A missing child sets the lives of three women on a collision course in this powerful and compelling novel by USA Today bestselling author Bette Lee Crosby.1971.When a music festival rolls through the sleepy town of Hesterville, Georgia, the Dixon family’s lives are forever changed. On the final night, a storm muffles the sound of the blaring music, and Rachel tucks her baby into bed before … her baby into bed before falling into a deep sleep. So deep, she doesn’t hear the kitchen door opening. When she and her husband wake up in the morning, the crib is empty. Emily is gone.
Vicki Robart is one of the thousands at the festival, but she’s not feeling the music. She’s feeling the emptiness over the loss of her own baby several months before. When she leaves the festival and is faced with an opportunity to fill that void, she is driven to an act of desperation that will forever bind the lives of three women.
When the truth of what actually happened that fateful night is finally exposed, shattering the lives they’ve built, will they be able to pick up the pieces to put their families back together again?
Winner of the Royal Palm Literary Award for Women’s Fiction; the Readers’ Favorite Gold Medal for Southern Fiction; and the FAPA President’s Book Award for Women’s Fiction.
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Emily Gone by Bette Lee Crosby had me drawn in from the first page until the last. Bette is just such an awesome storyteller you feel you are right there living the book. You just don’t want to put it down once you start. The twists and turns keep you turning the pages well into the night. This book has it all heartbreak, grief, forgiveness, compassion and healing. This book just tugs at your heartstrings. I just sat there crying on the couch, good thing I didn’t read it at work. Thank you for another fantastic book Bette Lee Crosby.
This is a Winner!
Emily, Gone’s true essence is that several people love Emily and this is the story of that love.
So, Bette Lee Crosby writes us a tale about how this can transpires in the life of a woman whose daughter is kidnapped one night during a music festival being held in her small town. and, the consequences that unfold.
You will be so moved that you may wonder whose side you are on. Can that even happen? Can you actually have soft feelings towards the kidnappers? Compassion?
The character development is so strong that you feel like you really know each of them. You will fall in love with some and detest others. As always, you feel like you are in Hesterville, Wynn Bluffs and all the towns in between.
I love Bette Lee Crosby’s storytelling, I cannot say that enough!
How this book wraps up is so stunning, it could not have been written any better.
Bette Lee Crosby always delivers exceptional books, but this goes beyond her typical phenomenal scope! This book was Epic!!!
I really think that this book would make a great movie.
I received an ARC from NetGalley and I wasn’t sure if I would be able to read this book because a baby was kidnapped but I was drawn to it so I read the book. This book was such a heartfelt story, even from the start where Emily Dixon was kidnapped, I felt like Bette Lee Crosby could tell the story calmly. Rachel Dixon put Emily to bed and then went to bed. When she woke Emily was gone. Vicki Robart was leaving the music festival and decided she needed food so she stopped at the Dixon house to see if they would give her some food. The door was unlocked so she walked inside and saw baby bottles and then went and found the baby and took her. She named the baby Lara. Vicki hadn’t seen her sister, Angela for 3 years but she went to her sisters and her sister let her move in with the baby. Vicky got a job and she went to work one day and wasn’t feeling well so she left work and had a heart attack and died. Angela and her husband raised Lara. The story continues on and Angela and Lara were traveling and their car broke down. They ended up having to spend the night at a bed and breakfast which happened to Rachel’s. Bette Lee tells us how Angela found out what her sister had done, Rachel discovers Lara is her daughter and Lara has to figure out what she wants to do. Bette Lee does it as she always does and gives you a chance to walk in other people’s shoes to know what others go through. I am glad I read this book, I came away with a lot more understanding.
From the moment you start reading this Amazing emotional story ,your heart will go through many emotions Anger, Hope, Empthany, understanding overall the feeling of overwhelming love pouring from each character. Great story that will stay with you long after you have read it .
Losing a child is devastating for a parent. When Rachel Dixon’s baby girl was kidnapped from her crib, heartbreaking does not even begin to describe the feelings.
A roller coaster of emotions as a marriage is tested, life goes on and a baby is never forgotten. A story of grief and healing. Tugging at my heartstrings as I kept reading.
This was an intense book that captivated me from start to finish.
Keep tissues close by for those tears.
Thank you NetGalley and Lake Union Publishing for the opportunity to read this amazing story.
I absolutely enjoyed every page – fulled with love and suspense!
Bette Lee Crosby has done it again. Received this book from Net Galley, Portraying both sides of this heartbreaking story without passing judgement on anyone. BABY Emily is kidnapped from her crib at 6months old…her Mother is killed in accident and she is raised by her Aunt and Uncle, considering them her parents. A chance car breakdown finds her and her mom with her birth family and unravels the history of her true parentage. Devastating to all but how they work it all out was done with class and love on both sides.
Highly recommend!
Bette Lee Crosby’s Emily, Gone is an awesome read. This emotionally charged book is set in 1971 through the present. When a baby Emily goes missing her parent’s grief is palpable, especially for her mother. Seventeen years later by some strange twist of fate Emily and her adoptive mother cross paths with Emily’s birth family. Would definitely recommend this book.
What an absolutely awesome book. The story definitely placed you right there. A music festival in Georgia with so many people, so much noise. Rachel, her husband George, and baby daughter Emily lived in a house set back in the woods. Vicki who had been at the festival with Murphy was high and wanted to stop at the house in the woods to look for food. Instead of food though she found a baby sound asleep in her crib. Vicki had lost her baby and thought this was her Lara so she took her. Rachel was so distraught to find her baby missing and no one had heard anyone in their house.
