The Stolen Child by Carmel Harrington
I bought The Stolen Child by Carmel Harrington from Vinted, along with a few other books recently, including The Other Miss Jones and Chasing Shadows. I’d identified it a while ago as a book I wanted to read, but I must admit when it arrived I was slightly put off by the cover and the title. I read a lot of psychological thrillers because I love them, but when I saw the cover, I wondered if they were all starting to get a bit similar?
Spoiler alert, they’re not!
The Stolen Child is a real page turner that I devoured in under 48 hours.
Forty years ago, when Lily was a baby, her family’s world was torn apart by the disappearance of her toddler brother, Robert, from the family’s cabin on a cruise ship. Although Robert was his stepson, Lily’s father, Jason, has never stopped looking for him.
Lily is now working as a therapist and is a mum herself, but her family has still never recovered. Then a new patient, Zach, tells Lily he believes he is Robert. The family has had other people come forward before claiming to be Robert, but this time they truly believe they have found him.
I believed it too. So that wrapped the story up nicely, right? Definitely not! There were a lot more twists to come.
The Stolen Child is told in the present day by Lily and in the past by her mum, Kimberly. There are also sections from the 1970s about a girl called Sally, living in an orphanage with her best friend, Elsie. What does Sally’s story have to do with Lily, Robert and their family?
There are quite a few psychological thrillers about the disappearance of children, but if you enjoy the genre as much as I do, I would definitely recommend The Stolen Child. It is definitely not too similar to other books!
