My rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Goodreads rating: 4.49 with 672 ratings (as of 4/1/2019)

Four-year-old Ellen is snatched by a stranger in the dead of night. Her devastated mother, Nicole, receives four identical phials and a threatening note in a familiar scrawl that chills her to the bone. But she always knew this would happen. She’s been expecting it for years…

According to the note, one of the phials is poisoned. Nicole is given a deadly challenge: if she drinks one, the sadistic kidnapper will notify the police of Ellen’s location. The sender claims to be Luka Volkov but Luka is supposed to be dead, killed long ago in a fire that haunts all those involved.

DI Amy Winter is still reeling from the discovery that she is the daughter of a serial killer, and her childhood trauma only makes her more determined to bring Ellen home. When another child is taken, Amy finds herself in a race against time. To rescue the children, must she seek help from the one person she wants to forget…? …more

200 Word Review

I was provided with a complimentary copy of this book so I could give an honest review.

Last year I read Truth and Lies, the first novel in Caroline Mitchell’s DI Amy Winter series. My eyes started to hurt so I took a break and realized I had read the first 16 chapters without stopping.

The Secret Child is the second novel in Mitchell’s DI Amy Winter series. I learned my lesson from binge reading the first book and set a timer to remind myself to take a break from reading. I forced myself to take a few breaks but finished reading it in one day. It is not a very long book, 330 pags, but I just could not find a place to stop reading for the day. I just had to keep reading!

Detective Inspector Amy Winter returns with her high-priority crime unit tracking down a kidnapper. He is using the kidnappings to extract revenge on those who had used children for dangerous and illegal experimentation years ago. Also returning is Lillian Grimes, Winter’s biological mother who is imprisoned for being half of a serial killer husband and wife team known as the Beasts of Brentwood.

The Secret Child is as riveting as Truth and Lies. Both are character-driven and fast-paced, suspenseful, and well written.

Review published on Philomathinphila.com, Smashbomb, Goodreads, and Amazon on or before 4/2/19. Will publish on Twitter, Facebook, and Barnes and Noble on its release date, April 18, 2019.

Genre: Mystery, Thriller
Print Length: 330 pages
ISBN: 9781592338726
Publisher: Thomas & Mercer
Publication Date: April 18, 2019

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