Pretty hard always living on the run and pretending the baby was her own. Vicki finally found her sister and moved in with her just going along that the baby was hers. Vicki’s heart health was not good and ended up passing away. Sister Angela would now care for the child.
So many years of searching for Emily and no new leads were found. I don’t want to spoil the story for others so you need to read this absolutely wonderful story to see how baby Emily’s life proceeds. I can’t imagine having your baby kidnapped and living every day searching in every face you see hoping it might be your daughter. I voluntarily reviewed an Advance Reader Copy of this book.
Emily, Gone
By Bette Lee Crosby
I am never disappointed by her books. Read them all. This book was true to form. Emily, Gone is a heart-wrenching account of a young mother and father who wake up to an empty baby crib. Every parents night mare unfolds. The only thing that made it bearable for me to read is the fact that it is a book. What made it almost unbearable was the fact that it has happened to many families down through the ages.. I recommend Emily, Gone!
Oh my gosh! I so loved reading this story! Emily, and all that went on in her life were so real to me. As a mom myself, I felt all the fears, and heart aches of these moms. I fell in love with Mama Dixon, even if I didn’t like her in the beginning. She was an integral part of the story. Bette Lee Crosby has once again written a brilliant, heart filled story for us, her readers. Have been recommending this book as I’ve enjoyed reading it. Thank you Bette for this amazing book. Thank you Net galley and Bette Lee Crosby for allowing me the privilege of an early read.
A great story with characters you could know. And some you love, others you hope to never meet. All Bette Lee Crosby books are amazing. This is yet another and I can’t wait for more. Read it. You will glad you did.
Mother’s who lose a child for any reason feels the emptiness over the loss and grieves forever! This is protrayed in the amazing book Emily, Gone by Bette Lee Crosby.
Rachel Dixon, a mother who takes her baby into her room and places her into the crib at bedtime! She then goes to her room to sleep herself. The next morning, Rachel finds her baby gone from the crib and home.
Vickie Robert loses her baby through death. This loss drives her to do the unthinkable and kidnaps the baby, Emily!
The lives of these two women and also Vickie’s sister, Angela are changed forever by Vickie’s action.
This book is a page turner, can’t put down read that shows the motherly love of these three women, well worth reading! I voluntarily reviewed an Advance Copy of this book!
I thought this was Bette Kee Crosby at her best. Nobody does familial relationships like her. What I liked most about this book was taking tragedies and having them work out to the good in the end.
I found this book to be filled with wonderful characters. I feel that it is unusual to like all of the characters in a book but Emily Gone is written with such love and care to tell both sides of the story that it makes it easy to understand both point of views.
From the first moment the reader learns about little Emily and her parents or about the trouble girl who steals her away, the reader is drawn into a world of heartbreak and love.
As the parents, kidnappers, and relatives go through emotional drama the reader goes along with them.
I would recommend the book to anyone who likes a good story.
Although the outcome may be improbable, it is also delightful and satisfying and shows the power of love in its fullest.
This wonderful story of two families and a child they share hits on every emotion. Had me hooked from the first page. It’s hard to put down. Well done Bette Lee Crosby.
This book is one of Ms.Crosby’s best that I have read, and she carries the story out with her usual dedication to developing the characters into people that we truly care about. It begins with the people in Hesterville “just knowing” that this music festival being held outside of town (that the townspeople were against having) was just going to bring nothing but trouble. And that it did. When the Dixons woke up to find their baby daughter, Emily, missing from her crib, the life-shattering story develops. Besides the Dixons, we meet the man and woman who take the child, the man and woman who raise the child, the mother-in-law who goes from choosing to be on the outside, to bringing the family togther again, and the sheriff who spends years tracking down every lead to find the child. But tucked into the main story is also the story of the love of family and the strength drawn from each other during times of crisis, and how life truly does move on. A signature style of Ms. Crosby is that she digs into each character and finds the traits that make them who they are and allows the reader to really see into that character. This is another of her books where she chooses to show that there is true goodness and compassion in people. This story pulls you in to the depth of emotions of all concerned in the disappearance of a child and the lives that are changed dramatically because of that. Thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for allowing me to review this book. I received an ARC in return for an honest review, which this has been. #EmilyGone#NetGalley
Wow! Seldom is a book woven so well and tightly as this book is constructed! If that sounds boring, rest assured this book is anything but boring. The book blurb gives us the sketch of the plot of this story, but it does not give us a hint at the superb writing style, the plot twists or the tear-jerking conclusion. Every word that was written belonged in this story. Every sentence was necessary and added to the plot. I have read every, or nearly every, book Bette Lee Crosby has written and I have enjoyed each one, but this stands alone as the most engrossing and most well-told book she has written. Needless to say, I stayed up way later than I should have, telling myself “One more chapter”, before I had to put the book down and finish it the next day.
What a wonderful story!
Wow!!! I have read so many books by Bette Lee Crosby and have loved them all, but this by far is my new favorite of hers.
I grew up in the 60’s and 70’s in a small town and could really relate to this story starting in 1971. I could also relate to the main characters right away and their emotional feelings became mine. I didn’t want to put this book down and read it in two sittings, finishing it in the wee hours of the morning.
If you’re looking for a well written book by an excellent author do yourself a favor and read this one. You’ll be on the edge of your seat like I was, trying to figure out how it might end. This book deserves 5 stars!
Thank you to the author and Lake Union Publishing for allowing me to read an arc of this book, which is to be published on April 30, 2019.
I received an ARC of this book and just finished reading it. Bette Lee Crosby is an amazing story teller. This is a story about family, love, and survival through heart breaking events. It tells of an act of impulse that touches so many lives. It is a great tale of compassion and forgiveness as well. I loved this book. The characters will stay with me for some time to come.