A breathtaking opening chapter with an equally shocking ending! And Then She Vanishes is a terrific thriller. Has it all. A claustrophobic, page turning, slow burner - when two bodies, thought to be local businessman Clive Wilson, 58, and his mother, Deirdre Wilson, 76, are found in a cottage in the seaside Somerset town of Tilby. They had been shot. A third person, Heather Underwood, was found unconscious at a caravan park less than half a mile away, apparently from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the chest... Heather, whose sister Flora disappeared in 1994, never to be seen again. Everything points to Heather being the murderer. But why?! There is no apparent motive, yet....

Jessica Fox is a journalist in Bristol where she lives with her boyfriend, Rory. Could Heather be the friend she fell out with back in 1994? She works with Jack, the photographer for the Bristol and Somerset Herald, a twice weekly publication. Looking for any kind of exclusive the layers are slowly peeled back. Jessica has a dark past that saw her leave The Tribune in London, for reasons she has never fully explained to Rory. And all the time, the question that pervades this whydunnit is: What really happened the night Flora disappeared?

I will not say any more about this thrilling story - don't want to spoil it for future readers. I can say that you will love it!

My thanks to Penguin UK-Michael Joseph, NetGalley and Claire Douglas for my ARC. Wonderful!

Heather hasn't seen her best friend Jess for years, not since Heather's younger Sister Flora went missing. Heather has now been accused of double murder but currently lies in a hospital bed, in a critical condition.
Jess returns to her home town and opens up old wounds. It was where she spent most of her childhood, at her best friend's home, with Heather's Mum being more of a Mum to her than her own Mum. Being a reporter, Jess begins to investigate the murders and makes some shocking discoveries.
I found this book was a little slow paced for me and it took me a long while to get into. Once I did, it was enjoyable, you just keep peeling back the layers to more shocking discoveries. It had a very unsettling end that tied the plot up nicely.

WOW! Just love a good Claire Douglas book, one of my favourite author's that I always make a point of looking out for.
This is a gripping read, easy to follow and really well written with plenty of twists.

would like to thank netgalley and the publisher for letting me read this gripping novel

oh my word this book grabs you from the very first chapter, from the very first gunshot to the second gunshot and as the would be murderer walks calmly out the house...

flora and heather have been bought up by their mother with their friend jess,they spent many a happy time in each others company...until the fair came to town...

now years later with flora who has never been found and heathers attempted suicide by shotgun its left to jess to unearth the truth as much as she can for the newspaper that she works for...but jess and heather parted ways years ago acrimoniously

i love how this author has written this book with each chapter about one of the sisters or jess or even the sisters mother...and we are lead through past and present until the amazing finale....that you just dont even suspect of happening...

this is an author to keep an eye out for...move over martina cole someone else is after your title...

Then She Vanishes captivates right from the start with a double murder. The book then alternates between flashbacks and present day as the story unfolds. Twenty years ago Jess and Heather were best friends. One night Heather's sister disappeared and the two friends lost touch. Now, Jess is reporting on the double murder and Heather is in a coma accused of the crime. Are the events of the past and present connected? It's up to Jess to find out. Highly recommended to readers who enjoy crime fiction.

Following a shocking opening that sees a young woman shoot a man and his mother to death in their own home at 6:45am, the book takes a slower, more gentle approach to the story, going back and forth in time to tease out the back story. I have to admit that it took me some time to get into the story itself. I enjoyed it in the end but it was a little too slow moving for me and I found myself struggling at times to continue with it. Overall, a good story 3/5

Ooooohhh! This book is a game of two halves. The first chapter is shocking in its brutality. A woman drives into a residential street, chooses a house, seemingly at random, blows apart the lock to gain entry and then kills a middle aged man and his elderly mother. Hours later a woman is found in a early barn without shotgun wounds and it looks like a suicide attempt.
Enter Jess, journalist and one time friend of Heather, who is in a coma suspected of the shootings. And the book becomes quite gentle, quite rhythmic, quite low key. Jess slowly pieces together the past and the present to come to the final conclusion....but you will have to read it to find out what that is....

Loved reading this book. It took me a little while to get into it but it was a fabulous story. It tells the story of childhood friends Jess and Heather and Heather’s sister Flora and their mother Margot. The story starts with Deidre Wilson and her son Clive being shot dead and Heather being found having tried to shoot herself. Flipping between current and and flashbacks to the past the story unfolds, piece by piece, until the gripping finale.

One of this years best psychological thrillers.
This novel revolves around 2 sisters Flora and Heather and Heathers best friend for a mere 2 years Jessica, there story revolves around the farm they lived on that Jess spent all her time on due to her own mums busy life.
Jess leaves them under a bit of a cloud but years later is thrust back into their life as a double murder takes place in Tilby the place they live.. Jess is now a reporter back in Bristol after leaving London and her editor insists she goes to the farm to speak to the mother Margot
Jess is torn as she loved Margot as a mother and feels wrong to talk to her under false pretences
Heather is in hospital after shooting herself in an attempt at suicide after shooting a couple who had just moved to the village. Why would she shoot them ? What was her motive? She was a married woman with a child to what end would she do this?
Jess has to turn investigator to find out the truth but what and whose truth would it be

When a woman drives into a quiet residential street and shoots dead a middle aged man and his mother before being herself being found later with gunshot wounds and a head injury everyone is sure that she has tried to kill herself. So when a journalist turns up who just happens to be an old friend, secrets from the past start to unravel. Who is the killer?

Absolutely gripping. Keeps you guessing right to the very end.

