When She Returned

 

When She Returned

By: Lucinda Berry

Genre: Thriller, Mystery, Fiction, Suspense, Psychological Thriller

Trigger Warnings: Abuse, Brain Washing, Gaslighting, Violence, Self-harm, Child-abuse, PTSD

About the book:

One woman’s reappearance throws her family into turmoil, exposing dark secrets and the hidden, often devastating truth of family relationships.

Kate Bennett vanished from a parking lot eleven years ago, leaving behind her husband and young daughter. When she shows up at a Montana gas station, clutching an infant and screaming for help, investigators believe she may have been abducted by a cult.

Kate’s return flips her family’s world upside down—her husband is remarried, and her daughter barely remembers her. Kate herself doesn’t look or act like she did before.

While the family tries to help Kate reintegrate into society, they discover truths they’ve been hiding from each other about their own relationships. But they aren’t the only ones with secrets. As the family unravels what happened to Kate, a series of shocking revelations shows that Kate’s return is more sinister than any of them could have imagined.

“The problem with having a fairy-tale relationship story was how much other people were invested in keeping the fairy tale alive. It wasn’t just our story—it was everyone’s.”

― Lucinda Berry, When She Returned

I have to say that at first, I was drawn into the story, Kate vanished 11 years prior from a Target parking lot and then shows back up all those years later and with and infant.  However, the further into the story I got the more I wasn’t loving it.   

Kate returns to her previous home except her 5-year-old daughter is 16 without any substantial memories of her.  Her husband has mourned the loss of her and has moved on and remarried and they are all tip toeing around her while they try to all navigate in this uncharted territory. 

I really did not like Scott, I get that his whole world was turned upside down again when Kate decides to return but the way he treats his current wife Meredith is just awful and she was being patient and as kind as she could be the whole time and she did not deserve his blatant disregard for her feelings at all.  

He also didn’t take anything she thought was significant seriously at all, he basically treated her like she was an outsider and didn’t belong.  I was rooting for her to leave him the whole book.

I did not like Kate at all, I get that she had been traumatized from being in a cult but seriously she chose to leave her family.  She chose to leave her daughter that right there was enough for me to decide I didn’t like her and the behaviors that followed solidified my dislike for her.  She never fully even explains why she chose to leave everything behind. 

The ending made me sad and not to spoil it for anyone else I will not go into it further, but the ending is the reason this gets 3 stars for me anyway. 

 My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐/5