When the Stars Go Dark Review

Title: When the Stars Go Dark
Author: Paula McLain
Style: Mystery, Thriller
Rating: 5/5

"Sometimes our dreams can be the most revealing things about us.  Who we are when no one's looking, who we believe we're truly supposed to be, if we can get there."

TW: Story contains elements of sexual abuse and child adduction.

Anna Hart helps find missing people.  When she has a personal tragedy in her own life, she find herself traveling back to her hometown. She learns a local teenage girl is missing and she feels the call to help. The crime feels eerily similar to one she experienced as a child.  As Anna helps with the case she begins to confront some of her own demons and heal from some of her childhood trauma.

This is the type of book that made me fall back in love with reading when I was an adult.  I absolutely love detective stories.  A crime committed and the hunt to find who is responsible.  Paula McLain's writing is beautiful and her character development is extraordinary. The story was a bit slow in the beginning which is fine as long as I am drawn in eventually. Once the story picked up, I couldn't put it down.  Paula McLain is a talented writer who by setting the story in the 90's was able to successfully intertwine a bit of history into her story by illustrating how searching and finding missing people shifted around that time with the introduction of internet, among other things.  I highly recommend this one.