ARC Review: Find Her by Lisa Gardner

Title:  Find Her (Detective D. D. Warren Series, #8) Author:  Lisa Gardner Publisher/Publication Date: Dutton; February 9, 2016 Genre: Mystery/Thriller Format/Source: E-ARC; First to Read/Publisher Amazon     Barnes & Noble     Book Summary Goodreads Flora Dane is a victim. Seven years ago, carefree college student Flora was kidnapped while on spring break. For 472 days, Flora learned just how much one person can endure. Flora Dane is a survivor. Miraculously alive after her ordeal, Flora has spent the past five years reacquainting herself with the rhythms of normal life, working with her FBI victim advocate, Samuel Keynes. She has a mother who’s never stopped loving her, a brother who is scared of the person she’s become, and a bedroom wall covered with photos of other girls who’ve never made it home. Flora Dane is reckless. Read More My Thoughts In Find Her, Lisa Gardner skillfully created a psychological thriller with characters that blurred the lines between the victim and the perpetrator. The story had a dark plot as it centered on Flora Dane. As a young woman, she was kidnapped and was missing for an extended period of time. After she was found alive, her behavior was questionable—well, actually she had ineffective coping skills for dealing with the trauma she’d experienced. Although, her haphazard behavior led to one chilling situation after another, it remained unclear how and why things were happening to her so often until the shocking conclusion. Although the overall plot was well-written, there was an aspect I didn’t like. There was an instance in the book when Flora was compared to real life victims. I would’ve enjoyed the story more if fictional characters were used for this comparison since the thematic elements consisted of sensitive subject matter. Find Her is the first book I’ve read by Lisa Gardner. Even though the novel contained elements that I didn’t like, it certainly had enough twists along the way to keep me caught up in its suspenseful plot.  As such, I would consider reading future work by this author. Rating 3/5 I received a copy of this book from the publisher/First to Read for this review.