After the Eclipse was provided to me as an eARC by Titan Books in return for an honest review. After the Eclipse has a publication date of March 5, 2019. 

After the Eclipse is Fran Dorricott’s debut novel. As I began to read I was surprised to find that it begins with the the point of view of the first kidnapped girl, Olive. We see her being a rebellious little girl and shaking off her older sister Cassie to go buy a snack and a soda. They are attending the town’s celebration of the solar eclipse, and have gathered to watch it happen. On her way back to the gathering, Olive encounters someone she seems to know, a man who drives up to her in a van and offers her a ride back to the celebration. She hesitantly accepts, and realizes her error as they drive away.

The story is then told between Olive’s captivity and her older, now adult, sister Cassie’s experience in the present day. Another girl has gone missing, this time about a week before another solar eclipse, and sixteen years after Olive was taken. Cassie blames herself for Olive’s disappearance, and as a recently unemployed journalist who has returned home to take care of her grandmother, she sees it as her duty to uncover the truth behind the newest disappearance. 

I love how the setting of a small town in England creates a different kind of atmosphere. It reminds me of the cozy, small town, murder mystery shows on the BBC. Please come in and have a cuppa while we watch the retired grandma travel around town in her frumpy coat asking questions about the murders, which people answer because she’s just a grandma after all, until she solves the mystery! I mean, 10 people had to die before she figures it out, but it’s adorable! And Cassie isn’t an old lady, but the feeling is the same. Is it the gardener? The local doctor? The guy we all think beats his wife? The fisherman that talks too much at the pub? Find out next week on BBC One! I loved it. Coziness amidst the thrill of the hunt. Tea everywhere.

It’s a small town, so everybody knows everybody, but I really appreciated how Dorricott brought a feminist eye to the search for answers. Dads and stepdads were looked at with high suspicion, their aggressive and possessive natures questioned and suspected, and I really appreciated that. Most kidnappings and abuse cases happen between kids and someone they know, and we get glimpses of the man who has taken Olive in her POV chapters.

I guess the only thing I couldn’t quite wrap my mind around was why the eclipse was necessary. There is a line early in the book that said something to the effect of “another girl kidnapped sixteen years later on the even of an eclipse. It couldn’t be a coincidence…” and my mind was like, yes it could totally be a coincidence. How many kidnappings have there been in the past sixteen years? One kidnapping every sixteen years doesn’t seem like it would raise a bunch of eyebrows, terrible yes, but not a lot of connections besides an eclipse(?) to make it seem weird. What is weird is that the kidnappings didn’t happen during or after the eclipses. The first happens just before, and this more recent one happens like a week before. Why is the eclipse such an important thing? Why is it the title? After the Eclipse? I mean…I’m just confused. It seems like an unnecessary detail added in to create a sense of uniqueness that the story did not need.

This is an electric debut. The suspense is so amazing and you’ll be holding your breath without realizing it. In some parts I found that I couldn’t read fast enough to keep up with my desire to know more, to find out what happened next, to make sure everything would turn out okay. The child abuse stuff was creepy and gross, so if that’s something you can’t read about you should be warned right now that it’s there and it will make your skin crawl. If you’re looking for an excellent thriller that will have you on the edge of your seat until the very end, you need to pick up After the Eclipse.