The Lost Girls of Devon

I make no secret Barbara O'Neal is my favourite author and reading her books is like being enveloped in velvet: lush and warm and comforting.

This one had a mystery at its core that I didn't expect. Told from various points of view, I was particularly drawn to the richness of Poppy and her unconventional life, and her teen granddaughter Isabel, who endured so much.

A wonderful story to get lost in.

Solid Tale Of Intergenerational Drama. This is my third book from O'Neal, after 2018's The Art of Inheriting Secrets and 2019's When We Believed In Mermaids, and she continues to show her strength as a storyteller in continuing to spin new tales with new emphases on different things, all while being solidly centered on a woman's (or a few womens', in this case) perspective. Here we don't see quite the wistful what-could-have-been of Secrets, nor do we get anywhere near the waterworks and trauma of Mermaids, but we do get a solid tale of four generations of women who have each had their own issues with the others of their line, and who each have to work to resolve those issues. It touches on so many different issues, some in the zeitgeist of the last few years, others more muted in discussions but felt internally nonetheless, and it does all of them a fair degree of justice in its explorations from several angles. For example, the third generation has decades of resentment for the second, after the second abandoned her to the first while she went off to a far away land. We get the tales of both the third and the second, but we also see perspectives from the first and fourth on how they see the drama between second and third having played out in both of their lives, and how it has impacted the lives of first and fourth themselves. And that is just one of the many issues we see, all of them featuring similar complexities in storytelling. The bit of action near the end does feel a bit out of place, but adds another less explored bit of zeitgeist commentary into the book even as it feels a touch tacked on. All in all, a truly solid effort and very much recommended.

CW: Description of previous sexual assault and date-rape drugging experienced by teen characterThis is the third Barbara O'Neal book I've read in six months, after [b:When We Believed in Mermaids 43717362 When We Believed in Mermaids Barbara O'Neal https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1560378056l/43717362.SY75.jpg 68012209] and [b:The Art of Inheriting Secrets 38097931 The Art of Inheriting Secrets Barbara O'Neal https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1528728728l/38097931.SY75.jpg 59764662], and I'm happy to be back on her bandwagon. Like those other two books, The Lost Girls of Devon tries to pack a little too much plot into the pages; apparently Women's Fiction isn't enough anymore unless it has a suspense subplot woven in. But O'Neal juggles the multiple balls in the air deftly, and if the suspense angle is the part that gets a little short shrift, I'm okay with that.The title is ironic; several women are missing from the English West County community of Devon, including Zoe's one-time best friend Diana. But Zoe and the rest of the women in her family are “lost” as well. Her grandmother Lillian, a successful mystery novelist, is starting to show signs of dementia. Zoe is recently divorced and her 15 year old daughter Isabel has suffered a devastating trauma, the details of which she refuses to divulge. Zoe decides to leave her Santa Fe home for Devon to check on her Gran, give Isabel space to heal, and see if she can find any clues to Diana's whereabouts. Once she is in Devon, Zoe has mixed feelings about running into her old boyfriend, Sage Cooper. She loved him deeply but ended up breaking his heart when her dreams of becoming an artist met an end early in her college career. But there's no mixed feelings about her mother, Poppy, who left her with her Gran when Zoe was a child and never returned. She refuses to speak to her, or even be in the same room with the woman who abandoned her. Poppy may be the most lost girl of all; her one-month adventure to find herself thirty years ago turned into years of adventure and loss, and now she is home to take care of Lillian and come to terms with the impact of her free-spirited behavior. As the four main characters take turns narrating, we get a chance to see parenting is a variety of forms - neglectful, careless, loving, smothering. We are also allowed to make up our own minds about what can be forgiven, if not forgotten. While Lillian wasn't always a great mother to Poppy, at least she was present. It's a lot harder to understand Poppy's rationale for leaving Zoe behind for so many years. Her kindness to other vulnerable local girls, her caretaking of Lillian, and her immediate connection with Isabel don't compensate for the terrible damage she caused to Zoe. As someone with her own Mother issues, I can say that the scars you receive as a child aren't easily healed, so I viewed the reconciliation between Zoe and Poppy with a great deal of suspicion. But O'Neal gets it just right, neither fully absolving Poppy nor damning her. The second chance at love plot with Cooper is predictable but sweet. Zoe and Cooper have a chance to find their way back to each other as they work together to find Diana. Their physical connection is as strong as ever, but they have to make their peace with their respective pasts, both good and bad, before they can be together.The suspense plot was the least interesting part of the story to me, and I suspect O'Neal's heart wasn't truly into it either. But she does a decent job at seeding clues throughout the story, and although most of the work is done by the local police, Zoe and her family do have an important role to play in solving the mystery of the girls' disappearances. O'Neal successfully combines romance, family dynamics, and a bit of suspense in a beautiful setting. Definitely a strong candidate for a summer beach read (if we're allowed to go to the beach in the summer of 2020). I received an ARC of this book from Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.