Rating: ⭐⭐
Publication date: 26th May 2021
Content warnings: murder, death, death of parent

“This is the survivor. She’s the one who lost her whole family.”

I could feel that reading slump looming so I did what I always do and scoured Amazon for a super short read for my Kindle. I’d never heard of Kate Gable before and I saw this short story tied into her Detective Kaitlyn Carr Mystery series. I thought this would give me a great taste of her writing and even though it was decent, this short story didn’t quite do it for me. I am curious to see what her usual novels are like after this though so will likely give the first in the series a go at some point! Here are my thoughts on Girl Hidden by Kate Gable!

About the book

A family is found dead in their home. The only survivor is the teenage daughter who managed to escape the burning house. Detective Kaitlyn Carr has to bring their killer to justice.

A year before her disappearance, Violet, Kaitlyn’s sister, comes to stay with her after a bad fight with their mom. She can’t stand living at home as much as Kaitlyn once did and wants to move in with her.

But Kaitlyn was just promoted to detective and her hours are erratic and long. She’s never home and she can’t take care of a teenager. Or maybe she can?

As she gets closer and closer to finding out who killed the Hendrel family, her own family reaches a breaking point.

What happens when her sister asks her to do the impossible? What happens when she can’t say no?

What happens when the dysfunction of her own family threatens to blow up her face and let the killer off for good?

My thoughts

I really liked the prologue to this short story and it was everything I love. It’s thrilling and fast-paced, and even has that gut punch of emotion to really pull you in. All this in a few pages and in such a short book is pretty good going! A family is found dead in their home. A shooting taking the lives of those inside before a brutal house fire follows. But a teenage girl manages to escape the flames, and it’s up to Detective Kaitlyn Carr to find out what happened.

As things progressed, I didn’t find it quite as gripping as the prologue was, but I did fly through it all the same. I found myself interested enough to find out what happened to young Angie’s family, why they were targeted and murdered, but there was something about these characters that made it hard to connect with them. Detective Kaitlyn Carr was fine, but not particularly likeable. Her young sister stays with her after fighting with their mum, and since I met her she annoyed me to death. I was hoping her presence was important enough to the plot later… but it wasn’t.

I enjoyed the start of Kaitlyn’s investigations, interviewing all the people who knew the family, people they’d been in contact with, but this was literally the majority of the book, one after another, which got stale quickly. There was also an irritating relationship with a colleague that Kaitlyn tries to hide, and it just didn’t seem to fit the story at all. BUT, annoyances out the way, let’s discuss what did work with this story.

Some novellas I read are too fast-paced for me but even though this was the same pace, it didn’t feel like a novella. Does that make sense? Like it could easily be extended into a full book, if the opportunity was there. But the fact this is technically book 0.5 in a series makes a ton of sense. It does also set up the main characters well, even though I didn’t particularly warm to them much. The kinds of people they were and their personalities are clear, and I reckon knowing this before diving into the series is a plus.

Unfortunately, the twist was obvious right from the prologue so I wasn’t surprised in the slightest there, even though I’d told myself that it couldn’t possibly be the case as it was too simple. But, here we are…

Overall, Girl Hidden is a quick and easy novella if you need to switch up your reading or if you’re heading towards a slump, but it’s not something I’d race to download at any other point. Unfortunately, the outcome was predictable even though there was definitely potential there at the start. I just wanted a lot more from it. Saying this, I would give her full novels a try at some point… watch this space!

You can grab your own copy of Girl Hidden for FREE on Amazon Kindle! Make sure you’re following the author on Instagram for more updates.

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