Losing You

A Novel

By: Nicci French

Narrated by: Imogen Church

Length: 10 hrs and 10 mins

Publisher's Summary

In this thrilling stand-alone novel from the internationally best-selling author of the Frieda Klein series, a woman’s frantic search for her missing daughter unveils a nefarious web of secrets and lies.

Nina Landry awakens on her 40th birthday, anticipating a day filled with excitement. She, her new boyfriend, and her two children are taking a trip - leaving their home on Sandling Island, off the coast of England, for a dream vacation. As soon as her 15-year-old daughter, Charlie, returns from a sleepover, they can get ready to leave. 

But Charlie doesn’t come home at the expected time. Nina can’t believe of all days, Charlie has chosen this day to be late. As minutes and then hours tick by, Nina’s annoyance soon changes to concern, and then to a chilling certainty that something terrible has happened. 

The police insist there’s no reason to worry - yet. Teenagers are unreliable, impulsive. Nina always thought she and Charlie had a solid, trusting relationship, but seeking out Charlie’s friends for clues to her whereabouts makes her reconsider. How well does Nina know her daughter, really? How well can a parent ever know a child? And will everything Nina doesn’t know - about Charlie, her neighbors, even the friends and family closest to them - prove fatal...? 

Losing You once again proves that Nicci French is at the height of their storytelling powers in a clever, mind-bending thriller that has listeners guessing at every twist and turn.

©2020 Nicci French (P)2020 HarperCollins Publishers

Really good book!

Not only was the story gripping but Imogen Church is phenomenal and makes the story and characters come ALIVE. I purposefully choose books to listen to where Imogen Church is the narrator and it’s given me the opportunities to “read” authors I hadn’t chosen before.

Waste of time

I was a fan of the Frieda Klein series and was looking forward to this new audible book. I was incredibly disappointed with this tedious, drawn out, pedantic story. I feel like the writing was lazy, and the author was simply trying to meet a word limit, like a middle schooler with a book report. I have been an audible member for many years, and this is the first review I have ever written. I listened to the end hoping for something redeemable, but it didn't materialize.

very good

I like Nicci french but I have always felt her books get resolved in a hurry. this was the opposite. she took her time, allowed the reader to solve the mystery with the main character. I really enjoyed it. and well, Imogen church is such a good narrator!

Didn’t like the reader

I was frustrated with the reader as she spoke loud enough for the main character but seemed to whisper the other characters. I found that distracted me enough that I wouldn’t recommend the audible version to anyone .

Stammering stuttering screeching

Too long and boring. No real surprises. I enjoyed the Frieda Klein series until I grew a bit tired of Frieda. In this story I grew tired of Nina 5 mins in. Normally I enjoy Imogene Church’s narration but just as someone already said this was a master class in over acting. Not the Nicci French team’s best effort

Unrecognizable

This doesn’t stand anywhere near the Frieda Klein novels. The narration was a master class in overacting.

The best of the best!

I have read another title by Nicci French which was enjoyable, but “Losing You” was superb! I found myself replaying paragraphs for the beauty of the writing, not something I’m inclined to do listening to a mystery.

The story begins with the manic events of a pending overseas Christmas vacation slamming into that worst of all imaginable scenarios - the loss of a child.

As the family deals with the breath stopping reality of their missing daughter and sister, the mother lives the agony of waiting for appropriate police response while channeling that visceral energy into finding her daughter herself. The reader/listener is dragged like a pinball, behind this character we are living through and with to the smashing conclusion of the story,

Nicci French gives us all of the main character‘s vision, feelings, fear and urgency with prose as beautiful as the story is heartbreaking.

Imogen Church blends her flawless narration to the breakneck pace of Nicci French’s writing. This narrator is to books what John Williams is to movies.

“Losing You” will never let you go.

Amazing performance

Absolutely loved the book, the performance was amazing and you’re tossed right into the story without too much build up. The anxiety of the book grips hold of you and doesn’t let go until the end which makes you not want to stop listening until you’re finished. I highly recommend it

Fantastic!!!

This book was not so much a mystery as it was an exercise in empathy! Both the author and the narrator succeeded in catching what every parent would if their child should disappear!!! I was drawn in immediately and could not wait to get back to it. Very well done. This was the first book by Nicci French I have read and I will look into more. Imogen Church is my favorite, I will listen to anything she reads. She doesn't read a book, she tells a story! Bravo to both!!!

Overwrought

Losing You would have made a better novella than a novel of this length. To my mind it came off as overdone - over-long and maudlin, though the narrator may have been responsible for both of these. Imogen Church manages to bring an element of mild hysteria to every story, making her female characters seem ditsy and out of control.