Book Review / Half Moon Bay by Alice LaPlante

A smart, haunting tale of psychological suspense from the award-winning New York Times bestselling author of Turn of Mind.

Jane loses everything when her teenage daughter is killed in a senseless accident. Jane is devastated, but sometime later, she makes one tiny stab at a new life: she moves from San Francisco to the tiny seaside town of Half Moon Bay. She is inconsolable, and yet, as the months go by, she is able to cobble together some version of a job, of friends, of the possibility of peace.

And then, children begin to disappear. And soon, Jane sees her own pain reflected in all the parents in the town. She wonders if she will be able to live through the aching loss, the fear all around her. But as the disappearances continue, she begins to see that what her neighbors are wondering is if it is Jane herself who has unleashed the horror of loss.

Half Moon Bay is a chilling story about a mother haunted by her past. As Stewart O’Nan said about Turn of Mind—this novel “blindfolds the reader and spins her around.

Published:     10th July 2018
Publisher:  Titan Books
Goodreads :  Click here
Series or Stand-Alone:  Stand Alone
Source:  Review Copy from Publisher

MY REVIEW

I had really wanted to like this book but, for me, it just didn't really hit the spot.  First off, I went into this book thinking that it was going to be a murder mystery where we follow the accused.  It really threw me when, as I was reading this book, this story was not really about the murder mystery, that was just a side story to me.  The main story of this book is more about following Jane from the start of the book where she has lost her daughter and decides to move to Half Moon Bay to get away from it all.  Now this part of the story, I really did enjoy.  This was the part of the story that kept me reading.  The character development from start to finish for the character of Jane was really interesting and just kept me guessing as to whether I really knew all I needed to know about this character or whether she was still hiding a lot.  I did also enjoy the way that the story had been written, a little bit jumpy and dotting from one part to another which, for me, just accentuated, where Jane was in her mind at the time.  All mixed up. 

I really wanted to enjoy this story but did find it confusing.  This is more about the psychological effect Jane's mind has on what she does, says or what other people perceive her to be rather than about a murder mystery.