Another Mystery: I Found You

     It seems I have been on a thriller, mystery kick lately. I've been reading more in this genre than usual. I Found You by Lisa Jewell was another title on Modern Mrs. Darcy's Summer Reading Guide. It sounded very intriguing, but I hadn't really planned on picking it up so soon until I began my search for book club titles at work. My boss raved about this one and it had high praise on Goodreads. When I saw it on the new shelf at work and just couldn't resist the urge to grab it!

     Alice is a single mother who takes in a man suffering from memory loss. He doesn't know who he is, or why he has been sitting on the beach for the last 24 hours. Can she trust him? In another town, young wife Lily is wondering why her husband hasn't returned home from work last night. Involving the police only turn up more questions. Can she trust him? Alternating chapters take the reader back 20+ years when Gray and Kirsty's family vacation takes an eerie turn after a stranger invites them over for dinner. Gray is convinced he has ulterior motives. Can he trust him?

     This book certainly kept me on the edge of my seat the entire time. Just when I thought I had it figured out, I started to second guessed myself. I would say I Found You is more plot driven and I've learned from the various books I've read this year that I much prefer character driven stories. I felt like I was only getting a shallow view of each of the characters. And honestly, I didn't particularly like any of them. That was hard for me. What kept me reading was the switch between past and present timelines and the desire to know how they fit together in the end. While this was a great summer read, it certainly isn't a light read. There are some pretty dark themes and each character is marked by their own sort of trauma. Don't let that stop you though, there are great twists and turns that left me pleased that it wasn't as predictable as I thought!

4/5 Stars