Goodreads Blurb:

As the third wave of the virus hits, all inhabitants of Melbourne are given until 8 pm to get to their homes. Wherever they are when the curfew begins, they must live for four weeks and stay within five kilometres of.

When Lou’s son, Samuel, doesn’t arrive home by nightfall, she begins to panic. He doesn’t answer his phone. He doesn’t message. His social media channels are inactive. Lou is out of her mind with worry, but she can’t go to the police, because she has secrets of her own. Secrets that Samuel just can’t find out about. Lou must find her son herself and bring him home.

My Thoughts:

It was so much fun reading this book as a part of the Tandem Collective readalong, the group was so wonderful to talk about the book with. Thank you all for such a fun week!

I was pleasantly surprised by this book, but not in the sense that I didn’t think I would enjoy it (I was so excited for this book!), I was just expecting something a little different. Mostly, I didn’t realise until I started reading (and after chatting with the Tandem Readalong crew), that the book was originally written as an audiobook, hence the length of the novel – a solid 180ish pages of actual book. I loved this though as I have been in a reading slump and a short exciting read was exactly what I needed.

For me, I think, the shorter length of this book made for a more intense, and exciting read. I could feel the tension in Lou’s anxiety over her missing son. I loved Pomare’s prose, and the way that the anxiety was portrayed in the narration. There is the extra tension from the Melbourne lockdown setting which truly adds to the vibe of this book and I loved it. Though, I’m not gonna lie, I did not expect to actually read a ‘lockdown’ book during or post lockdown – I knew they’d be published, but not that I would pick one up.

Overall, this is a quick, and exciting read with some killer twists throughout. I will definitely be picking up another J.P. Pomare book soon.

Thank you to Tandem Collective Global and Hachette AU for gifting me my copy of the book for this readalong.