By Bette Lee Crosby

Book Blurb

A missing child sets the lives of three women on a collision course in this powerful and compelling novel by USA Todaybestselling author Bette Lee Crosby.

1971.

When a music festival rolls through the sleepy town of Hesterville, Georgia, the Dixon family’s lives are forever changed. On the final night, a storm muffles the sound of the blaring music, and Rachel tucks her baby into bed before falling into a deep sleep. So deep, she doesn’t hear the kitchen door opening. When she and her husband wake up in the morning, the crib is empty. Emily is gone.

Vicki Robart is one of the thousands at the festival, but she’s not feeling the music. She’s feeling the emptiness over the loss of her own baby several months before. When she leaves the festival and is faced with an opportunity to fill that void, she is driven to an act of desperation that will forever bind the lives of three women.

When the truth of what actually happened that fateful night is finally exposed, shattering the lives they’ve built, will they be able to pick up the pieces to put their families back together again?

Blurb from Goodreads

My Review

EMILY, GONE is another of Bette Lee Crosby’s superb “can’t put down, don’t want it to end” books.  Written so beautifully in her Southern voice, the author evokes all the emotions, tears, and emptiness that the Dixon’s felt when they discovered their baby was kidnapped from her crib during the night. EMILY, GONE is a story that will tug at your heartstrings.

Ms. Crosby’s characters are true-to-life and could easily be your neighbor, your friend, your family, and even a stranger who sneaks into your home at night. I love when I have a visual of the main characters, but when I can also picture the supporting characters so clearly, you can buy into the story and better understand why the story took the turns that it did. So often a great number of characters can confuse the reader, but that was not the case in EMILY, GONE.  Each character, so brilliantly developed, stood on his/her own.

The storyline is well chronicled and was told by numerous points of view throughout.

As always, I enjoyed another delightful book by Bette Lee Crosby, who is undoubtedly one of my favorite authors. I recommend EMILY, GONE to anyone who enjoys reading women’s fiction, historical fiction, mysteries, tearjerkers, realistic stories, inspirational stories, and diverse characters.  EMILY, GONE positively deserves 5-stars!

My thanks to the Bette Lee Crosby and Netgalley for this ARC.
All thoughts and praise for this book are my own.

About the Author

USA Today Bestselling and Award-winning novelist Bette Lee Crosby’s books are “Well-crafted storytelling populated by memorable characters caught up in equally memorable circumstances.” – Midwest Book Review The Seattle Post Intelligencer says Crosby’s writing is, “A quirky mix of Southern flair, serious thoughts about important things in life and madcap adventures.” Samantha from Reader’s Favorite raves, “Crosby writes the type of book you can’t stop thinking about long after you put it down.” Crosby is the USA Today bestselling author of eighteen novels, including Spare Change and the Wyattsville series. She has been the recipient of the Royal Palm Literary Award, Reviewer’s Choice Award, FPA President’s Book Award, International Book Award, and Next Generation Indie Award, among many others. Her 2016 novel, Baby Girl, was named Best Chick Lit of the Year by Huffington Post. . . . Bette laughingly admits to being a night owl and a workaholic, claiming that her guilty pleasure is late-night chats with fans and friends on Facebook and Goodreads.

Author Bio from BookBub