Title: The Return of Ellie Black  
Author:  Emiko Jean       
Genre: Fiction, thriller       
Rating:  4 out of 5

Detective Chelsey Calhoun’s life is turned upside down when she gets the call Ellie Black, a girl who disappeared years earlier, has resurfaced in the woods of Washington state—but Ellie’s reappearance leaves Chelsey with more questions than answers.

It’s been twenty years since Detective Chelsey Calhoun’s sister vanished when they were teenagers, and ever since she’s been searching: for signs, for closure, for other missing girls. But happy endings are rare in Chelsey’s line of work.

Then a glimmer: local teenager Ellie Black, who disappeared without a trace two years earlier, has been found alive in the woods of Washington State.

But something is not right with Ellie. She won’t say where she’s been, or who she’s protecting, and it’s up to Chelsey to find the answers. She needs to get to the bottom of what happened to Ellie: for herself, and for the memory of her sister, but mostly for the next girl who could be taken—and who, unlike Ellie, might never return.

Honestly, I almost put this down about 15% of the way through, but I stuck it out a little bit longer and it picked up. I didn’t really feel a connection with any of the characters, so it was a struggle for me to get into the story. Ellie…well, I didn’t really care for her. And Chelsey just felt chaotic and cold, frankly. This was a solid read, I just didn’t have much invested in the characters.

Emiko Jean is a bestselling author. The Return of Ellie Black is her newest novel.

(Galley courtesy of Simon & Schuster in exchange for an honest review.)

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