The Missing Sister

By: Elle Marr

Narrated by: Sarah Naughton

An Amazon Charts bestseller.

In Paris, her twin sister has vanished, leaving behind three chilling words: Trust no one.

Shayna Darby is finally coming to terms with her parents’ deaths when she’s delivered another blow. The body of her estranged twin sister, Angela - the possible victim of a serial killer - has been pulled from the Seine. Putting what’s left of her life on hold, Shayna heads to Paris. But while cleaning out Angela’s apartment, Shayna makes a startling discovery: a coded message meant for her alone...

Alive. Trust no one.

Taking the warning to heart, Shayna maintains the lie. She makes a positive ID on the remains and works to find out where - and why - her missing sister is hiding. Shayna retraces her sister’s footsteps, and they lead her down into Paris’s underbelly.

As she gets closer to the truth - and to the killer - Shayna’s own life may now be in the balance...

©2020 Elle Marr (P)2020 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.

Critic reviews

"Marr’s debut novel follows a San Diego medical student to, around, and ultimately beneath Paris in search of the twin sister she’d been drifting away from. Notable for its exploration of the uncanny bonds twins share and the killer’s memorably macabre motive." (Kirkus Reviews)

"[A] gritty debut...the intriguing premise, along with a few twists, lend this psychological thriller some weight." (Publishers Weekly)

Excellent book!

I loved the setting in Paris. The story was intriguing all the way to the end, and the narrator was a lot of fun. Especially when she took on her French accent. I loved it!

A Good Story That Falls a bit Flat Towards The End

This was a well performed and ably written novel about two sisters, identical twins, separated by both distance and life events.
The characters are well drawn, interesting, and mostly believable.
The dialogue is good, something many writers seem to struggle with. The wording was believable and, the French language to English language switches were also well done, even more difficult to pull off. . If the writer is not a French speaker or hasn’t spent time in a French speaking country, I’ll be shocked. It was treš believable. One of my pet peeves with writing is poorly done dialogue, as it is so important in the portraying and development of the characters. If the dialogue is not accurate to how normal people actually speak, it’s very hard for me to become invested in the characters.

While the Story line was good and some of the plot twists were a bit surprising and interesting, ( spoiler alert)… the reason for the abductions and killings was almost silly… trying to find a cure for mustard gas poisoning? Really? And using twins to do it because they have some special bond that translates through to science? Bah! Silly! There could have been so much more interesting reasons why the abduction and killings took place. I was really unhappy with that detail, and it made the whole plot seem less important than it was.

Despite that, the plot WAS less important than what the twin sisters learned about themselves, each other, and their parents and childhood. That’s what the story should have focused on and the whys of the abductions and killings should have been secondary, if not believable, as was the case here. It would have been excellent to have both, which I hope was the writer’s intent.

Am I glad I read it? Yes. Would I recommend it? I already did… to my own identical twin daughters who are the same age as Shayna and Angela. I think they will enjoy it and some of it may be more meaningful to them as a result of their special bond. Because identical twins, especially girl identical twins do share a very close bond and at times, I do believe their identities do overlap as they are growing up and even family members have trouble telling them apart.

Good work to the author and I thank her for the entertaining read and will look for other books she has written.

PS: I can’t emphasize how important a good reader is for any audiobook to work, no matter how mesmerizing the story. If any of you have ever heard charles Frazier’s monotoned reading of the excellent story ‘Cold Mountain’ that he, himself spectacularly wrote and spectacularly ruined by reading his own audiobook, and compared it to one of Wally Lamb’s well written and wonderfully read stories, I’m sure you will know of what I speak. Bad books can become slightly better with a good reader, but excellent books can be ruined by a bad reader, which is a travesty. So, if the author has any say in the reader choice, this one chose well.
As one who listens, almost without exception, to novels read by English ( the Queen’s English) accented readers, the harsh American vowels are an initial assault to the ears, but after listening for a few minutes, the cadence of the reader and the voice changes for each character captivated me enough to stop noticing , and she did a French accented American English very very well. The French, too, was adapted as American pidgin French for the non- French speaking twin, and was nearly flawlessly accented for the French language speaking twin, which was impressively done. I’d take my hat off to the reader, if I were wearing one. Great job, Sarah Naughton. I will look for other titles that are read by this excellent narrator. A good Story teller needs to be an actor and a flawless reader. Sarah Naughton was both.

Gripping

As a twin I related to these sisters so much, I felt as though my sister and I were part of them and how we would have naviagted the events that unfolded.

Book was great all the way til the end!!

I loved this book up until the last 30 mins. The end seemed a little rushed. And the bad guy was obvious. I actually saw him as the bad guy earlier and wished that I was going to be wrong. For me the end of the book should be better than the beginning. Rarely am I surprised at this point.

Suspense and action

The Missing Sister by Elle Marr is a good book with suspense. One that drew me into the story. I liked the world building with enough history to make everything understandable. The narrator was amazing.

Ending wasn’t all that good.

The storyline was great until the end. I disliked how they tied everything together. So much detail revealed for barely any of it to be used to solve the real mystery.

good but..

Good story line but the attempted accents made the book really hard to listen to. Personally, I'd prefer to use my imagination rather than be disturbed by the poor attempt at accents. Otherwise, not terrible.

The Missing Sister

This is a well written book about a west coast girl going to France to find her missing sister. Throughout the entire book, it was easy to follow the plot, but there were so many characters and several possible suspects that it was not easy to determine if her sister was living or dead. I will not spoil it for your, but the actual perpetrator and the fate of the sister was held in excellent suspense until the final chapter. I fully recommend this book. I will be looking to read more from this author. WLM South Carolina

San Diego native

Great V/O work and loved the San Diego references. Didn’t expect the ending (which is good)! Great listen!

must read

Excellent mystery that keeps you guessing. I would recommend this book to those that like a good mystery.