The Child Finder: A Novel Hardcover – Deckle Edge, September 5, 2017

Mesmerizing story. You want to know if a child will be found, if found will she be alive, and how did she disappear? The passages involving the perpetrator are beyond upsetting, but then anyone who has read stories in the news about what happens to taken children knows it can be incredibly horrifying. It's an insight into a sick mind. And the sick power they can hold over the hostage.I always enjoy a story that goes back and forth between characters, makes it more interesting. I really like this author's writing style. She doesn't waste unneeded words.I also liked the descriptions of the Pacific N.W.surroundings, I tasted the sky and snow and ice and sun and moon and stars. I was educated in the Oregon Trail's history of fur traders and trappers.I usually find that including passages I've highlighted along the way in my reviews illustrates much better what I would attempt to say:"Her entire life she had been running from terrifying shadows she could no longer see-and in escape she ran straight into life. In the years since, she had discovered the sacrament of life did not demand memory. Like a leaf that drank from the morning dew, you didn't question the morning sunrise or the sweet taste on your mouth. You just drank.""There is no census here, Ranger Dave had said, but Naomi suspected otherwise. There was always a census-whether written in the scratchy pad of a farm boss checking off the field hands, or recorded in the head of an old woman who can recite the complete genealogy of every single resident going back three generations. The key was finding it.""She was the kind of helper Naomi had often met over the years: the town historian, gossip, and librarian all rolled into one. Naomi, naturally friendly had learned to appreciate these helpers, and show her gratitude.""You got to remember, Oregon was built on timber and trapping. It was fur traders and trappers that created the Oregon Trail. When the Homestead Act came along, some thought, Hey, my own piece of land to live off. They weren't thinking how hard it would be.""The forest was alive. Bear hair on a tree. A sky like an upside-down gold pan raining sleet that left stars in her hair.""He frowned at her, and in that moment she could see he was not like Jerome, who would have been eager to discuss this question. It was the way most people were-they kept walls around their thoughts.""Naomi didn't hesitate. She knew that if she made her request a statement, many people didn't know they could decline. So over the years she had learned to not ask permission, but to presume commend.""Naomi knew that under the skirts was something that linked the nice old woman to her, and this felt profoundly comforting to her, because the old woman seemed strong. Like she would hit badness with her black iron skillet before she let it in the door.""People had a way of appearing and disappearing in one another's lives nowadays, she had found, so that no one asked 'Is it for work?' or...'My God, you look tired'...or 'Say, do you have family here?' America was an iceberg shattered into a billion fragments, and on each stood a person, rotating like an ice floe in a storm"."She whipped around, and faster than he could stop her she put her hand right into the trap. Her finger stopped just before touching the metal trigger. She held her hand there, looking straight up at him, giving an answer with her eyes. She was willing to sacrifice, to be the broken animal in the trap. Mr. B had a look of pleasure on his face. I will not run, that offering hand told him. I will not go.""Is this why you stay on here, to search for the missing?" He replied "No. I stay here because I love the work. I can remember Sarah here. I am afraid I will forget her if I leave.""It was funny how when it was time for tomorrow, some people stayed and some people left.""Detective Winfield was right. After so many years Walter Hallsetter was likely dead. But Naomi knew that some things never die. They just get passed on.""Naomi had long thought there is no safe place, even in our minds. Even there could be traps. We could round a corner and find a secret moldering like a toadstool in the dark. The dream was like a dark demon, bringing with it scraps of the past. It was hard to tell what was a skeleton to be buried-or a treasure to be revealed.""Naomi knew people would bankrupt themselves, morally as well as financially, to rescue their children, when what they needed to do was the opposite. They needed to rebuild, to re-create.""I've killed people with weapons. I know that, I own it. It is in my soul now. See. I made it mine." Naomi responds "Oh. It's like what I tell the children after I find them: to make it theirs. I want them to feel okay about themselves, to not feel ashamed." He responds: "Exactly. Once it is part of you, then no one can tell." Naomi says "That you were ever any different?" He responds: "That you should have been anything but what you are.""Maybe she would never know. All she knew was that evil was alchemy built on opportunity. Some went searching for it. Others just waited. Either way, it was bound to happen.""This is something I know: no matter how far you have run, no matter how long you have been lost, it is never too late to be found."

