The Sea of Lost Girls

Author: Carol Goodman

Publisher: William Morrow

Release Date: March 3, 2020

Rating: 4 Stars

Reviewer: Jessica Higgins

An interesting thriller with one of the most satisfying endings I’ve read in a long time!

All Tess wanted was to leave her past behind her with her seventeen-year-old son Rudy. Her husband is a professor at the same boarding school she teaches at and Rudy attends. Life is so much better now than she ever thought it could have been a decade ago. Rudy has had a troubled past and finally Tess thinks he is thriving when she gets a call in the middle of the night from Rudy asking for her to come get him at their safe place. Rudy’s girlfriend is then found dead and Rudy becomes the prime suspect. That one phone call sets off a chain reaction that causes Tess’s world to slowly fall apart. With each day that passes and each new clue that turns up, Tess can see what is happening to her family and how it all connects to the past she thought was behind her.

The Sea of Lost Girls is a psychological thriller full of twists and turns with a satisfying ending rare in books such as this. There book format includes back and forth excerpts between Tess’s past and present giving readers a puzzle piece at just the right time in order to finish the whole puzzle. I really wasn’t sure what to think of Rudy or several of the characters at first, but as the story progressed, each character’s puzzle started to make sense and brought the whole story together by the last few pages. Goodman did a great job shaping these characters, even the characters that were irritating and dislikable. Each of these characters were written with their flaws evident but also in a way that made them relatable and easy to connect with. It can be easy to connect with the good and likable characters, but it isn’t always as easy to connect with the unlikeable characters. I had no trouble connecting with each and every one of them throughout the novel. A few of the minor characters you might think are unnecessary until you get to the end and see how they do play a crucial role in the overall story. While this was good, I wouldn’t say it was great, nothing really stood out as blowing me away, but nothing was particularly rough either. I recommend this to readers that enjoy a good psychological thriller with an ending just as satisfying as the entire story.

I received a complimentary copy of this title from the publisher. The views and opinions expressed within are my own.