REVIEW OF HAVE YOU SEEN THIS GIRL?: Carissa Ann Lynch

HAVE YOU SEEN THIS GIRL? 

Author: Carissa Ann Lynch

Series: Flocksdale Files #1
Publisher: Limitless Publishing

- SYNOPSIS -

Wendi Wise is a troubled young woman who snorts her breakfast through a straw and spends more time in rehab than in the real world… 

Her life is seemingly out of control.

But now she has a plan.

That plan involves a sharp set of butcher knives. 

She's going back to where all of her troubles began…

Flocksdale.

Wendi was lured away from a local skating rink, at the age of thirteen, and held captive in a place she calls 'The House of Horrors.' Dumped off blindfolded on the side of a dirt road, Wendi soon discovered that she was addicted to the drugs they fed her while she was captive. 

Too scared to go home, and having a new habit to deal with, she hopped on a bus, vanishing from the family she loved. 

Vanishing from Flocksdale…

The town of Flocksdale is littered with fliers with a grainy image of young Wendi, and the words 'Have You Seen This Girl?' written below. 

Now, eight years later, she's on a mission—a mission to find the mysterious house from her youth and the monsters who dwell inside it.

“This is the end, beautiful friend, the end…”

ADD TO GOODREADS

- PURCHASE -

★ Kindle: http://amzn.to/1N0wQtt

★ Paperback: http://amzn.to/1Q6FAhr

- Available for FREE with #KindleUnlimited -

- BOOK TRAILER -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ciiesyL2Jnc

- TEASERS -

- ABOUT THE AUTHOR -

CARISSA ANN LYNCH

Besides my family, my greatest love in life is books. Reading them, writing them, holding them, smelling them…well, you get the idea. I’ve always loved to read, and some of my earliest childhood memories are me, tucked away in my room, lost in a good book. I received a five dollar allowance each week, and I always — always — spent it on books. My love affair with writing started early, but it mostly involved journaling and writing silly poems. Several years ago, I didn’t have a book to read so I decided on a whim to write my own story, something I’d like to read. It turned out to be harder than I thought, but from that point on I was hooked. My first and second books were released by Sarah Book Publishing: This Is Not About Love and Grayson’s Ridge. I’m a total genre-hopper. Basically, I like to write what I like to read: a little bit of everything! I reside in Floyds Knobs, Indiana with my husband, three children, and massive collection of books. I have a degree in psychology and worked as a counselor.

- SOCIAL MEDIA LINKS -

FACEBOOK | GOODREADS | LIMITLESS PUBLISHING | TWITTER 

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REVIEW

A Chilling Thriller

Wendi Wise is “three minutes old of turning thirteen.” While her parents usually throw a party to celebrate her birthday, this year Wendi begs to go to a movie with her best bud Claire. The problem is that Wendi has no intention of watching a movie. Instead, she and her friend are planning on meeting Joey and Zeke, two undesirable characters that are a parent’s worst nightmare. The nightmare comes to fruition when she finds herself unceremoniously kidnapped, drugged, and held captive in the slimy underworld of sex trafficking.

HAVE YOU SEEN THIS GIRL? by Carissa Ann Lynch is quite the thriller. Ms. Lynch has created one unbelievably sympathetic character in fashioning Wendi Wise. We pull for her to survive and crawl her way out of the sewer she’s fallen into. I was very excited about reading the book and it didn’t let me down. However, there was one central problem I encountered, and it did detract from me enjoying this work as fully as I might, but let me get to the good stuff first.

The story is well-written. It’s told from a first person perspective and that choice helps make an immediate connection with the protagonist since we go through what she goes through. I also liked the use of simple, straightforward language. It lends an honest realism. The pacing is also good as is the fleshing out of the various characters entering this girl’s life. We definitely get a chance to know them, most especially how they appear to Wendi since it’s her eyes we’re looking through. All this brings me to that problem I mentioned earlier. 

The problem is the prologue. It was so amazing, so taut and compelling, that it overshadowed what came later—and what came later was the entire rest of the book. To complicate things, the prologue ended on a note of her exacting revenge. After reading it, I was so pumped up and so geared for her tracking down those responsible, that the events leading up to that moment took on an almost secondary importance. In a way, it’s an achievement and a compliment, in that, it proves what a skilled storyteller Ms. Lynch is to have engaged the reader so completely. However, that achievement unwittingly set a benchmark for what the rest of the story could have been had it continued in that vein. The style used in that opening was much darker, grittier, and did contain some memorable raw descriptive phrases. For me, it contained the promise of how this book could have been written and didn’t jibe with what was done. I think it was because the character speaking in the prologue is older, wiser, and been there and done that. What we meet next is the thirteen-year-old in the first chapter. It’s a different feel and that character never against rises to the level of commanding attention as the one in the prologue does.

That aside, I found Have You Seen This Girl? to be a gripping, action-packed thriller. The suspense is ever-present and the excitement brimming over with unexpected twists. Ms. Lynch delivers in a big way, and since it’s my first time reading her, I can honestly say that I will be seeking out her work to do it again. I highly recommend this book for anyone looking for a nosedive into the seamy side of life. It’s an emotional journey that is filled with the worst human beings can offer, and also hope for those battling their own personal wars. It's four stars from me.