The Missing One by Lucy Atkins

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


When Kali’s mother, Elena dies so does the chance that the gap that was always between can be closed. Kali has never felt close to her mother, always felt shut out, has always been the stubborn, angry troublesome child whilst her little sister Alice has always been the perfect daughter. Kali’s mother couldn’t even bear to look at Kali’s son and Kali knows deep down that there must be a reason but what is it and why do her parents never talk about the past?
It is only when looking for Elena’s birth certificate that Kali comes across a letter and some postcards that might offer some clues to her mother’s past. Then Alice discovers a shoe box with more things that pique Kali still more about what she doesn’t know about Elena and her life in America.
Believing her own marriage might well be over and grieving for a mother she truly believes didn’t love her as she should, Kali makes the snap decision to take her son and go to American to search out the woman who sent the postcards, determined to find out something about her own heritage and maybe a reason for why her mother was as she was.
Tracking Susannah, sender of the postcards, isn’t that difficult but being on an island off the coast of Vancouver in the middle of a cold, hard winter with her family anxious about her wellbeing Kali’s quest for answers might reveal more than she had bargained and put herself and her son in danger.
This is a beautifully written novel that encompasses the mother-child relationship and the problems that can ensue in other relationships when something is not right in childhood. Kali’s paranoia and deep rooted feelings of being unloved caused by her mother’s treatment of her resonates in her adult relationships and in that with own child. The need to know why is strong and in her grief overrides all rational thought. There is a deep underlying sadness throughout the novel as these complicated relationships and secrets become unravelled but Kali’s love for son Finn is strong throughout and is ultimately the saving of her.
The descriptions of Vancouver and the cold, of the whales and the sea were breathtaking and added to the chilling anticipation and sense of inevitability as the story built up to its climax, providing the perfect atmosphere and background.
A gripping story with fascinating facts about whales which serve to emphasise the relationships between family members.




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