No Time For Goodbye
As seen:
By Linwood Barclay
avg rating
1 review
On the morning she will never forget, suburban teenager Cynthia Archer awakes with a nasty hangover and a feeling she is going to have an even nastier confrontation with her mom and dad. She isn’t. Instead, the house is empty, with no sign of her parents or younger brother Todd. At first she just thinks it’s weird, then more and more scary, until finally the terrifying reality hits her: in the blink of an eye, without any explanation, her family has simply disappeared. Twenty-five years later the mystery is no nearer to being solved and Cynthia is still haunted by unanswered questions. Were her family murdered? If so, why was she spared? And if they’re alive, why did they abandon her in such a cruel way? Now married with a daughter of her own, Cynthia knows that without answers – however shocking they might prove to be – she will never be emotionally or psychologically whole, living in daily fear that her new family will be taken from her just as her first one was. And so she agrees to take part in a TV documentary revisiting the case, in the hope that somebody somewhere will remember something – or even that her father, mother or brother might finally reach out to her…First nothing.
Then just a few crackpots and scam artists coming out of the woodwork. And then the letter, a letter which makes no sense and yet chills Cynthia to the core. And soon she begins to realise that stirring up the past could be the worst mistake she has ever made…
Reviews
We had our first bookclub meeting on January 28th and it was felt by all to be very successful! We had a full house in terms of members, we very nearly ran out of chairs.
Discussion on the book started with everyone having enjoyed it to varying degrees. Some people (myself included) found it hard going for the first 50 pages or so, but we all felt pulled along by the story at the end. We then went on to discuss the many inconsistencies we felt were in the book.
Lots of situations happened in the book which we felt were very contrived on looking back, but when you're reading the book they all seem to be appropriate and you don't notice them. We felt that the fact that the inconsistencies aren't noticable on first reading is because the language in the book is so well written.
We all felt that Vinnie was a lovely character, we weren't impressed with Jeremy or Cynthia. We discussed whether their character was a product of their upbringing, we decided this was probably true especially when you look at Grace as well.
We took a vote at the end of the evening and marked the book out of 10. The marks ranged from 1 to 9 out of 10 with most people voting for 8. At least three members of the bookclub have recommended the book on to friends and family.
