99 Red Balloons: A chillingly clever psychological thriller with a stomach-flipping twist

99 Red Balloons: A chillingly clever psychological thriller with a stomach-flipping twist
Elisabeth Carpenter

Two girls go missing, decades apart. What would you do if one was your daughter?Eight-year-old Grace is last seen in a sweetshop. Her mother Emma is living a nightmare. But as her loved ones rally around her, cracks begin to emerge. What are the emails sent between her husband and her sister? Why does her mother take so long to join the search? And is there more to the disappearance of her daughter than meets the eye?Meanwhile, ageing widow Maggie Sharples sees a familiar face in the newspaper. A face that jolts her from the pain of her existence into a spiralling obsession with another girl – the first girl who disappeared…This is a gripping psychological thriller with a killer twist that will take your breath away.

LIBBY CARPENTER

99 RED BALLOONS

Copyright (#u56ce724e-b8f8-55b8-af88-60fbddb6ef0d)

Published by Avon

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

195 Broadway

New York

NY 10007

www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins 2017

Copyright © Elisabeth Carpenter 2017

Elisabeth Carpenter asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008223519

Ebook Edition © August 2017 ISBN: 9780008264024

Version: 2017-07-25

Dedication (#u56ce724e-b8f8-55b8-af88-60fbddb6ef0d)

For Dad

Table of Contents

Cover (#u73e73173-1471-59a3-9fb2-f29ce81e65bd)

Title Page (#u65fc1c36-6da8-5e4f-9017-f54b7870e2ed)

Copyright (#u9a9901db-1cb6-5799-89bb-845f29a7f6ca)

Dedication (#ubeab6d90-70cd-5a0d-891d-1289a439e61c)

Chapter One (#u89ab3bb0-a559-5153-bc1c-055da8c20b0c)

Chapter Two: Stephanie (#u76957f68-917d-5c8b-bdf8-3a7d8a154988)

Chapter Three: Maggie (#u13f7ca2f-669d-575e-9ef4-d2d4cc160b9e)

Chapter Four: Stephanie (#u6aae8076-5ebf-5e97-aaf5-851097c6fcbf)

Chapter Five (#u7e49dc8d-c22d-598a-a80f-65105a1aba3b)

Chapter Six: Maggie (#udf3cba51-c678-59fe-9486-2dd6f3cbea50)

Chapter Seven (#u137fa041-0633-542f-a019-2ab862415e13)

Chapter Eight: Stephanie (#uca144b44-8ae0-5497-b0c5-bcf70f50c1a7)

Chapter Nine (#uad1ecfda-f8ae-5d55-a736-05fc89328a8d)

Chapter Ten: Maggie (#ubd81ad0c-7380-5590-a97e-1b62da4fc685)

Chapter Eleven: Stephanie (#u7753ec22-00d0-56c8-be1d-8ae342f52973)

Chapter Twelve: Maggie (#ubf1be635-39f2-563c-b1e0-42da7bb0a18a)

Chapter Thirteen: Stephanie (#u584f0ab6-07b8-57c2-a574-1d690d04d5f0)

Chapter Fourteen (#u9e4af4d0-429b-5f5d-95d5-33cff67dceef)

Chapter Fifteen: Stephanie (#ub2c37755-03e3-57e4-9072-13bc80d7d362)

Chapter Sixteen: Maggie (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Eighteen: Maggie (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Nineteen: Stephanie (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twenty: Maggie (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twenty-One (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twenty-Two: Maggie (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twenty-Three: Stephanie (#litres_trial_promo)