Five Days Missing - Caroline Corcoran

Reading Challenge Category: Free ARC from NetGalley

Official Blurb:

Having a baby is all about firsts. The first touch. The first kiss. The first cuddle. They mark a lifetime of firsts – including the first goodbye.
When Romilly says goodbye to her new baby daughter, abandoning her at the hospital hours after giving birth, no one can understand why she would leave – and where she has gone.
In those first few hours she had been the image of a doting mother and would have done anything to protect her baby.
Something has clearly gone wrong. Could it be that Romilly is suffering from postpartum psychosis, just as her mother did?
Or is something even worse at hand? A danger so grave that she would leave her longed-for daughter to escape it…

My Thoughts:

Although this did keep me gripped with the storyline as a whole, I did find it relatively slow going.
There is a lot of repetition throughout the book and too much time is spent just speculating about what is happening rather than any of the characters doing something about it.
The book is told from three perspectives ‘The Husband’, ‘The Best Friend’ and ‘The Woman’. There are often little cliffhangers at the end of one person’s chapter, and you have to wait for a few more before getting an answer as to what is happening. I think this helped propel me through the book, and without these little tidbits, it would have been harder to get through.
So, the book is quite ploddy until the end, when everything starts to come together. However, I did find all of the characters actions somewhat lacking and questionable. This made the story appear very unrealistic.
The ending was a bit of a letdown. Due to the amount of suspense built throughout the book, I was expecting some massive shock and revelation. Even though we don’t know whose perspective to believe Romilly or Mark’s, the conclusion was disappointing. I wanted something more; I wanted us to have been completely deceived and have the book turn on itself. I thought it was building up to this, but it didn’t and so fell a little flat.
So I sort of did enjoy it, and sort of didn’t. It was a book that passed the time but won’t leave a lasting impression, and for that reason, it gets three stars from me.