Tour and Review : The Lost Girl by Carol Drinkwater

The Very Pink Notebook is thrilled to be part of The Lost Girl by Carol Drinkwater blog tour.

With thanks to Sarah Harwood at Penguin Random House for an advance copy of the book and for involving me in the tour.

Published by : Penguin Random House

29 June 2017

Copy : Hardback received from publisher

The Blurb

Her daughter disappeared four years ago. . .
Since her daughter went missing four years earlier, celebrated photographer Kurtiz Ross has been a woman alone. Her only companion her camera. Since Lizzie disappeared, she has blamed and isolated herself, given up hope. Until, out of the blue, an unexpected sighting of Lizzie is made in Paris.

Could this lead to the reconciliation she has dreamed of?

Within hours of Kurtiz arriving in Paris, the City of Light is plunged into a night of hell when a series of terrorist attacks bring the city to a standstill. Amid the fear and chaos, a hand reaches out. A sympathetic stranger in a café offers to help Kurtiz find her daughter.

A stranger's guiding light

Neither knows what this harrowing night will deliver, but the other woman's kindness - and her stories of her own love and loss in post-war Provence - shine light into the shadows, restoring hope, bringing the unexpected. Out of darkness and despair, new life rises. New beginnings unfold.

Dare she believe in a miracle?

Set during a time of bloodshed and chaos in one of the most beautiful cities on earth and along the warm fragrant shores of the Mediterranean, Kurtiz discovers that miracles really can happen . . .

The Very Pink Notebook Review

Carol Drinkwater is a seasoned writer, but this is the first of her work I have had the pleasure of reading - it will not be the last.

Written with a confident hand, the story of The Lost Girl, concerns Kurtiz (or KZ as she is affectionately nicknamed) a mother and a career women, who during the peak years of her career went on an assignment to return home to a destroyed life when her daughter goes missing and her husband falls apart.

The reader is taken into the novel four years later, on the night Kurtiz finds herself in Paris, awaiting news from her estranged husband, Oliver, as to whether he has tracked down the daughter many have written off as dead.  But it is a night that does not go to plan when Paris, and Kurtiz, finds itself under siege by a serious of terrorist attacks, one at the venue Kurtiz is hoping Oliver has been reunited with the long lost Lizzie. 

By chance Kurtiz has a brief encounter with Marguerite, an elderly lady who in her hey day was a small time, but well known actress.  Marguerite takes to Kurtiz and as the tragic events of the night unravel the two are forced together where Marguerite's story is told.  I really enjoyed the structure of this novel, which could have easily become quite confusing but does not, where the memories of Marguerite are punctuated with the present day and the plight of Kurtiz, and also the history of Kurtiz, as she tries to look back and work out why Lizzie would have disappeared in the first place, as she tries to track down her husband and potentially her daughter.

As you may well assume, the title of the novel - The Lost Girl - would refer to quite literally the lost girl - Kurtiz's daughter, Lizzie.  But as you progress you realise it is applicable to all three of the females in the plot.  They were all once young women, finding themselves in situations they did not anticipate and dealt with these in very different ways.

I didn't particularly warm to the character of Kurtiz, even at the end, when I feel the author tried hard to explain the reason she made the choices she did, the things she did, or didn't do so that you felt some sympathy for her.  The same can be said of Marguerite initially, although I did warm to her as the story progressed and I could really imagine her, as an elderly women, glamourous in every way and remorseful of her behaviour as a young, naïve and inexperienced young girl.

The setting for the 'memories' of Marguerite are beautiful and wonderfully enticing, I could really imagine standing looking over Charlie's land as the scent of rose petals and jasmine drifted on the air and it really did make me feel wistful for Marguerite.

In a way the overall plot is a little on the unbelievable side, I won't say why because I do not want to give anything away, however, if you are happy to wave a hand of 'I don't care' to really enjoy a story taking you on a journey of womenhood and motherhood then you will thoroughly enjoy this.

The Lost Girl by Carol Drinkwater receives a highly recommend Very Pink Notebook rating of :

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  About the Author

Carol Drinkwater is a multi-award winning actress who is best known for playing Helen Herriot in the BBC television series All Creatures Great and Small.  She has since written 21 fiction and non-fiction books, including four memoirs set on her olive farm in the south of France, which have sold over one million copies worldwide.  The Forgotten Summer ('page-turning' - Daily Mail), a novel set on a vineyard in Provence, was published by Michael Joseph in 2016.  Carol lives with her husband Michel Noll, a documentary filmmaker, in their farmhouse in the French Riviera.

You can find more information at www.caroldrinkwater.com or on Twitter : @Carol4OliveFarm.

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