Publisher: Cornerstone Digital (30th June 2016)

5/5*

Wow!

What an opening chapter! I started this book quite late on Sunday night with the intention of just reading the first chapter before bed. Well, that was never going to happen was it! I read the first five chapters before forcing myself to put the kindle down and go to sleep. Since then I’ve just had to pick it up every chance I’ve had. Thankfully I haven’t had much on this last couple of days.

Lily was abducted when she was just a teenager and has been locked away for eight years, subjected to horrific abuse. She has had a child, who has never seen the light of day. One night her chance to escape presents itself and she takes it, running for her life, with her daughter, back to her loving childhood home and her twin sister, Abbey.

They are in shock. They never expected to see her again. Except for Abbey who always believed Lily was still alive. A lot has obviously changed within her family in the past eight years and we follow Lily’s story as she comes to terms with being back home and what’s happened whilst she’s been away.

The whole community has to come to terms with the shock of who had been keeping her prisoner all this time!

To say this book is a page-turner would be an understatement. I was gripped from the very first page. It is a shocking story with some quite disturbing details of abuse, but it is very well written. The story flows well and the characters are believable and (mostly) likeable. The kidnapper/abuser’s character is brilliantly written. He made my skin crawl!

Definitely edge of your seat reading. It’s scary to think these kind of things happen in real life.

Many thanks to the author and publisher for approving my ARC via Netgalley. I will be more than happy to recommend.

You can purchase your copy here – Baby Doll by Hollie Overton

Description (via Amazonuk):

She kept moving forward. She didn’t stop. She didn’t look back.

Lily has been abducted from outside her high-school gates.

For eight long years she’s been locked away from the outside world. During that time she’s changed from a girl into a woman. She’s had a baby.

And now she has seized her chance and escaped.

Running for her life, with her daughter in her arms, she returns to her family and the life she used to know – to her much-loved twin sister Abby, her mum, her high-school boyfriend – and her freedom.

But is it possible to go back?

Lily’s perfect life as a teenager doesn’t exist any more. Since she’s been gone, her family’s lives have changed too, in ways she never could have imagined.

Her return, and the revelation of who took her, will send shockwaves through the whole community.

Impossible not to read in one sitting, Baby Doll is a taut psychological thriller that focuses on family entanglements and the evil that can hide behind a benign facade.