Dear Child
A Novel
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4.2 • 266 Ratings
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
NOW A #1 NETFLIX ORIGINAL SERIES AND #1 INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER
“[A] tantalizingly disturbing debut…As enthralling as it is thought-provoking.” -New York Times Book Review
BookPage’s Top 10 Mystery & Suspense of the Year
Chicago Public Library’s Best Books of 2020
New York Times Group Text Pick
A woman held captive finally escapes—but can she ever really get away?
Gone Girl meets Room in this page-turning, #1 internationally bestselling thriller.
A windowless shack in the woods. A dash to safety. But when a woman finally escapes her captor, the end of the story is only the beginning of her nightmare.
She says her name is Lena. Lena, who disappeared without a trace 14 years prior. She fits the profile. She has the distinctive scar. But her family swears that she isn’t their Lena.
The little girl who escaped the woods with her knows things she isn’t sharing, and Lena’s devastated father is trying to piece together details that don’t quite fit. Lena is desperate to begin again, but something tells her that her tormentor still wants to get back what belongs to him…and that she may not be able to truly escape until the whole truth about what happened in the woods finally emerges.
Twisty, suspenseful, and psychologically clever, Romy Hausmann's Dear Child is a captivating thriller with all the ingredients of a breakout hit.
“Chilling, original and mesmerizing.” —David Baldacci
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
A word of advice when reading this chilling psychological thriller: Remember to breathe. Lena Beck’s parents have been desperate since she disappeared from a university party in Munich 14 years ago. When an injured woman calling herself Lena shows up at a hospital with a tween girl, the Becks wonder if their daughter is back, although she seems very different and tells an extremely dark tale about where she’s been. Author Romy Hausmann brilliantly shifts the perspective from one character to another, building suspense. We were particularly haunted by the passages told from the perspective of 13-year-old Hannah. Deeply horrifying and stacked with twists, Dear Child has earned comparisons to bestsellers like Room and Gone Girl, but Hausmann colors the domestic thriller with a dark, Germanic hue that’s all its own.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Early in German author Hausmann's outstanding debut, a woman is hit by a car in a forest on the German-Czech border. The police believe the victim may be Lena Beck, a college student who disappeared in Munich 13 years earlier. After a search of the forest reveals a windowless cabin, a horrific story begins taking shape: Lena was abducted and forced to live in captivity while giving birth to a girl and a boy. When Lena's father, Matthias, arrives at the hospital to identify his daughter, however, he says it's not her. But the young girl with her the woman's alleged daughter looks exactly like a younger Lena. A DNA test confirms both children are, in fact, Matthias's grandchildren. As the traumatized woman and the two kids struggle to adapt to life outside of the cabin, Matthias vows to find out what happened to his daughter. The multiple points of view and numerous plot twists sustain the breakneck pacing, but the book's real power lies in the author's insightful and sensitive portrayal of the characters involved in the tragedy. This darkly disturbing thriller definitely marks Hausmann as a writer to watch.
Customer Reviews
Avid reader that says thumbs up!
If you see my reviews, I’m very honest and trying to be a good influencer for a great vacation read. Very few books meet my high hopes. You’ll be intrigued, disgusted, and interestingly “what just happened here” by the ending. Put another layer of sunscreen on and be prepared to be totally “let me backtrack a few chapters” before you make sense of it. It’s a great read, but might take a minute to process it all. Not a bad thing
Could NOT STOP reading
Was so good, definitely kept guessing until the end
Nope.
This is touted as Gone-Girl-meets-Room. Without giving away the plot, I’ll just say those comparisons are hopeful and a stretch. It’s not nearly as taut, engaging and clever. The middle meanders incessantly, and the ending…ridiculous.