#Blogtour Lowbridge by Lucy Campbell

It's a pleasure to take part in the Blogtour Lowbridge by Lucy Campbell.

About the Author

Lucy Campbell has worked as a writer and sub-editor across magazines, newspapers and non-fiction books. Lowbridge is her first novel. She lives in Canberra with her husband and three children. Follow @CampbellLucyN on Twitter

About the book

Where everybody knows everyone, how can somebody just disappear? - 1987: It’s late summer and a time of change when a 17-year-old girl leaves the local shopping centre in the sleepy town of Lowbridge and is never seen again.

Her unsolved disappearance is never far from the town’s memory. There’s those who grew up in the shadow of her loss whose own lives were altered forever, and those who know more than they’re saying.

2018: Katherine Ashworth, shattered by the death of her daughter, moves to her husband’s hometown. Searching for a way to pick up the pieces of her life, she joins the local historical society and becomes obsessed with the three-decades-old mystery. As Katherine digs into that summer of 1987, she stumbles upon the trail of a second girl who vanished and was never missed because no one cared enough to see what was happening in plain sight.

In a town simmering with divisions and a cast of unforgettable characters, Lowbridge is a heart wrenching mystery about the girls who are lost, the ones who are mourned and those who are forgotten.

Review

Is it just me? No, really am I the only one that found a ball of rage growing inside me towards Angus and Jamie. They are the personification of men pretending to be allies of women and women's rights, and yet being the perfect example of misogyny and of men upholding the patriarchy. Oh gosh, well-educated Patricia has to run every decision by superior Angus, who deems the whole clinic endeavour and the women helping her, to be bothersome boring fruit flies.

And let's not forget the subtle abuse Jamie subjects Katherine to. Not going to lie both of them made me want to jump in the book and whack them round the head with a wet kipper. Insidious in nature, hidden behind welcoming smiles and compromising overtures, far worse than the in your face hatred of women. Why, because women often fail to recognise the danger lurking behind polite mask.

Hidden behind the systemic misogyny is a story of a town with secrets and the girls, women who fall prey to the predators, the dismissive nature of the people who are supposed to support them the potential victims, but end up being part of the problem and staunch enablers. This is particularly evident in Lu's response to Jac.

Katherine, who is learning to cope with her own grief becomes immersed in the grief of another family, and in doing so starts to unravel a secret that has been swept under the rug for many decades. It's a riveting dark domestic thriller and a good read.

Buy Lowbridge at Amazon Uk or go to Goodreads for any other retailer. Publisher: Ultimo Press; pub date 6th July 2023 | Hardback | £16.99. Buy at Amazon com.