By page three of this book, I had that shiveringly good feeling “Oh, this book is going to be GOOOOD!”Naomi Cottle is a private investigator who specializes in finding children. She has a knack for knowing how lost children think and what paths their minds might follow, and also a subconscious sense of when someone involved isn’t acting “right”. She knows what can happen to lost children because Naomi herself was lost…and found at the age of 9 with no memory of what happened to her, who she escaped from, or who she was.Madison Culver disappeared three years ago, but her mother refuses to believe that she is most likely dead. Naomi’s had luck with cold trails before, and she’s willing to try. Madison and her parents were cutting a Christmas tree down in the snow when suddenly she was gone, with no trace. Naomi grew up with her foster mother in the same state (Oregon), but these snowy and rugged mountains were home to only animals and a few trappers and poachers still clinging to the old ways. Evidence is long gone, and the remaining people aren’t welcoming to strangers.The book alternates between the investigation into the current case, Naomi’s struggle to remember her past, and the fairy tales. The Snow Girl who lives in a cave with a big man who rescued her, a man who is sometimes kind to her and sometimes cruel, she tells herself the fairy tales. In a way, it reminds me of The Prince Of Tides, the way that the fairy tales on the surface tell a prettied up version of what’s happening, but at the same time reveal horrors.This book was wonderful. It’s incredibly suspenseful, and beautifully written. The plotting is tight, and the pacing is perfect. It was creepy, it was chilling, it was heartbreaking and haunting. There are no superfluous phrases or fluff, nothing to skim. There were some unexpected twists and a very satisfying conclusion. The protagonist Naomi’s character is complex, and even minor characters are developed. Even the “bad guys” in the book are fully fleshed out and human—you feel horribly sad for them even while you want them punished.I started this book and ended up staying up to finish it—I could NOT sleep until I found out what happened. I would recommend this to anyone who likes suspense, action, PI novels, as well as anyone who likes well written stories, and books that you keep thinking about after you’re done reading.

have delayed reviewing this book, because I am so worried that my words will not do justice to this haunting and oh so perfect novel from the author of "The Enchanted".This is a novel that gets under your skin and steals a place in your heart and head, and one that I will come back to again and again. It is a novel of untold horrors (indeed, they are mostly untold, Naomi does not remember what happened to her and the snow child escapes into her imagination to cope with her incarceration) and cruelty, but also hope, resilience and forgiveness.The writing is lyrical and concise and have a strange fairy tale quality that really appeals to me. The depth and layers in this book are intricate and absorbing. Yes it is a story about a person who finds missing children, but it is also a story illuminating the power of the imagination, the horror of victim turned perpetrator, the growth of a human soul, the power of love and so much more.I would urge anyone to read this book, and my thanks go to the publishers and net galley for the advanced copy in return for an honest review.

Three years after her disappearance, Madison Culver’s parents turn to Naomi Cottle in a desperate attempt to find their daughter who vanished on a family trip to the mountains to find a Christmas tree. Known as The Child Finder, Naomi uses her own experiences as motivation to doggedly pursue Madison’s disappearance and prove that the little girl is in fact still alive.The Child Finder is a relentlessly dark read with a brooding atmosphere to match. I can’t honestly say I enjoyed reading it. I squirmed with discomfort on numerous occasions and felt quite relieved to get to the end! It is well written and Naomi is an interesting character whose own story could be further developed. Not my favourite read of 2018 but interesting all the same.

The Child Finder was a book-group choice, which I didn't vote for, because I could tell that it was going to be a harrowing story - and it was. But making myself read it, I was completely drawn into the story, and ended up giving it 5 stars. Being an investigator and therapeutic foster parent herself, the author clearly knows what she is writing about. The characters are well developed, and the voice of Madison/the Snow Girl is haunting. While the writing pulls no punches about what is happening to her, it is never prurient or sensationalized. The story is well paced and kept me glued to the page (or the screen actually), but it also explored, through all the main characters, what makes us survive, and what makes us human.

Judging by the gushing reviews on the first few pages of the book, I thought it would be a terrible and boring book.Actually it isn't. I very much enjoyed it and would recommend reading it.Thoughtful, atmospheric and engaging. I'll read more by this author.

Beautifully written. How is it possible that such an ugly subject matter can produce a work of such beauty and magical brilliance. It evokes a lyrical and almost dreamlike quality. Stunning, a tour de force.