Burnt Paper Sky By Gilly MacMillan

[amazon_link id=”0349406391″ target=”_blank” ][/amazon_link]‘Burnt Paper Sky’ is Gilly MacMillan’s debut novel.

Rachel Jenner turned her back for a moment. Now her eight-year-old son Ben is missing. But what really happened that fateful afternoon? Caught between her personal tragedy and a public who have turned against her, there is nobody left who Rachel can trust. But can the nation trust Rachel? The clock is ticking to find Ben alive. Whose side are you on?

I’ll be honest, when I initially started this book, I found it a bit slow and laborious to get into, but as time went by and the plot thickened, I found that I couldn’t put the book down and all my great intentions of early nights went out the window.

The book is likened to ‘Gone Girl’ and ‘Before I Go To Sleep’ and it is another gripping thriller with a psychological twist about every parents nightmare when a child goes missing. But, what makes the story really interesting is that it is seen from the perspective of the mother of the missing child and the police detective investigating the cases and deals with the raw emotions when tempers and situations run amok.

After letting her son run ahead of her in the woods, Rachel has immediately become a public figure of hate, an irresponsible mother, she is the classic victim of guilty before proven innocent. Although she battles with her own guilt of letting her little boy taste a bit of independence. She tries to put on a brave face even though her world is falling down around her as she appears to be the main suspect in the case and her whole life has been a lie. As the days pass by and hopes begins to fade, she finds herself dealing with the impossible thought of a life without her little boy. Meanwhile Detective Inspector Jim Clemo, is one of the leading officers in the case and is finding the pressure of the case to be quite immense, trying to keep his emotions separate from the case, we see a man desperate to return the little boy to his mother, but fighting against the clock is hard when new suspects appear and alibis don’t make sense.

The story is cleverly and honestly written and with the two perspectives of the story, it gives an insight into the technical and factual side of the investigation and the heartache and fear from the other, so the pace and emotion of the story constantly change making the story a thrilling read. Rachel as the main character, I thought was quite an interesting woman how she battled under pressure and how she dealt with situations made me regularly question her involvement in the incident and I found this to be the case with many of the people we encounter along the story, filled with shady and unlikable characters, the book is filled with suspects and this really keeps the reader on their toes.

‘Burnt Paper Sky’ reads like a factual story as it is filled with facts about child disappearances and with the inclusion of a fast paced and dark narrative makes this debut a thrillingly, intelligent and sensitively written book that will leave you restless until you reach the final page, no wonder it’s Piatkus’s breakthrough novel, it’s a terrific read.

You can buy [amazon_link id=”0349406391″ target=”_blank” ]Burnt Paper Sky from Amazon [/amazon_link] and is available to buy from good bookshops.