Vanishing Girls by Lisa Regan (thoughts)

Summary from Goodreads:

"The little girl curled into a tiny ball as the chamber grew colder around her. "Please," she whispered, rocking back and forth. "I want to go home."

When Isabelle Coleman, a blonde, beautiful young girl goes missing, everyone from the small town of Denton joins the search. They can find no trace of the town's darling, but Detective Josie Quinn finds another girl they didn't even know was missing.

Mute and unresponsive, it's clear this mysterious girl has been damaged beyond repair. All Josie can get from her is the name of a third girl and a flash of a neon tongue piercing that matches Isabelle's.

The race is on to find Isabelle alive, and Josie fears there may be other girls in terrible danger. When the trail leads her to a cold case labelled a hoax by authorities, Josie begins to wonder is there anyone left she can trust?
Someone in this close-knit town is committing unspeakable crimes. Can Josie catch the killer before another victim loses their life?"

My Thoughts:

Vanishing Girls is one of those books that I'm really excited to have found!  I haven't seen it at all on bookstagram which is just a shame because this book deserves some hype.  Also, side note here but where are all of the mystery bookstagrammers (and not the ones that just read thrillers, I follow plenty of those)?  I was intrigued by the premise of this book which is why I picked it up.  I'm also a sucker for any new mystery series featuring female detectives as lead characters which I've mentioned before.  At first, I wasn't sure how I felt about Josie.  I don't think that it is a spoiler to say that when the book starts off she has been suspended which we know but not the reason why she was suspended.  From there, she makes a series of questionable choices that had me wondering about her character overall.  Before long though, I was so hooked by the storyline that I couldn't put the book down.  And as the pages went on, I felt like I understood her character more and more.  I actually really appreciated the fact that she wasn't perfect and that we as the reader got the chance to see some of her struggles.  I think I liked her all the more because of it.   The second half of this book was so fast paced that I had a really hard time setting my e-reader down.  I just could not and did not want to stop reading!  This book was darker than I expected it to be and also way more intense.  There are a few trigger warnings in here so this book won't be for all readers but it was really, really good in my opinion.  I'm really excited to have found this series and cannot wait to continue on with it!  I'm also really intrigued to see how everything that happened in this book will play out in future books (I'll leave it at that in order to not share any spoilers).

Overall, I enjoyed this book immensely and am excited to have found both this author and series!  It was both dark and thrilling which is two of my favorite things in a mystery.  It was also quite the page turner!  I love a good mystery series and books like this are exactly why.  I'm going to be impatiently waiting for book two to release - that's for sure!  I would recommend this book to fans of both mysteries and suspense easily.  I actually really hope that more readers find this series because it deserves the attention.  It was a really solid read and I want more!  Highly recommended!

Bottom Line:  A dark mystery that kept me turning the pages as fast as I could (or swiping since I read this on my e-reader).

Disclosure:  I received a copy of this book thanks to the publisher and NetGalley.  Honest thoughts are my own.