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What Is The Twist At The End Of 'Then She Was Gone'?

I adore Lisa Jewell's thrillers but the reveal in 'Then She Was Gone' left me reeling. What clues did I miss about the disappearance and Laurel's obsession?
2026-07-27 19:22:10
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7 Answers

Best Answer
Jacob Wainwright
Jacob Wainwright
I was particularly surprised by the twist in 'Then She Was Gone' by Penny Parkes. It revealed that Laurel’s daughter Ellie had been manipulated by a woman called Noelle into running away from home and that she was then held captive by her. In fact it wasn’t until many years later that Noelle surfaced again, this time as one of Ellie’s teachers and still intent on getting close to Laurel. The revelation of the hidden identity of Noelle really stayed with me and it had a similar impact to the revelation in ‘Her Return, His Regret’ where the presumed dead wife returns after many years to discover that her husband has moved on and is now raising her and the wife’s own son as if he were the child of his new wife. The story powerfully explores the shock of that revelation and the difficult choices that are faced by the characters as they struggle to come to terms with what has happened.
2026-08-02
Uma
Uma
A punch in the gut to end Then She Was Gone. Floyd, the nice guy that Laurel starts to fall for? He is none other than the father of missing Ellie and the reason she went missing. He kept her for his own purposes, fathered a child with her (Poppy) and then brought that child up as his own daughter, with Laurel as mother. A twisted family situation that is shocking enough on its own, but even more so when Laurel discovers that Poppy is her granddaughter. Then She Was Gone cleverly makes you question every character in the story and switches the typical ‘missing girl’ story into a hunt for hidden monstrosity.
2026-07-28
Nhor Chiefe Tulayba
Nhor Chiefe Tulayba
Consider this twist from a genre perspective. It’s a deconstruction of the ‘missing person’ thriller, which is essentially a story about a search. The mystery drives the plot of the story, and in this case, the mystery is solved about two-thirds of the way through. The rest of the book is then a dealing with the consequences of that solution, and it becomes a much more character-driven and philosophically profound exploration of the events of the story. It’s a very satisfying deconstruction of the genre.

For those strictly after a puzzle-box mystery, this is a point at which the book might begin to disappoint. But for others, this is the start of the real book. It moves from wondering what has happened to considering the full implications of that for all of the characters affected by the dead person. A brave and rewarding decision.
2026-07-30
Paul Renteria
Paul Renteria
Some critics have found the coincidence of Laurel meeting the kidnapper to be too coincidental. But the coincidence of meeting another person in a big city is a random occurrence. The rest is Noelle's fuel for her obsessive, targeted manipulation once she realizes who Laurel is. Noelle engineered the chance meeting for her own ends, in a deliberate act of predation by the villain.

This twist is even creepier because it reveals the motivation behind Noelle’s actions. She engineered the chance meeting between herself and Laurel in order to get closer to the mother of the girl she stole. Perhaps she feels guilty, maybe she’s just curious or perhaps she even wants to control the narrative of events as they unfold. Whatever the reason, it makes the coincidence seem more plausible and much creepier than it would have otherwise been.
2026-08-01
Kevin
Kevin
This twist makes complete sense at the end of Then She Was Gone, but completely recontexturalizes the whole story before that. The whole novel has been a search by Laurel the mother for the truth about the disappearance of her little daughter Ellie some years before. But there is so much more to it than that. The man that Laurel has begun to fall for, Floyd, is Ellie’s father – a secret that has been kept from everyone including Laurel. But that is not the worst of it. Poppy, the daughter of Floyd’s current relationship, is also Ellie’s daughter – conceived against Ellie’s will whilst she was being held against her will by the controlling and obsessive Floyd.

Then, just as you have become comfortable with Floyd as a loving partner to Laurel, his true nature is revealed and the line between a charming manipulator and a monstrous killer is exposed. What is most disturbing is that his actions have led to Poppy being not only Laurel’s granddaughter but also the daughter of the man who held Ellie against her will all those years. We are forced to re-visit all of our previous impressions of the characters as the truth about Floyd is slowly revealed. It is only when the full extent of his manipulation is known that the true horror of his actions is revealed and we can see how he was able to use his charming and supportive nature to hide in plain sight while manipulating Laurel to further his own twisted needs.
2026-08-02

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