What If…: The Disappeared by Sibel Hodge @sibelhodge @Bloodhoundbook #PublicationDay #BlogBlitz

Happy publication day Sibel Hodge!!! I am over the moon to kick off the blog blitz along with great fellow bloggers!

Thanks a lot to our darling Emma at Bloodhound Books for inviting me to be part of this special time!

Title: The Disappeared
Author: Sibel Hodge
Publisher: Bloodhound Books
Date of publication: 10th January 2019
Format: e-copy

The widow. The secret. The liar.

The Disappeared…

On a routine flight from Africa to England, Dr Mason Palmer is tragically killed when the light aircraft he’s travelling on crashes and disappears in dense bush land.

The Widow…

Ten months later, Nicole Palmer is still trying to block out the grief of her husband’s sudden death. Until one morning she receives a photo of Mason through the post, along with a cryptic message. A message only he could’ve written.

The Secret…

But when Nicole tries to find out if Mason is really alive and what actually happened to him in Africa, everyone she turns to for answers ends up dead.

Determined to find the truth, Nicole uncovers a conspiracy that spans the globe, and discovers there are powerful people who are prepared to kill to keep her silent.

Who’s lying? Who’s watching Nicole? And can she expose their murky secrets before they catch up with her?

Let’s be honest, I had no recollection of the blurb when I started The Disappeared by Sibel Hodge. This is why I was expecting a simple psychological thriller delivered by a strong writing style. Imagine how happily surprised I was when, from the first pages on, I realized I was in for way more than I thought!

For me, the title announced a thriller, the domestic kind that I am fond of. I was looking forward to a mysterious disappearance and a mystery around it. I got that part, but I also got a whole lot of action!

Nicole is grieving her husband, victim of a plane crash in a dense forest in Africa. How do you say goodbye when you don’t have a body? How do you keep on going when something terrible happened miles and miles away, leaving you in your routine with an awfully empty space in your heart and soul?

For me, The Disappeared is love story above everything else. Nicole and Mason were an item, and throughout the novel, you discover their life before the accident, you get snippets of difficult times, of happiness, so you can picture and feel the loss. It was both beautiful and heart-breaking to see those feelings overwhelming characters, washing over them like a cold acid shower, stripping them off any other sensation. Sibel Hodge never forces those emotions out of her characters, they just come naturally, and they are bound to echo with the readers. It’s a pure, complicated, human relationship, and it’s worth fighting for, in life and in death…

Talking about death. How can dead people send you messages? I would be totally freaked out if my beloved dead husband sent me anything from the grave! Imagine poor Nicole, trying to hold it together for months, just to see a photo appear at her door and a message that only her hubby could have written? I’d cry, I’d curse at the unwanted package, calling it a prank… Because it is impossible, isn’t it? But what if?

It is based on this ‘what if’ that Nicole starts to ask questions. I must admit Nicole is a very strong character. Much stronger that I’ll ever be! Her life since Mason’s disappearance might have been a faded copy of what she had before but she had kept going, struggling to keep her head above water, and when this massive blow comes to her, she can’t help looking for answers.

Like an epidemy, dead bodies start to appear. How weird that they are all connected to Mason in a way! I loved the multiple POV chapters, allowing me to know more than Nicole without being able to connect the dots. Very very clever, and very very gripping! As Nicole started to dig deeper and tickle people, I could smell the rotten seeds of something very bad, very wrong, and very dangerous! Yet, nothing could stop this woman from wanting to uncover the truth about her husband’s mysterious disappearance and the secrets behind it that some people don’t want to see unearthed. I would not have done half of what she does! But I could imagine her pain, her distress, waiting for another sign, then seeing people fall like flies, with no clue as to what is going on.

And a lot is going on! Conspiracy, much? I was delighted to be taken on a journey with The Disappeared. A terrible, current, and bloody trip from the UK to sunny Africa. I was amazed at how the author combined such a strong thriller that felt domestic with an international issue with lives at stakes. More lives that we can count. Sibel Hodge has done her homework and everything feels authentic, from the sweat on the characters’ forehead to the dust of the racing car driving to the borders.

The Disappeared is a bold thriller, taking the recipe of the usual psychological thriller and adding five spoons of action that make everything twice as taut and terrifying.

And how lucky you are, The Disappeared is now available!!! Click here!

Sibel Hodge is the author of the No 1 Bestsellers Look Behind You, Untouchable, and Duplicity. Her books have sold over one million copies and are international bestsellers in the UK, USA, Australia, France, Canada and Germany. She writes in an eclectic mix of genres, and is a passionate human and animal rights advocate.

Her work has been nominated and shortlisted for numerous prizes, including the Harry Bowling Prize, the Yeovil Literary Prize, the Chapter One Promotions Novel Competition, The Romance Reviews’ prize for Best Novel with Romantic Elements and Indie Book Bargains’ Best Indie Book of 2012 in two categories. She was the winner of Best Children’s Book in the 2013 eFestival of Words; nominated for the 2015 BigAl’s Books and Pals Young Adult Readers’ Choice Award; winner of the Crime, Thrillers & Mystery Book from a Series Award in the SpaSpa Book Awards 2013; winner of the Readers’ Favorite Young Adult (Coming of Age) Honorable award in 2015; a New Adult finalist in the Oklahoma Romance Writers of America’s International Digital Awards 2015, and 2017 International Thriller Writers Award finalist for Best E-book Original Novel. Her novella Trafficked: The Diary of a Sex Slave has been listed as one of the top forty books about human rights by Accredited Online Colleges.

Sibel’s Social Media Links:

Website: www.sibelhodge.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SibelHodgeBestsellingAuthor/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/sibelhodge @sibelhodge