Hide and Seek: The unmissable new crime thriller from the top ten Sunday Times bestselling author of All Her Fault

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Andrea Mara is a crime novelist from Dublin, Ireland, where she lives with her husband and three young children. Joanna discovers the former owner, Lily Murphy vanished 3 years ago during a neighbourhood game of Hide and Seek. The game of hide and seek is over, everyone has gone home, but little Lily Murphy hasn't been found. This is very much a character led drama - there are a lot of characters to keep track of, which I did struggle with at first but is definitely worth sticking with as all of a sudden, woosh, I was gripped! Andrea Mara has done it again, bringing a sense of dread and suspense to any parent who flicks though her books.

Soon after moving in Joanna realises that their house once belonged to a family whose daughter, Lily, disappeared as a young child while playing hide and seek in the woods nearby. Let the bigger picture build up and watch out for every little thing mentioned no matter how small or insignificant you deem it when you are reading. But alas, it is also from where three-year-old Lily Murphy went missing after playing hide-and-seek thirty years ago as Joanna later learns from her neighbour, Frances Burke next door. Told using a dual timeline - the past (1985) when Lily went missing and the present day, Andrea Mara's fluid writing really impressed me.With dual timelines, perspectives, and a LOT of characters, you will have to give your full attention to this book. Do you enjoy a multi layered, slow burner psychological thriller where are you are so darned into it you can’t put it down? There were almost three different plots happening, with the Joanna/Lila strand of the story adding to the tension, and even though I wouldn't describe this is a super pacy plot in itself, seeing the mystery unravel through different perspectives, and being faced with cliff-hangers on the end of most chapters, I was completely captivated. It is so cleverly plotted with many characters whose lives overlap, though its written so well its easy to keep up.

year-old Joanna forfeits her career to become a SAHM (girl, 11; boy, 9; girl, 3) when she and her husband, 49, move into a house in a closed community where he grew up outside of Dublin. This fast-paced crime thriller will have your literally on the edge of your seat with turning of each page. Panic ensues and then turns more sinister as the dark history of the house is revealed - three year old Lily Murphy went missing from the same home during a game of Hide and Seek in 1985. She has many secrets and thinks she killed her sister, Lila, when she herself was still a child but I couldn’t work out what that had to do with Lily.This book really needs to come with a warning that you will not get any work done until you have finished it. Usually the children look after their own so it was surprising when things started to come out that maybe that wasn’t the case here! I highly recommend Hide and Seek, I think along with The Sleeper Lies, it’s probably my favourite Andrea Mara so far. An unputdownable page turner which will have you gripped from the opening lines, and tortured until you find out the staggering truth about Lily and those around her.

Hide and Seek is extremely well plotted and considering the amount of characters to keep track of this is no mean feat. I started off a bit complacent, feeling like I has a good idea where the story was going - even though I didn't remember the synopsis! Andrea Mara is one of those authors who as soon as I hear she has a new book out I just have to drop everything and get stuck in. But when she finds out that it once belonged to the Murphy family who’s daughter Lily went missing when she was 3 years old, Joanna feels unsettled and upset that it wasn’t mentioned before. The little girl she believes she killed all those years ago looked so much like Lily, her name was Lila.We all know these characters, whether we love or hate them, it becomes ridiculously hard not to become invested in them. Marissa Irvine arrives at 14 Tudor Grove, expecting to pick up her young son Milo from his first playdate with a boy at his new school. If you are keen on a twisty psychological thriller that slowly untangles a web of half-truths then this is the book for you. Within days, new owner Joanna learns that, over thirty years earlier, a three year old girl vanished from this house and was never found. There are a lot of characters here and I did find myself becoming confused, especially at the start.

I’ve loved her previous books so I was delighted to get an advanced copy of Hide and Seek, prior to its release in August. Joanna Stedman, her husband Mark and their three children, Emily, Ben and Sophie move into what they hope is their forever home in the suburbs of Dublin. All strings were tied up by the end but we're left to decide about one particular plot point, in a deliciously wicked way. Not a bit predictable like some in this genre can be - this one has everything you could want in a thriller. Where are you scratch your head trying to figure out the puzzle exercising every ounce of grey matter desperate to figure it out and coming up with all sorts of theories?It is one of those books that as a reader at times you find yourself holding your breath, at other times you think you might have solved the mystery of what happened to Lily, only to have it thrown into doubt. This had me hooked and with a twist and false lead at every other turn, it kept me binge reading until the very final reveal. Andrea Mara never disappoints and Hide and Seek is an impressive read which gets a big thumbs up from me.