Book Review - Little Face

Little Face - Sophie Hannah

She's only been gone two hours.
Her husband was supposed to be looking after their two-week-old daughter. But when Alice Fancourt walks into the nusery, her terrifying ordeal begins, for Alice insists the baby in the cot is a stranger she's never seen befrore.

With an increasingly hostile and menacing David swearing she must either be mad or lying, how can Alice make the police believe her before it's too late?

When I started reading this book, I was unsure. I knew straight away that it was nothing like anything I'd read before, and nothing like what I'm used to reading which is Chick Lits. I'm not going to lie, I'm used to reading books within a week or two at the most, and this book did take me two months too read. It took a while to get into the book and so I wasn't making it a huge priority to finish it (and plus I've been revising for exams and stuff) but recently I've had trouble putting it down. I think it was from about Chapter 21 onwards which I enjoyed it the most.

The book starts off from the point of view of Alice Fancourt. You find out a bit of background to her, and the fact that she had a troubled birth to her daughter (however you don't find out much about this). Alice hasn't left the house she lives in since the birth but she ventures out. However, when she returns home she finds the front door open, her husband fast asleep in the bedroom and her daughter missing. Well, Alice is adamant that the baby in the cot is not her daughter, Florence. This is where the first chapter ends and we move onto the second chapter which is set a week ahead and is written in 3rd person, but is mainly about Detective Simon Waterhouse. We find out in this chapter that Alice and the baby have gone missing. The book is set out in this layout, a chapter from the point of view of Alice, a chapter about Simon a week later, trying to find Alice. It took a little while to get used to this chaptered format but after a while I got used to it. The book uncovers a hidden mystery to Alice's new family, David Fancourt and his mother Vivienne Fancourt, of who Alice and David live with. In the third chapter David insists that the baby of which Alice claims isn't their daughter, is their daughter Florence. I found myself switching between who I thought was telling the truth throughout the book. We also found out pretty soon into the book about Laura Cryer, David's ex wife who was murdered ourside the house of Vivienne Fancourt. This happened years before, and a man was jailed for the murder but when Alice goes missing, Simon brings up the case again and he comes up with a new theory to the murder of Laura Cryer.

The book had many surprises which shocked and surprised me, some which I liked, some which I didn't. I love the twist to do with Laura's death, and how little hints are given out throughout the book, and then Simon places all the pieces together and I was sat here going 'how didn't I realise this then!?!?!'.

A great book with a fantastic twist to events. I'm looking forward to reading other books by Sophie Hannah in the future, but hopefully will get into them more quickly than I did to this book.