What Is Mine by Lyn Liao Butler
What's It About?
The search for a missing boy entwines the lives of two desperate women. One seeks redemption for her sister; the other will do anything for the love of her life.Hope Chen’s heart is shattered when she receives the tragic news that her sister, Cassidy, who disappeared from her life nine years earlier has turned up dead. Luckily, she is comforted by the presence of her 9-year-old nephew, Luca, whom she and her husband must take care of in her sister’s absence. Then her world turns into a living nightmare when, two months later, Luca disappears from their driveway without a trace.
In another household, a woman is about to lose the love of her life. And she is desperate to keep him with her. She must keep him happy to keep him with her, even if it includes going against the law. If she doesn’t, she risks losing the only person who has ever truly loved her.
What Is Mine is a suspenseful thriller written by Lyn Liao Butler. Butler plunges readers into a gripping story that explores the desperate lengths one would go to keep what belongs to them. The narrative covers thematic elements of family dysfunction, substance abuse, murder and mental health. In this suspenseful thriller, one woman’s desperate search for a missing boy intertwines with another’s desperate attempt to keep what she believes is rightfully hers.
Gripping and Atmospheric Suspense
As Hope races against time to unravel the mysteries surrounding her sister’s death and her nephew’s disappearance, Butler adeptly plays with the blurred lines between reality and imagination, creating an atmosphere of suspense that kept me captivated until the final pages. The author skillfully integrates the past and present of both the protagonist and antagonist, gradually unveiling the unsettling events that connected their lives.
Through What Is Mine, Butler employed her incredible skill in captivating the reader’s attention with her evocative writing style. Emotional internal dialogues like “I knew I didn’t want to remember, to remember what I had done, because to admit the truth would be like ripping the skin off my body piece by piece until there was nothing left to protect my core,” enhanced the intensity of the plot and allowed me to connect and empathize with the characters.
Butler skillfully brought to life nuanced and relatable characters weaved within an interesting plot that involves one character’s guilt-ridden determination to uncover the mysteries surrounding the disappearance of her nephew and the devastating consequences of another character’s obsessive and misguided quest for happiness. I appreciated how the author skillfully delved into the antagonist’s complex character, revealing the scars of childhood overshadowed by the inherent obsession over keeping their loved one happy above all else.
Must-Read for Fans of Psychological Thrillers
I also loved the portrayal of Hope: a resilient aunt on a frantic search for her beloved nephew, who is grappling with guilt over what she believes is her inability to save and protect her little sister. As Hope navigates through the nightmare of Luca’s disappearance, Butler deftly explores her resilience and determination to uncover the truth, even if it means confronting the demons of her sister’s unsettling past.
In conclusion, Lyn Liao Butler’s What Is Mine delves into the complicated nature of human desperation, misguided intentions, the devastating effect of substance abuse on family, and the lengths to which people will go to save the ones they love. This book is a must-read for readers who appreciate psychological thrillers with a mix of family drama. Gillian Flynn and Paula Hawkins fans may also find What Is Mine an entertaining read.
About Lyn Liao Butler:
Lyn Liao Butler is a Taiwanese American author of thrillers, upmarket fiction, and rom-coms. Her most recent thriller, Someone Else’s Life, was an Amazon bestseller and her second book, Red Thread of Fate, was a finalist in the WFWA Star Awards for 2023. Before becoming an author, she was a professional ballet and modern dancer, and is still a fitness and yoga instructor.
When not writing, she enjoys spending time with her FDNY husband, their son, one rescue dachshund and a myriad of foster dogs, sewing for her Etsy shop, and trying complicated yoga poses on a stand-up paddle board. So far, she has not fallen into the water yet.
