Dear Child
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
"Jane Collingwood, Nicky Diss, and Simon Slater narrate as three parts of a fractured triangle brought together by a terrifying abduction...this mind-bending thriller is sure to enthrall listeners." -- AudioFile Magazine
This program includes an exclusive author's note, read by Romy Hausmann
Gone Girl meets Room in this internationally bestselling thriller from one of Germany’s hottest new talents, Romy Hausmann.
In a windowless shack in the woods, Lena and her two children live a life that follows the rules set by their captor, the father: Meals, bathroom visits, study time are strictly scheduled and meticulously observed. He says he is protecting them from the dangers lurking in the outside world.
One day Lena manages to flee, but the nightmare continues. There is the question of whether she really is the woman named "Lena," who disappeared without a trace fourteen years ago?—she has the distinctive scar, but the family swears she isn’t the girl they lost. The police and Lena's family are all desperately trying to piece together a puzzle that doesn't quite seem to fit. And it feels to Lena as if the tormentor she fled still somehow wants to get her back.
Dear Child is told from three points-of-view: the woman who escaped and is coming to terms with life outside the shack; the missing Lena’s father, who would do anything to get her back and is becoming more and more unhinged; and the daughter raised entirely in that isolated world, a little girl with Asperger’s and a photographic memory who may know more than she’s letting on.
Twisty, suspenseful, and psychologically clever, this captivating thriller, which starts where others end, has all the ingredients of a breakout hit.
A Macmillan Audio production from Flatiron Books
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
A word of advice when listening to this chilling psychological thriller: Remember to breathe. Lena Beck’s parents have been desperate to find her since she disappeared after a college party in Munich 14 years ago. Hope blooms when an injured woman shows up at a hospital with a tween girl at her side calling her “Lena,” but crushingly, the Becks don’t recognize her. Still, the young girl with her feels eerily familiar—and her story about living in a windowless cabin with a tyrannical father definitely piques their interest. The way Romy Hausmann shifts the perspective from one character to another had us totally on edge, especially when we get into the haunting POV of the 13-year-old Hannah. Narrators Nicky Diss, Jane Collingwood, and Simon Slater each achieve a perfectly distinct tone so that every trade-off pushed us slightly off balance. Deeply horrifying and stacked with brilliant twists, Dear Child ably earns comparisons to great domestic thrillers like Room and Gone Girl, but Hausmann colors it with a dark, Germanic hue all its own.
Customer Reviews
Couldn’t Stop Listening
This book is amazing. The reading is so well done. The story is incredible. I loved it.
DNF
I tried multiple times to read, couldn’t get into it.