Review: The Hidden by Melanie Golding

The Hidden by Melanie Golding
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I was provided an arc of the audiobook via Netgalley. All opinions are my own.

The narrator was fantastic! She did a wonderful job with the different voices for the characters. She also has a lovely singing voice. I love those little touches when a narrator can add to the story by singing parts of the story, which in this book music and song was an important part of the story. She also did an amazing job with Leonie's voice, it is hard to do a realistic 2 year old voice without sounding fake and ridiculous, but she did a great job with it.

This mystery/thriller takes a while to come together. It is told from several different perspectives, the main being Ruby a struggling musician and Joanna a detective. Joanna is Ruby's mother, so naturally when she finds that Ruby may be involved with a case she is investigating, she wants to protect her daughter. Their relationship is a bit unconventional and has been strained as of late, but as the story unfolds we find out why. We also learn of Ruby's involvement in her neighbor Gregor's life and his own unconventional family. As the story unfolds she sees parallels between her upbringing and that of her new friend Constance and her daughter Leonie.

The timeline for this switches back and forth between then and now, I believe they are about 1 year apart from each other from when Ruby befriends Gregor and is introduced to Constance and their daughter Leonie. In the present we follow Joanna as she is investigating Gregor's attempted murder and a missing child case that may be related. As the story slowly develops, Gregor paints a picture where Constance is mentally unstable. The more Ruby gets to know the strange family, the more she realizes something is off with their story and she is determined to find out the truth if only to help the innocent little girl she has come to love.

I don't want to spoil too much because as things started to come together, this was actually pretty twisty and turny. I loved the mix of mythology and almost magical realism mixed in with the mystery and thriller elements. This took some unexpected turns and I really appreciated how the different perspectives added to the storytelling. This also takes a good look at family and the dynamic between the mother-daughter relationship. This was layered with so many different elements that keep the reader engaged and wanting to know what is going to happen next. It starts off slow, but the pace builds nicely and then takes off and holds steady until the end. I really enjoyed this and will be looking into more of the author's work.

View all my reviews