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 is every parent’s absolute worst nightmare. Rachel puts her baby Emily to bed and when she gets up in the morning, Emily is gone. The year is 1971 and their town had just had a music festival so there was so many people visiting. Rachel and her husband George have the support of George’s mom and the entire town. They also have their faith. This book is one that will stay with you as the characters are so very real. They could be your friends or neighbors. heart will feel many things while reading. Intense grief, pain, happiness, and joy. I loved this story and the characters. I received an advanced readers copy from NetGalley and Lake Union Publishing. All opinions are my own.
Really enjoyed this book. Emotionally moving, heart-wrenching and heart-warming. Incredible characters and an all-around great read. Definitely recommend this page-turner.
Emily Gone
By Bette Lee Crosby
5
Emily Gone is a well written,unforgettable, heartbreaking,emotional, beautiful story about a kidnapped baby and the impact it has on the lives of the three women . All who love baby emily. This story will forever will stay with me.
Bette Lee Crosby had me drawn in from the very first page.The characters were all wonderful and well drawn . I felt so connected to each of them like I knew them personally. I especially loved the main character Rachel and her mother-in-law Mama Dixon. This book took me on one heck of an emotional roller coaster. I laughed , smiled , and cried. Boy did i cry. I could not possibly imagine losing a child and not knowing where they are or if they are safe. I have loved all of Bette’s books but this has now become my favorite. I highly recommend reading this story with a box of tissues nearby. I do hope the author turnes this into a series because I would love to read more about the characters. I was not ready to say good bye !
When I began reading, I fully expected that all of my sympathy would be for the parents of the stolen baby. Because clearly, anybody who would steal a baby must be a bad person. But Bette Lee Crosby takes us on a journey into the lives and pain points of all of the characters involved, weaving a story about the many faces of love and where that can lead us.
Crosby’s best work yet. Heart-wrenching and heartwarming. Unforgettable characters remind us of the true meaning of motherly love. A page-turner until the end.
Emily, Gone is the story of what happens when a woman takes a child and the aftermath. I thought Emily, Gone was well-written with steady pacing. It deals with a tragedy that affects not just Vicki, Rachel, George and Emily but others as well including the residents of Hesterville and Sheriff Carl Wilson. The kidnapping took place before the internet and amber alerts. There is little forensic evidence and thousands of suspects. Finding a six month old child is like finding a needle in a haystack. Rachel Dixon blames herself for not locking the kitchen door while George goes through a similar blame game. Russ Murphy knows what Vicki did is wrong, and he tries to find a way to rectify the situation. The two stories are told in a direct manner. The characters are realistic along with the feelings and situations. I could feel Rachel’s distress and loss. George wants to stay strong for his wife, but he is dealing with the same emotions. Vicki is thrilled to have her baby and joy pours from her. Bette Lee Crosby portrays the long term affects of the kidnapping. Helen Dixon, George’s mother, is my favorite character. She is not without flaws and is no stranger to heartbreak. Helen, or Mama Dixon as she is called, provides strength to Rachel and George along with love, understanding, and provides practical advice. I do want readers to know that the book contains foul language and judicious use of marijuana (it was the 70s). I did feel that the story was a little long at 394 pages and Russ Murphy’s story seemed incomplete. I appreciated the epilogue. Emily, Gone is a feel good story that shows there is a reason for why things happen. I enjoyed the reference to the little girl’s Mrs. Beasley doll (I wanted one of these dolls) from Family Affair. There are two phrases I thought were especially profound. “Sorrow does strange things to a woman” is the first. “When someone you love hurts, you hurt for them. That’s how love is” as said by Mama Dixon. Emily, Gone shows that God does work in mysterious ways.
My favorite book by Bette Lee Crosby! Emily, Gone is a heartbreaking bit also heartwarming story. Three women—three mothers and one little girl whose lives are forever changed in an instant of grief and impulse. This poignant story is written with warmth and compassion, a story that will tug at your heartstrings.
A baby has been kidnapped. No clues, no ransomed note…Emily is just gone. The family’s grief is unbearable, but with not even a whisper of her whereabouts as the years pass, they try to move on with their lives. But for her mother, Rachel, her grief and love for her child is not forgotten; but tucked deeply in her heart. She prays every night that her daughter is safe and that whoever took Emily loves her and is taking good care of her. Rachel also fervently prays that one day Emily will be returned to them.
This is a book of heart rendering grief, ups and downs of feelings and hopes dashed. And finally how a mother’s love really never ends and sometimes forgiveness can be just as strong.
Thank you to the Author, Bette Crosby and Netgalley for providing an early copy of this book for my honest review.
In Emily Gone, Bette Lee Crosby weaves a tale that combines gut-wrenching loss, the bonds of family love on many levels, and compassionate forgiveness, to deliver a compelling narrative that lodges deeply in the hearts of readers. Crosby has a way of developing characters and settings that quickly become real and engaging to readers. The range of emotions she hits in the plot of this story is remarkable. We are introduced to some individuals we may not want to like but somehow Crosby is adept at creating compassion for them. This is story-telling at its finest.
There is nothing like the feeling of picking up a Bette Lee Crosby book to read. When I do, I know I’m in for a deeply emotional and heart tugging story that will take my emotions all over the feelings map. As I opened the pages of this book, I felt like I was meeting with an old friend and she was going to take me on a storytelling journey and she sure did! Emily, Gone is a book I couldn’t put down.
