Book Review: After She's Gone by Lisa Jackson

If you like mysteries with a slow burn, you’ll like After She’s Gone by Lisa Jackson. The book centers on the Kramer family: Cassie, Allie, and mom Jenna, all actresses. When the sisters were teenagers, a stalker of Jenna’s almost killed them all.

Fast forward to the present, Cassie is a struggling actress, while Allie is a star…a missing star. She failed to show up for shooting a last minute script re-write, and her body double ended up getting shot for real during the scene.

As the possibly jealous sister, Cassie is suspect number one. Only problem is she is slightly unstable and has periods of memory loss.

Determined to get to the bottom of her sister’s disappearance, she checks herself out of the Portland psych ward she had checked herself into, and starts looking for Allie. Her only ally is her not-quite-ex husband, Trent, who was rumored to have had an affair with Allie.

Yeah, it’s a twisted heap of relationships in Cassie’s life, and her only clues to Allie’s disappearance are the actors and crew from the movie who are in no hurry to help Cassie.

Once the pieces of the puzzle fall into place, a twist throws your suspicions in a totally different direction, before the story ends not entirely happily ever after.

I’ll be honest, at times the writing felt like a Lifetime movie of the week, and there were chunks of descriptive prose that really didn’t add to the story. But overall, the suspense is solid and you most likely will not see the ending coming. This would be a good beach read.

This is also book two in what the author subtitles the “West Coast Series). Ther first, Deep Freeze, tells the story of what happened to the family when Jenna’s stalker went on a killing rampage.

I would give After She’s Gone by Lisa Jackson 3 1/2 stars out of 5.

Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book for review purposes via NetGalley. As always, my opinions are my own. There are also affiliate links used in this review which help pay for this site at no additional cost to you.

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I'm Michelle Snow, the writer and creator of Zengrrl. I write about travel, entertainment, women's issues, health, body positivity, and more, both for this blog and freelance. I have also authored/co-authored four guidebooks on Orlando and Florida. If you aren't already following me, the links are below, as well as on the top right of this page. Thanks!