This book hooks you from the start
and I ended up getting up early as I was desperate to finish it.
When Jess was 14 her best friend's sister disappeared, now her friend is in a coma accused of murder. Is there a connection? What really happened to Flora?
There are plenty of twists in this beautifully plotted book.

Riveting and wonderfully tense, I adored Claire Douglas's new psychological suspense novel. I was particularly impressed as the story is more a why-dunnit than a who-dunnit, and these can be tricky to pull off. But Douglas manages to set up a double murder, one in the past and one in the present, so smoothly that I couldn't stop flipping the pages to find out what was going to happen.

Set in a small seaside town with a deftly woven cast of characters, the story starts with a woman murdering a man and a woman, then neatly explores the story behind why. When local journalist Jessica Fox gets wind of this story, and finds out it was her childhood best friend who committed the murder, she begins a balancing act between the job she loves and her sense of loyalty to her old friend.

I highly recommend this compelling, wonderful novel.

Heather and Jess are best friends. Jess spends all her time with Heather until something bad happens. Flora is Heather's sister and one night after a day out with her boyfriend disappears. Twenty five years later Jess is a reporter and is covering the case of her long ago friend who has been suspected of murder.

This is the third book that I have read by Claire Douglas, both of which I have found to be average thrillers. This book I also feel is just average.

The book did have some positives. I found the story itself quite engaging. There was enough for me to keep going and not give up. The book was a very easy read and I got through it quite quickly. The story goes back into the past so the reader gets to eventually find out what really happened to Flora. In the present the story follows Jess and Margot, the sisters mother.

I did however find the overall ending predictable and for a long time through the book guessed what was going to happen. At one point I thought I was wrong but then it turned out I was correct all along.

The book wasn't a bad read by no means but because of it's predictability for me it was an average read. Again I wouldn't dismiss this author but the book didn't wow me.

Thank you to the publisher via Netgalley for the opportunity to read and review the book.

This is not really very exciting. It is quite convoluted and hard to believe. The main character, so-called journalist Jess, who tries to do a bit of detective work at the same time as writing an article (which is never ready on time to be published), is not a particularly nice person. She cries a lot. I felt sorry for Rory. Heather is in hospital for the duration of the book, most of it in a coma. There is not much happening in the first half but clues are thrown at us, some of them red herrings, in a failed attempt to build up tension. The writing is unsophisticated, with short simple sentences and a lack of description. I have not read Claire Douglas before, and based on this I will not bother, although she has good ratings from others, I prefer something a little more subtle.

Fantastic twisty murder mystery that will keep you guessing until the end and even then you are unsure. All the characters are well described and you get to know them and their hidden secrets throughout the book.
The story starts with the chilling murder of 2 relative newcomers to a sleepy seaside resort near Bristol and the discovery of a local woman with gunshot wounds in a barn. Jess a reporter on a local paper realises that the woman in the coma in hospital is Heather, her childhood friend from 20 years ago. She realises that Heather stayed in the same house on the family’s campsite and that Margot ,who she viewed as more of a mother to her than her own, is still living there. The friendship ended suddenly when Heather’s older sister Flora disappeared after a night out , will Jess be able to get back into the family to help her research ? Jess sets out to unravel the mystery of both the recent murders and the events that happened years ago .The story is told from the points of view of various characters but is easy to follow even with a fabulous twisty plot

I've read and enjoyed Claire Douglas before so I was delighted to get this e-copy in exchange for an honest review and I wasn't disappointed! Claire writes really great characters – that you actually care about – which makes the suspense even greater than the average suspense novel.
I always love a mystery that is from the point of view of a reporter, rather than a detective, it is slightly different, less formal and has an extra moral element (which Claire took even further in Then She Vanishes as the reporter knows the accused personally). I was gripped and I didn't see the ending coming.

I'll look forward to reading more from Claire Douglas in the future.

A great twisted tale of family secrets. Fantastic characters in a very intriguing story. I couldn't put it down.

This is the first book I have read by Claire Douglas and none of it rang particularly true to me. First the guns, the author has absolutely no idea what a shotgun is. She keeps referring to bullets and only once from memory calls it a cartridge. Shotguns fire cartridges and if you shoot someone at point blank range you will make a big hole in them. Farmers as a rule have a 12 bore shotgun, no way would one leave a gun lying around for a child to pick up and more to the point farmers don't normally shoot their cows with one.
While the story of why did Heather shoot the two people and then seemingly try to commit suicide was fairly interesting, it was all very long winded and PC.
While not wanting to give anything away, the ending doesn't make sense and would easily be pulled apart by detectives.
A good idea but poorly thought through.

I received a copy of this book via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

This is a story of Jess who is a reporter for a local newspaper. She is sent to report on Heather, a woman who has shot two seemingly innocent people and then turned the gun on herself. herself. Heather has survived and is now in a coma. It turns out that the woman who shot the two people is the former best friend of Jessica and her boss wants an exclusive. Jess and Heather lost touch 20 years ago when the Heather’s sister Flora went missing. There are several different storylines running through this book. We go from past to present to find out what really happened.

I really enjoyed this book. I really enjoyed the character of Jess and I also had great empathy for the character of Margot who is the Mother of Heather. There are lots of twists and turns in this story and I didn’t guess some of the twists. At 420 pages long it is a longish book but I was never once bored reading it. It is a fantastic read and I would highly recommend it.

The past has a way of catching up with you and in Claire Douglas new book it does exactly that. The characters in the book are interesting and I become fond of a few but not so with everyone. Some I wanted to get killed off as they were so nasty!! Well written and a clever plot which keeps readers attention throughout.
An intriguing read with a great twist at the end.