kind of mess she's gotten herself into with each new case.

This was a strong take off, and I know that this will be a series I'll continue to follow. Beyond the individual mystery, Robyn is the kind of woman that deserves a resolution of her own, although I feel that could be many books in the making. I certainly hope so for my own selfish pleasure. ~ George 4.5 Stars

Little Girl Lost by Carol Wyer is the first book in the DI Robyn Carter series. Robyn Carter has been on compassionate leave from the Staffordshire police since the death of her fiancé which resulted in Robyn suffering a miscarriage. To keep busy until she is ready to return to her job, Robyn has been working with cousin, Ross Cunningham at his private detective firm. Ross needs Robyn to handle their latest case of the missing hubby. Mary Matthews (who is twenty years older than her husband) is looking for her husband, Lucas. He disappeared two weeks ago, and Mary has not heard from him since then. Lucas had told Mary that he was going to Thailand, but then she discovered his passport. Mary does not want to involve the police because of photos she discovered on her husband’s computer in a folder labeled “Sugar and Spice”(I am sure you can guess what type of photos are in this file). As Robyn finds out more about the victim, she discovers that there is something far more sinister going on. Robyn takes the case to her supervisor at the Staffordshire police, DCI Louisa Mulholland. Robyn returns to her job as detective inspector and dives into the case. The clues lead Robyn to a serial killer who is intent on getting revenge for a childhood atrocity. Will Robyn be able to stop this killer before she takes her final victim?

Little Girl Lost is a good mystery novel. The book contains good writing, and I was immediately drawn into the story. The mystery is a convoluted (which I like), but it can be hard to keep track of all the various details. The mystery is twisty and the reader can easily jump to the wrong conclusion. If you pay very close attention, you will be able to solve the mystery before the author reveals the solution. There are some slow sections (such as when Robyn is exercising and the readers are given too much detail), but overall the book has a good pace. Little Girl Lost is told from three viewpoints: Robyn, Abigail, and Alice. Robyn and Abigail’s parts are in the third person and Alice’s story is told in the first person. We get to find out what happened to Alice and how her story connects to Robyn’s investigation. I give Little Girl Lost 4.25 out of 5 stars (I liked it). I was not fond of Robyn in the beginning, but she grew on me. Robyn’s story is slowly revealed to the reader over the course of the novel. The DI Robyn Carter series has the potential (with a little fine tuning) to be as good as the D.I. Helen Grace and the Detective Kim Stone series (by M.J. Arlidge and Angela Marsons respectively).

What a wonderful treat- in a new venture into the crime world, Carol Wyer has produced the most addictive psychological thriller that defies you to put it down to do mundane things like eat and work!!!!!!!!! I eagerly turned the pages ignoring my bus stop!
Robyn Carter is a great character and I'm delighted that it is the first in a new series to feature her.

There are lots of threads to tie together, friends with secrets, marriages that may not be what they seem, fears and chilling crimes throughout.

You are left wondering just who is who and what secrets there are still to be discovered.

I have enjoyed her previous books- but have now found another great crime writer to add to my favourites list!

Very good book! First in the DI Robyn Carter series, and I look forward to more! This book was well-written, with different storylines throughout the book. It really kept you guessing until the end. It is about Alice, who experienced horrible sexual abuse as a child, that no one believed. So, she is now , as an adult, out for revenge. Full of suspense and surprises, it was a page-turner and hard to put down. I really liked it and can't wait for the next one.

From my blog: Always With a Book:

My thoughts: This is the first book in Carol Wyer's newest series, DI Robyn Carter, and I absolutely loved it!!! It is such a tightly woven, twisted psychological thriller that had me on the edge of my seat the entire time.

I love when I find new series that I just know will be a good fit for me and that's what I feel about this one. DI Robyn Carter is such a great character - she has drive and determination to solve the cases she is given, yet she also has baggage and scars that haunt her and make her a real person. She's relatable and flawed. I definitely look forward to getting to know more about her and digging more into her psyche as the series progresses!

This first book - WOW! It's a whirlwind almost from start to finish as you try to figure out just what is going on. I loved the way the story was told, from three perspectives and found myself trying to link it all together only to keep coming up short time and time again. Each of the three sections - that of Alice's part told in the past, Robyn's sections and Abigail's sections were all equally engaging and left me with more questions than answers most times. Each time you read one part, it's like a clue or secret is revealed, but more times than not, those clues or secrets only brought up more questions.

As I stated above...this is a twisted book - and I mean that in a good way - this book will have you frantically flipping the pages, desperate to figure out who is who and just what is really going on. Who is lying and who is telling the truth, because you quickly come to realize that not all is as it seems. This book is dark and twisted, but oh so good!!!

As soon as I had read the description of this book, I knew it was going to be a crazy ride - I just didn't know how crazy it would be. And now, I cannot wait for the next installment in this series...I have a feeling this is going to be one of my new favorite series!!!