The Girl in the Pink Shoes

A Lucy Kendall Crime Thriller, Book 1

By: Stacy Green

Narrated by: Amelia Sciandra

My baby girl. This morning she was so excited for school. I bought her new shoes last night. Pink, sparkly shoes. She loved them so much. She wore them for the first time today. And now she is gone....

It is every mother’s worst nightmare. Eight-year-old Kailey Richardson skips out of the school gates in her brand-new pink shoes and never makes it home. Between the school and the safety of her shiny red front door, someone has taken her.

Private Investigator Lucy Kendall sees the fliers of a smiling, gap-toothed Kailey and knows she won’t be able to sleep until the little girl is found. Having lost her own sister to the darkest evil, she is determined to help find Kailey before it is too late.

As Lucy talks to Kailey’s friends, desperate to find out who has taken the happy little girl, she begins to form a worrying picture of the days before Kailey’s disappearance. The blue car idling in the street outside the school. The friendly man across the road. And Kailey’s mother, Jenna, hollow-eyed and jumpy, clutching Kailey’s teddy bear and not telling Lucy everything.

Lucy has promised Jenna she will do everything to find her daughter. But then she discovers Jenna has a connection to the prime suspect in Kailey’s disappearance...and one that brings Lucy’s past rushing back to haunt her. Time is running out to find Kailey, but will Lucy be able to save this innocent little girl before her own demons destroy her?

©2023 Stacy Green (P)2022 Bookouture, an imprint of Storyfire Ltd.

good

had me hooked from the beginng it was a story that hurt to know things like this go on.

Ok story

The narrator took away from the story
She was flat, toneless without emotion. It was difficult to discern characters

I good and bad, right and wrong –it's all indistin

(As posted in Goodreads)
What a glorious story! And the number of possibilities was very tasty. The connections between different suspects and the story overall were titillating :-).
There, I thrown out all of the glittery ideas in the first sentence, but it really was enjoyable and enervating. And the author did not allow automatic assumptions to rule the day. The mental stress of all victims was clearly address and dealt with regularly. And the perpetrators and victims appeared to be melted together at some point, although it was all cleared up in the end.
The whole thing gave the reader much to gnaw on for quite a while, what with the questions of "good", "bad", "right", and "wrong"; and how related and imprecise all these ideas are.

Terrible Narrator!!

She ruined the book for me. Unfortunately, she is the narrator for the entire series so I won’t buy any more of this series.

Great start to a new series!!

I’m already a fan of Stacy Green’s Nikki Hunt series. I thought it was a little funny that the missing child in the first book of her earlier series was named Kailey and the missing child in the first book in this series is Kaylee. When i first started this book I almost thought it was a re-release but after checking I realized that it was only the name that was the same.
Anyway, Lucy Kendall is an interesting protagonist. She’s an antihero. She takes revenge for children who can’t defend themselves against pedophiles and she makes sure they will never hurt another child again.
This book kept my interest and I found the characters believable. The story was well written and some of the relationships were rather unique.
Amelia Sciandra does a great job narrating.
This book is Very HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.
If you found this review helpful please indicate so.
Thank You.

Narrator is terrible

Listening to this narrative was rough. She ruined the book for me. I’ve like other books by Stacy Green but I just couldn’t get into this one.

Great book

Stacy Green is a new author for me. I have really come to expect great things from her.

Too much like Dexter

This series reminds me too much of the series Dexter. A serial killer that kills bad guys. Just not my cup of tea. Too dark.

Distracting Narrator

This book might be better than I think. I was so distracted by the narrator. Don't let that discourage you from listening to it. I had to rewind a couple of times because I wasn't sure what was going on. She didn't change her voice when changing characters. If she did, I didn't notice it. I also couldn't tell if she was trying to do an accent or if that is how she talks. The pronunciations threw me off. The word "alone" was pronounced like uh-low-oone. Known was pronounced no-oone.

This is all petty on my part. Sometimes I like books with narrators I don't enjoy, but this was not one. I don't think I have it in me to continue the series on Audible. I do enjoy some of Stacy Green's other books, so I may actually read the next book in the series. If I have time.