Fiona Longmuir: Looking for Emily (Nosy Crow 2022)
Lily Hargan moves to a small seaside town with her mother. That sounds good, but in reality Edge is such a small town that if you drive by and blink, you’ve already passed it. It is nice and quiet, but Lily loved the noise of the city and the fact that there were so many people she didn’t know, so she could make up stories about them. In Edge, everyone knows each other. She doesn’t make friends at school either, so only the books remain because you can’t be disappointed in them. However, one day she finds a secret museum that introduces the life of an ordinary girl, Emily. The girl lived in the city years ago, but disappeared without a trace. Lily decides to find out what happened to her. In the meantime, she even finds friends.
I really liked the atmosphere of the book and the writing style. Both the characters and the mystery were authentic. What caught me the most was the way the story showed how close the people living on the coast are to the sea and how much it affects their lives.
Fiona Longmuir was born in Scotland and soon after that she picked up a pencil and hasn’t really put it down since. She writes her stories about introverted children, for which she can also use her own experience. Looking for Emily is her debut novel, but I hope to read a lot more from her.
