Ellen's Reviews > Dear Child

Thirteen years ago college student Lena Beck disappeared on her way home after a night out with friends. Despite all efforts to find her, there has been no trace of Lena. A woman has been brought into the hospital with severe injuries after being hit by a car and all signs point to her being the missing student. Her parents are overjoyed and rush to her bedside only to be heartbroken to see that she is not Lena. The woman says she most certainly is Lena and a young girl named Hannah, who is obviously this woman's child, states her mother is Lena. Something is amiss but the police cannot understand what is going on.

Deep in the woods is a cabin where a man kept Lena captive and where she bore him 3 children: Hannah, Jonathan and Sara. Taking advantage of a moment of the man's negligent supervision, Lena escaped the cabin only to be hit by a car and taken to hospital. Before she fled the cabin she had hit the man in the head believing that she had killed him. Indeed there was a man's body on the floor when the police found the cabin. But who was he and why did he keep Lena a prisoner for so long. There are more questions than answers as the police investigate the strange mystery.

A blurb on the book describes the novel as a cross between "Room" and "Gone Girl". I think that's appropriate what with the hidden cabin with a demanding, ritualistic man, and pieces of a puzzle that don't quite fit together. Interesting story.