Thriller & Suspense

The Return of Ellie Black by Emiko Jean

June 3, 2024

The Return of Ellie Black by Emiko Jean ia a police procedural with darkish suspense parts. I’m a longtime fan of the creator’s YA books. This one was a bit of bit too creepy for me, however possibly you’ll take pleasure in it. Let’s discover out! This evaluate contains protected Spoilers for The Return of Ellie Black!

Jen’s Fast Evaluation of The Return of Ellie Black

Original photo of a copy of The Return of Ellie Black on a bookshelf with a succulent plant.

An Elizabeth Good-type abduction story
Police procedural and darkish suspense parts, however is it actually a true procedural?
Informed within the third particular person from the POV of a number of totally different narrators.
Content material warning for darkish themes like youngster/sexual abuse (be happy to e-mail or IG message me any time with content material questions!)
Excessive Goodreads score, so don’t hesitate if you’re okay with the darkish themes
Kudos to whomever did this cowl; love the inclusion of the Queen Anne’s lace which is a vital facet of the story!

Overview of The Return of Ellie Black

My Assessment of the Return of Ellie Black

The Return of Ellie Black had a number of parts I like in a ebook.

Detective Chelsey Calhoun is a police officer in a small Washington state city. She’s one of many few females in her division. She’s of Japanese descent, and was adopted by a white household that included a police officer father. Twenty years in the past, her older sister Lydia died as a part of a murder-suicide carried out by Lydia’s boyfriend.

When Chelsey will get a name that some hikers stumbled upon Ellie Black, a woman who vanished two years earlier than, she’s incredulous. She rushes to the scene and sure, this lady IS Ellie. Badly traumatized, she refuses to speak about the place she has been or what occurred to her.

Simply final month, I learn and reviewed an analogous YA ebook, The Reappearance of Rachel Value, a few lacking girl who reappeared. My Spoiler Dialogue for that ebook is right here.

The large thriller on this ebook is why Ellie gained’t reveal something about what occurred

In fact, this isn’t unusual amongst trauma victims, however the ebook suggests there’s one thing extra. And the thriller behind that stored me studying, regardless that the ebook was fairly darkish.

The Return of Ellie Black did have one nice twist. However the motivation behind what occurred to Ellie bought a bit of too convoluted for my procedural-loving mind. (My check for that is if I clarify the ending to an individual who hasn’t learn the ebook, and so they giggle or cease listening, it’s convoluted.)

I stay an enormous fan of the creator, although, and yow will discover others of her books beneath. After that, I’ll add some protected spoilers.

Extra Books by Emiko Jean

Emiko Jean is a critically versatile creator who has written a YA fantasy novel, Empress of All Seasons, a YA romance collection (The Tokyo Ever After collection); an grownup romance, Mika in Actual Life; a YA psychological suspense ebook, We’ll By no means Be Aside, and now this ebook. One thing for everybody!

On my YA weblog I’ve a publish with critiques of all her books!

Spoilers for the Return of Ellie Black

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So, the abductors of Ellie Black have been Doug and West Abbott, sons of Sergeant Abbott, Chelsey’s commanding officer.

The Abbott boys are offended at their mom, Regina, who left the household after which grew to become governor. This drove their father into alcoholism. (Of COURSE it’s the mother’s fault!)

The first twist is that their first sufferer was Lydia Calhoun, Chelsey’s “lifeless” sister. The authorities have been by no means capable of finding Lydia’s physique (all the time a purple flag in a ebook!) and the abductors staged her kidnapping as a murder-suicide and put the blame on her boyfriend.

Lydia appears to have been colluding with the abductors, although this may very well be trauma or Stockholm Syndrome.

By way of some crack detective work, Chelsey is ready to find the compound the place the brothers are nonetheless holding a number of lacking women and girls.

The second twist was that Doug Abbott launched Ellie on the situation that she would homicide his mom (the governor). He informed Ellie that if she did that, he’d launch Grace, one other captive that Ellie bonded deeply with. He provides Ellie a bomb and tells her to bury it within the woods till she’s prepared to make use of it.

Ellie does attempt to bomb the governor’s mansion, however flees after somebody acknowledges her. Chelsey tracks Ellie again to the compound and arrests her captors.

For fairly some time this ebook gave me cult vibes. The captors gave their victims names like Charity and Hope and used thoughts management/brainwashing methods on them. By the ending it went in a little bit of a unique path with the mom revenge plot.

Have you ever learn this? Do you could have questions? Please depart a remark! Spoilers are tremendous!