Anna lives a spartan life with her mother in Florida. She goes to school and to church. Anna is smart and gets good grades. Although her religious beliefs aren’t as extensive as her mother’s, she does her best to follow her mother’s rules, to keep herself and the house clean, and to appreciate what they have, even though it isn’t much.
Anna is dating William, their pastor’s son, and on the morning of Anna’s 18th birthday, he shows up to take her to the one place in Florida that everyone goes, the place her mother would never allow her to visit, Astroland. The amusement park has been looming over Anna’s whole life. While all her friends and schoolmates have gotten to go enjoy the park and ride the rides, Anna was never allowed to go. But William has planned this birthday visit to Astroland, and while Anna doesn’t want to defy her mother’s wishes, she just wants one day to feel like a regular teenager.
On the other side of the world, Rosie lives a nice life in London with her parents and her younger brother. Or, it would be a nice life, if there wasn’t a hole in the middle of their family. Fifteen years ago, on a family trip to Florida, Rosie’s older sister Emily went missing. Now, she feels like the only way to heal the rift in her family is to try to find her missing sister. But she doesn’t even know where to start.
As the anniversary interviews ramp up for Rosie’s parents, she finds out that the trust that has been funding the ongoing search for Emily is almost bankrupt. Knowing how difficult the last 15 years have been on her parents, she reaches out for help in the only place she can think of: the internet. Apparently, in darker corners of the internet, there have been people who have been looking for Emily all this time, and maybe one of them knows something that will help Rosie find her.
Anna enjoys her day at Astroland. She eats too much junk food and rides the rides. But when she comes across the carousel, she stops. She watches the horses go around and around, and she starts to feel sick. That’s when she realizes that she’s been there before.
Rosie reads the online threads about her sister’s disappearance. Most are filled with rumors and conjecture, accusations that didn’t pan out, and mean-spirited trolls. But there are a few people who seem to have found some actual possibilities of what happened.
Anna’s world stops. She realizes that she really knows very little about where she came from. What else has her mother lied to her about? And why did she feel like she had to keep all those secrets?
Rosie knows that what she’s doing is dangerous. Meeting strangers from the internet is never a good idea. But she needs to know what happened to her sister. And one of these people might have the answers that could save her family. Or will what she finds destroy everything she’d been trying to fix?
A Girl Called Anna is the debut novel of Lizzy Barber, and each page drips with suspense. As the stories of these two girls cross over and intertwine, the story goes in surprising directions and circles back to the heart of a family.
I was fascinated by A Girl Called Anna and couldn’t wait to find out the secrets that bound these characters together. I thought the writing was very strong, the characters rang true, and the situation they found themselves in was completely heart-breaking. If you enjoy a good domestic thriller with cultish undertones, then you might like this book as much as I did.
Galleys for A Girl Named Anna were provided by mira, but I liked it so much I bought the book on Kindle.
