The Boy That Never Was, Karen Perry

The Boy That Never Was opening line: A storm is rising.

The Boy That Never Was,

The Boy That Never Was

You were loved and lost – then you came back . . .

Five years ago, three-year-old Dillon disappeared. For his father Harry – who left him alone for ten crucial minutes – it was an unforgivable lapse. Yet Dillon’s mother Robyn has never blamed her husband: her own secret guilt is burden enough.

Now they’re trying to move on, returning home to Dublin to make a fresh start.

But their lives are turned upside down the day Harry sees an eight-year-old boy in the crowd. A boy Harry is convinced is Dillon. But the boy vanishes before he can do anything about it.

What Harry thought he saw quickly plunges their marriage into a spiral of crazed obsession and broken trust, uncovering deceits and shameful secrets. Everything Robyn and Harry ever believed in one another is cast into doubt.

And at the centre of it all is the boy that never was . . .

My verdict:

I found this book to be well written and a real page turner but I kept on waiting to hear that the boy was merely a figment of Harry’s imagination. Robin and Harry are artists who move to Tangier to capture the light. They have a child, Dillon, and lose him and the book deals with their reaction to the loss and their lives back in Ireland. The end offers a twist one would not expect.

Publishing information:
ISBN 9781405914048
Format Paperback
Published January 2015

Disclosure: I was sent the book to review by Penguin Books South Africa. I was not required to write a positive review. This post is in line with my blogging policy.

Edit:
Google is amazing in that it changes the SEO requirements all the time. I am not sure what the purpose is? But each time I come back to edit a blog post I can see if the goal posts have moved. In 2022 I had to add this, just to get my SEO to go from orange to green!

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11 thoughts on “The Boy That Never Was, Karen Perry

  1. I love reading books that have a weird, twisted ending you don’t expect. I just finished reading Gone Girl, so really looking forward to watching the movie that’s just been released 🙂

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