Literature in A Cup: Then She Was Gone

Welcome to our eighth month of Literature In A Cup! We are SO glad you’re reading with us.  We are shifting gears into “March Mystery Month” for this pairing! 

Here’s what we have brewing:

On the bookshelf: Then She Was Gone by Lisa Jewell

On the kettle: Cleanse

Then She Was Gone review:

4/5 teacups

Laurel was your average mother of three teenagers. She was packing lunches, arranging tutors, and staying up waiting for her kids to return home. She did this until one day, in broad daylight, her youngest daughter Ellie never came back. 

Then She Was Gone takes place ten years after fifteen-year-old Ellie Mack goes missing. The family still doesn’t have any answers and the police are no longer looking. Laurel Mack, Ellie’s mother has spent the past ten years wracked by grief. The pain of losing her daughter broke her marriage, and irreparably strained her relationships with her two other children. 

She goes through life on autopilot, until one day she meets a man named Floyd in a cafe. Her and Floyd hit it off immediately. But as time goes on, she realizes that Floyd’s nine-year-old daughter reminds her an awful lot of Ellie, and that Floyd himself shares a striking resemblance to her ex-husband Paul. 

Then She Was Gone throws you headfirst into the mystery as you try to figure out what happened to Ellie Mack all those years ago. Why would a seemingly happy, carefree teenager disappear in the middle of the day on the way to a library? Why does Floyd’s daughter remind Laurel so much of Ellie? And what are Floyd’s true intentions for Laurel? 

This book is equal parts about pain and love. It’s about how grief can hit like an earthquake and how some families never recover. How can you move on when the worst thing you can imagine happening to you happens? And what if the happy future you think you’ve grabbed onto simply hurdles you violently back into the past? 

Then She Was Gone is dark and deeply addictive. It will have you narrowing your eyes as you question even the most innocent character’s intentions. So come join us, enjoy the twists and turns as we embark on our inaugural “March Mystery Month.”

About the book and tea pairing:

Then She Was Gone is a page-turning thriller that will have you up all night. It can be brutal at times and will leave you on the edge of your seat. When you’ve finished a particularly gnarly chapter, you’ll probably feel like you need to CLEANSE yourself of what you just read. That’s why we paired this book with our Cleanse tea. 

Cleanse is a pu’erh tea with licorice and dandelion root that will help rid your body of toxins. Your brain and body will need a bit of cleansing after the dramatic twists and turns of this book. 

Pick up your copy of Then She Was Gone and your Cleanse Tea and let’s celebrate “March Mystery Month” together.

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