Anne Cassidy is a brilliant writer. Anyone who’s ever read Looking for JJ will know that – and her sequel, Finding Jennifer Jones, is equally wonderful. So when I was offered the chance to get my hands on her brand new Moth Girls, I jumped at it.
Mandy is haunted by her past. Five years ago at the age of twelve, her two best friends went into a house – and didn’t come out. They’ve not been seen since, alive or dead. And Mandy carries guilt like a weight around her shoulders, because she watched the girls go into the house and didn’t tell anyone where they were until five hours later.
Slowly, as the story unfolds, we start to unravel what happened the night the girls disappeared – and it both is and is not what we expected. Mandy is a beautifully complex character – desperate to know what happened but knowing too that her relationship with the two girls was far from perfect, or even friendly. And it becomes clear that the personalities of the missing Moth Girls – so called because they were drawn to this particular house like moths to the flame – are intrinsic to their disappearance.
It’s hard to say much more without giving away too much of the clever plot revelations – one of two of which had me open-mouthed, thinking, ‘I did NOT see that coming…’ It’s a story that unpeels the layers of humanity – and the final scenes do not disappoint. This is not a book that will leave you with questions; instead, it’ll leave you wrung-out and satisfied and wanting another Anne Cassidy book.
Jo Cotterill 