Bring Her Home

I sort of enjoyed this book - the cover is what stood out for me but I found it didn't quite live up to its potential. Two girls go missing and are found 2 days later, one is dead and the other is very badly beaten and barely alive and we focus on Bill who's daughter is taken to the hospital nearly unrecognisable. Bill is the main character and I understand that he is grieving as he has recently lost his wife too but I found him quite unlikeable. He seemed to lose his temper all the time and I felt it dragged out the story and made it seem slow. I was eager to find out what had really happened and found the story did pick up for me after this. Not bad but not quite as good as I thought it would be.

Loved it! Think you have it figured out, then surprises you. One of his better books.

While many other reviewers complained about the father “Bill” having a temper, I wonder how any other parent would react faced with similar circumstances. The author was right in adding quirks to Bill’s personality. I truly enjoyed this novel.....it was a great vacation read!

017 – Started Reading Review First of all I would like to thank Berkley and Goodreads for winning the ARE (Advanced Reading Edition) of "BRING HER HOME" by David Bell for my honest review. The genres for this book are Mystery and Thriller. I like David Bell's intriguing and captivating ways of writing a story. The author's descriptions where the story takes place are easy to visualize. I can see the kitchen in the house, the various rooms, the woods, and the neighborhood. The timeline of the story is in the present. The author describes the characters as complex and complicated. Some characters seem to be suspicious. Bill Price lost his wife a year and a half ago, and now his daughter Summer is missing. Two young girls have been found. One is badly beaten up, and the other is dead. At first Bill stays by the bed where is daughter Summer is fighting for her life. She is beaten beyond recognition. My first thoughts are could this really be Samantha? What happened? What is the motivation and why? Be warned. There are many twists and turns in this book. What seems to be may not be. The suspense in this book is a killer!! When I came to some conclusions, I was proven wrong. This is a book full of surprises and secrets. I would highly recommend this book that keeps you guessing until the end. Happy Reading. (less)

This novel is well-written enough that I promptly bought two other books by David Bell. This story, with several twists, centers on a widowed father with a teenage daughter. The daughter is found badly beaten, but apparently alive, with her best friend who has also been beaten and is dead. Both bodies are pretty unrecognizable, but medical staff settle on identifications, and surviving family members begin to put their lives back together. Over the next few months, small mysteries become evident to the father of the surviving girl, and he begins to dig a bit deeper into the story. At times I wanted to beg the father to just back off before he ends up dead himself, but he didn't and doesn't. Other than sometimes feeling frustrated with the characters, I enjoyed the novel. The characters aren't really portrayed as stupid, just more rash than expected. This probably isn't as unrealistic as I might make it sound. Anyway, the story kept my interest and is a fairly fast read.