The Silent Dolls by Rita Herron

The Bookoutre Books-On-Tour bus stops here today for my review of The Silent Dolls by Rita Herron. Rita is a new author for me though if you check out the author bio you'll see she's written an absolutely huge number of books! And I loved this particular one. My thanks to Noelle Holten for the invitation and for my review copy which I received via Netgalley.

The Blurb:

Silent tears trickle down her cheeks as she curls inside the tiny cave-like space. She lies on her side, darkness all around her, rubbing her fingers over the little wooden doll he’d carved. He told her to be quiet, not to cry or scream. Not to be a baby. Her throat was raw, her eyes swollen shut. She wanted her mommy and daddy. She wanted to go home.

When Penny Matthews, a seven-year-old girl with blonde curls and a gap-toothed smile, goes missing in the Appalachian mountains, Detective Ellie Reeves is called straight to the scene. According to Penny’s parents, their daughter vanished after a picnic by the creek. All that’s left behind is a pink friendship bracelet etched with “Penny”.

Ellie knows all too well that the mountains’ endless miles of dark forest and winding rivers are the perfect place for a criminal to hide. Racing against the rapidly setting sun and a brutal winter storm on the horizon, she searches desperately for Penny.

Special Agent Derrick Fox is determined to join the hunt. His younger sister, Kim, disappeared in the same area twenty-five years ago––on the day he was meant to be watching her. He’s certain the cases are linked and that over a dozen girls have vanished in the last decade. Ellie refuses to believe that their tight-knit mountain community could be home to a deadly criminal, but even she can’t deny the similarities in the cases. And when they discover the remains of a small body buried with a carved wooden doll, it’s clear they’re up against a deadly serial killer preying on innocent little girls.

As the temperature plunges, Penny’s life hangs in the balance. Most people who get lost in the woods never make it out alive. Can Ellie and Derrick defy the odds and find out the truth about all the stolen girls? Or will the mountain, and its twisted killer, claim another victim?

Buy Links:

Amazon: https://geni.us/B08776Y5SQSocial
Apple: https://apple.co/2wWtZn6
Kobo: https://bit.ly/2KgJsl1
Google: https://bit.ly/2Vn0TXr     

My Review: 

Ellie's beat covers some of the Appalachian mountains and she, and the local community, are horrified when a young girl goes missing while on a family day out on part of the Appalachian Trail. Ellie knows the mountains like the back of her hand, and she also knows how terrifying they can be. Especially in winter. In the dark. Derrick Fox believes there is a serial killer operating along the Trail and he's been searching for answers for twenty-five years. He and Ellie must work together to find answers. 

I raced through this book - kept me gripped all the way through. Full of action and tension. The mountain forest setting was by turn beautiful and threatening, imposing. It was frightening to imagine someone lost or alone in those woods. And that winter storm - I shivered with the cold! 

I loved Ellie. She's determined, capable and fierce, not afraid to fight for what she believes whether personal or professional. And here the two sometimes meet. But she struggles with some things, damaged by a traumatic incident when she was young, which we learn more about as the story progresses. I wanted to shake her by the shoulders occasionally though because I thought she could be irresponsibly stubborn and headstrong! Derrick was more of an enigma - he struck me as a pent up ball of anger, angst and anguish. I don't know if there are more books planned featuring him, but I would love to get to know him better. 

We see things from the perpetrator's point of view and it's a chilling picture that Herron has painted, but a sad one too. And the first chapter from Penny's point of view is utterly heart wrenching, so well written.

The story line itself is dark and more than a little twisted, and heartbreaking. This is a tense read throughout but things really damp up at the end. Looking back at the notes I wrote when I was reading, I've written 'Last 25% - woah!' and that pretty much sums it up! I'd also written 'One big shock' but crossed it out because actually there is shock after shock. I tell you, it's pretty intense - I was exhausted! And there were a couple of people that I wanted to slap (at the very least) by the end! 

There were a few moments early on in the book where I felt information was repeated, in a slightly different way, unnecessarily. But overall I found this to be a tense, exciting and gripping read which I just whizzed through. 

The Author:

USA Today Bestselling and award-winning author Rita Herron fell in love with books at the ripe age of eight when she read her first Trixie Belden mystery. But she didn't think real people grew up to be writers, so she became a teacher instead. Now she writes so she doesn't have to get a real job.

With over ninety books to her credit, she's penned romantic suspense, romantic comedy, and YA novels, but she especially likes writing dark romantic suspense and crime fiction set in small southern towns.

Author Social Media Links:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/authorritaherron/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ritaherron
Website: www.ritaherron.com