2020 Reading Challenge | Keep Her Quiet by Emma Curtis

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Keep Her Quiet by Emma Curtis - 5/5 ★★★★★

Blurb:

Jenny has just given birth to the baby she's always wanted. She's never been this happy.

Her husband, Leo, knows this baby girl can't be his. He's never felt so betrayed.

The same night, a vulnerable young woman, Hannah, wakes to find her newborn lifeless beside her. She's crazed with grief.

When chance throws Hannah into Leo's path, they make a plan that will have shattering consequences for all of them.

Years later, a sixteen-year-old girl reads an article in a newspaper, and embarks on a journey to uncover the truth about herself. But what she learns will put everything she has ever known - and her own life - in grave danger. Because some people will go to desperate lengths to protect the secrets their lives are built on...

Review:

This book is fantastic. The last couple of books I've read haven't gripped me so I needed a book like this to come along. I absolutely loved 'The Night You Left' by Emma Curtis so I had high hopes for 'Keep Her Quiet'.

The story is split into four parts; Part One set in 1989, Part Two set 16 years later in 2005, Part Three in 2007 and Part Four I will describe as "after".

In 1989, Jenny and Leo Creasey have a baby called Sophie. At the same time, 17 year old Hannah is estranged from her family after falling pregnant. Her newborn daughter dies by accidental asphyxiation after Hannah falls asleep with the baby in her bed.

In a panic, she runs out into the street and is hit by Leo Creasey's car. He has been drinking as he never wanted children, had a secret vasectomy, so he knows Jenny's baby isn't his. Hannah convinces Leo that he has killed her baby and he ends up taking Hannah to steal Jenny's baby from the hospital and Hannah raises her as her own.

16 years later, Leo and Jenny are still married and are doing a TV appeal for Sophie as her 16th birthday is approaching. Jenny has obviously never gotten over Sophie's disappearance. Leo has used the "fame" to take himself away from their London home to go to their cottage in Kent three days a week to write and has become a successful author. The contrast in how her disappearance has affected them is written very well.

Following the TV appeal, two girls at Zoe's school who pick on her, make jokes about how she could be the abducted girl because she's "so weird" and because her mother homeschooled her and they don't have a TV.

I don't want to get into the crux of the story because I am not about posting spoilers but this is a fantastic read. It touches tough subjects like the loss of a child and emotions due to Stockholm Syndrome.

I truly did not know where this story was going and I loved that. Usually I can tell or guess the plot as I read but this was just fantastic. I would love to see this book made into a movie. It is perfect for a screen.