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Thursday, July 20, 2017

You'll Never Know, Dear - Review


You'll  Never Know, Dear
by Hallie Ephron
Published June 6 2017
Finished July 19 2017


3.5 stars and a thank you to LibraryThing.Com  for my review copy.

I was attracted to this book by the creepy doll on the cover, wondering if dolls can still get to me like they once did.  Well, this was not as creepy as I had expected (and hoped) -- no dolls displaying signs of life; no Twilight Zone flashbacks.  This has more of an underlying suspense running throughout.

Two friends/neighbors, Miss Sorrell and Evelyn, are retired from their business of making dolls. Miss Sorrell's daughter Janey went missing some forty years ago, along with the doll Miss Sorrell had made especially for her.  The older daughter Lis was supposed to be watching Janey so she's felt guilty all these years, and still lives with her mother. They place a yearly ad offering a reward for the missing doll and any information as to where it came from.  A young woman answers the ad with a very old, damaged doll, leaves in a huff without giving her contact information, and the story takes off as the family tries to pursue this very strong possibility of a connection to Janey.

The story is engaging and did keep me wanting to read on to see how the various mysteries would come out; to see if what I thought had happened to Janey came true (I had it pegged almost to the letter).  As in many suspense novels, this had its red herrings and  implausible coincidences.  A rather slow start for me and then it took off, with well-drawn characters and an interesting sleep study program as a side story.  

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