If this book doesn’t tug at your heartstrings, I don’t know what will. Each progressively turned page brought me deeper into the heart of the story that drew rawness to my emotions. The horror of waking up in the morning finding little Emily gone was excruciating. Who would have taken her and why? The self blaming for not being there for Emily broke my heart. The yearning for a lost child was heart wrenching. This book took me on that proverbial roller coaster ride from heartache, to desperation, to despair, to a shocking turn of events, to hope, to forgiveness, to faith no matter what the situation or outcome.
Ms. Crosby has such a great way of putting wisdom in her books that reach into my heart. I come away from her books with words that I can apply to my life and use to be a better person. I love that. Her works feel personal and I feel connected to them. Each character has flaws just as we all do. Each character has emotions that in ways I could relate to. Ms. Crosby developed each character completely to create a story that pulled me in.
I’d like to share a couple passages that are indicative of Ms. Crosby’s gift of writing:
“People make mistakes, and things happen-not because we want them to or don’t care, but because life is a whole lot less than perfect.”
“Fear settles in your heart the day you learn you’re gonna be a mama, but somehow you stumble through doing the best you can, always hoping it’s good enough.”
I came to the end of this book knowing and feeling I had a true Bette Lee Crosby book experience. I loved it! I want to thank Ms. Crosby, Lake Union, and Netgalley for the absolute honor of getting to read this book.
What a good book. Have a kleenex handy. There are so many emotions throughout this story. Love, loss, anger, bitterness, fear, forgiveness, peace. The ending was perfect.
This was a wonderful story of a mother’s unending love for her child. It is heartbreaking, inspiring, and a beautiful story.
Rachel and George Dixon wake up one morning to find their daughter Emily is not in her crib. She has been taken after a weekend long concert in their town has kept them up for days, but this one night they slept, and they had no idea a stranger had been in their home. Rachel is consumed with grief as her husband tries to console her and help them move forward with their lives without their darling baby girl.
Vickie Robart and her boyfriend Russell Murphy were at the concert in the same town in the pouring rain. Vickie’s story is a sad one also…just losing a baby – stillborn has left her muddled with unending grief. When she leaves the concert and ambles upon the Dixon home where she goes in hopes of finding some food, she sees baby Emily in her crib and truly believes this baby is her own and it was meant to be that they were together again, a family. Vickie was desperate for the three of them to be the family she always dreamed of.
The story goes on over a number of years and the tragic, happy, and surprising events that happen to each of them is a story not to missed. The characters are ones you will truly feel connected with and you will feel their happiness and their pain as they learn to navigate through theirs lives with the cards the have been dealt.
This is a wonderful story that you will not soon forget.
Emily, Gone by Bette Lee Crosby is a book I believe will satisfy most readers, regardless of their genre preferences. It hits the mark for psychological suspense, mystery, domestic fiction, perhaps even leans a bit into southern fiction and historical fiction as it travels back to music festivals of the early 1970’s.
This was the last book I read for 2019 – and what a way to end a year! Although I don’t usually don’t gravitate towards suspense novels, I thoroughly enjoyed this one! Besides simply being a gripping page turner, author Bette Lee Crosby did an excellent job of blending the story into an easier to read domestic fiction style novel.
The story is about a little girl named Emily and the women who loved and cared for her throughout her childhood. The big twist comes when at six months old, in the midst of an outdoor music festival, she is stollen from her crib. When you think ‘what more could happen’, a second surprise sneaks up and drops your jaw. The third and final twist comes a bit more predictably, but no less satisfying.
I highly recommend this well written page turner about love, forgiveness, and the lengths a mother will go for her child.
Emily, Gone is the first book I’ve read by author Bette Lee Crosby but my enjoyment of the story and quality of her writing has automatically added her to my short list of ‘must read’ authors. This seldom happens after just one book .
This is a book about grief, life’s ups and downs , love, forgiveness and most all hope/faith. The book was a joy to read from page one to the end. It took us through the lives of many faceted characters. Some you wanted to hate, but couldn’t, some you loved from the beginning, and some that stole your heart right up to the end. The book ended with enough explanation of the character’s lives that it left me with a very serene peace about the outcome. I could see Mrs. Crosby picking their lives back up to continue this story, but this is a super stand-alone book as is. Thank you for letting us ‘live’ with these families for a little while.
Very well written and planned out. Thought provoking in so many ways. A little unexpected how it all folded out, but I know I’ll be thinking it through for a good while.
What a wonderful story Bette Lee Crosby has written. She just pulls you in from the very first pages and keeps you there until the very end. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. I sort of stalled a bit at the end because I didn’t want it to end. Thank you, Bette Lee, for the story you gave us.
Loved this book and at the end the families came together to support Emily and be there for her in the way she needed them all to be.
Emily Gone is the best book that will touch everyone’s emotions heart and soul. I just couldn’t put this book down! Betty Lee Crosby is the best author to reach out and touch everybody’s heart with her beautiful stories.
This book is very intriguing ,exciting and even sad at times. It takes twists and turns that allows your imagination to let you wander wherever the story is going. If I could I would give this book 10 Stars !!! It’s a definitely must read.
Bette Lee Crosby grabs you by the throat and pulls you in, from page one. This is an emotional roller-coaster of a tale that is deeply layered, both terrifying and touching, tackling issues of loss, love, forgiveness and the strength of the human spirit. Highly recommended.
This book kept me up because I didn’t wan tot put it down. Heartrending and beautifully crafted, it is a story about what it means to be a mother.