Here and Gone by Haylen Beck

WOW! I am 100% speechless! Here and Gone is an action-packed, page-turner that takes the reader on a thrilling ride! It’s suspenseful right off the bat and I can assure you that you will most definitely be intrigued right from the first chapter! Haylen Beck did a wonderful job crafting a novel that keeps you reading, as you simply can’t put the book down! It’s that good!

The novel begins with Audra Kinney trying to get away from her husband with her two young children, Sean who is ten years old, and six year old Louise. Audra’s life has been rough, she’s had a messy past, and she needs a break. She just wants to get away. Her destination is California. She stops at a convenience store to get some water, but little does she know that she is about to be in a whole load of trouble. As she leaves the store, she realizes that she’s being tailed by a police cruiser. Everything is about to turn upside down.

A bag of drugs is found in the trunk of her car once the police officer pulls her over to the side of the road. Next thing she knows, she’s being arrested, her children are being taken away, and her car is being towed. 

When Audra is in a jail cell, she asks the officers where her children are. The two officers, who were on the scene when she was arrested, claim that there were no children in her car when they arrested her. In fact, they are adamant that no one else was in the car with Audra when they arrested her. Audra begins to question herself. Is she going crazy? Then, when a new character is introduced, she realizes that she is in fact not crazy at all. Something far more sinister lurks in the distance. Why are the cops lying? Will she ever find her children? Are they actually, truly, missing? 

I found a few themes to be quite prevalent in this novel. Corruption, the hunger for money, the effects of abusive relationships on an individual as well as how strong a family bond is, are re-appearing themes. If any of these themes spark your interest, I highly recommend that you read this book.

The characters complement each other quite well, and in the end, the conclusion is bittersweet. I finished this book in less than two days, so you must have figured out that I enjoyed it! I give it a well-deserved 5/5 stars! Just fabulous!