Finding Emma by Steena Holmes Review

About Finding Emma
Megan sees her daughter Emma everywhere. She's the little girl standing in the supermarket, the child waiting for the swings at the playground, the girl with ice cream dripping down her face. But it's never Emma.

Emma's been missing for two years.

Unable to handle the constant heartache of all the false sightings, Megan's husband threatens to walk away unless Megan can agree to accept Emma is gone. Megan's life and marriage is crumbling all around her and she realizes she may have to do the thing she dreads most: move on.

When Megan takes a photo of a little girl with an elderly couple at the town fair, she believes it to be her missing daughter. Unable to let go, she sets in motion a sequence of events that could destroy both families lives.

About Steena Holmes

Author of the new heart wrenching story "Finding Emma", Steena is a woman who believes that 'in the end, everything succumbs...to the passions of your heart'. 

She took those passions and made them a dream come true by pouring her heart into each of her stories. 
http://www.steenaholmes.com/

Read an Excerpt

FINDING EMMA ~ CHAPTER ONE

A child’s scream shattered the peaceful silence of the Sunday afternoon.

Megan shot up from the blanket, her heart hammering as she scanned the street in front of her. She groaned as two of her daughters squirted each other in a water gun fight as they came up the walkway. She’d dozed off. Again. The late nights working on Peter’s books had to stop. Yesterday she’d woken up to find Emma across the street at the neighbors’, half crawled into their dog house.

She glanced down at her youngest child who played with a dandelion on the blanket. Thank God, she was still there. Her three-year-old gazed in rapture at the sky.

“Red balloon, Momma?”

Megan twirled her fingers in Emma’s tight curls. “Later, honey.”

“Red, Momma. Red balloons,” Emma gestured towards the sky with her pudgy fingers. Megan turned her head and noticed the explosion of color that filled the air. Red, yellow and blue balloons danced with the breeze as they swept across the sky.

The annual carnival was here, just in time for the end of school celebration their small town always held. It was also Emma’s birthday. Megan wished for time to stand still. Her baby was growing too fast.

“Mom, can we have a popsicle?” Hannah shook droplets of water over Megan’s bare legs. She gasped at the coldness. Laughing, Megan jumped up and backed away from her soaked daughter only to find a giggling Emma clutched around her leg.

“Don’t you come any closer,” Megan had a hard time keeping the smile off her face before a sparkle of mischief lit up Hannah’s blue eyes as she lunged across the blanket. Laughing, Megan scooped up Emma, ran towards the front door and closed the screen in Hannah’s face. Alexis crossed the driveway, stepping over Megan’s gladiola and aimed the almost empty water gun at her older sister.

“Alexis Marie Taylor, if you douse your sister in more water, she’ll get your half of the popsicle,” Megan warned. Alexis’ eyes widened as she dropped the water gun on the grass and bounded across to the porch before placing her arms around Hannah’s shoulders.

“Would I do that?” Alexis tilted her head and beamed the most innocent smile Megan had ever seen.

Megan snorted. “No monkey business you two or Emma and I will eat your popsicles. Got it?” Megan narrowed her eyes and pursed her lips. Who knew, maybe the serious look would do the trick?

“Come on in and get dried off. Your dad should be home soon.” She opened the screen door for the girls to come in and then locked it. The past couple of days Emma had snuck outside behind Megan’s back to catch some butterflies. Or try to at least.

For dinner, they were going downtown to watch the parade and eat corn dogs, candied apples and cotton candy at the carnival. The girls were so excited. Peter had even promised the girls he’d win them each a stuffed teddy bear and Megan couldn’t wait to show Emma the clowns.

“Why don’t we play a game of hopscotch while we wait for your dad?” Megan called after the girls as they ran up the stairs to change. She loved being a mother, even though having three girls so close in age exhausted her. Being a mom fulfilled her in more ways than she thought possible.

“Hey, Em? How about we make some more lemonade? This time we’ll add less sugar.” She’d let the girls make it just after lunch and Alexis had almost dumped the whole container of sugar in the bowl.

The phone rang just as footsteps pounded down the stairs.

“Just going out to grab my hair band,” Hannah yelled.

“Lock the door when you come back in,” Megan called out just as the screen door slammed.

With the phone balanced between her shoulder and ear, Megan opened the fridge and rooted inside for the filtered water jug. She groaned when she realized it was empty. She’d forgotten to fill it after pouring a glass earlier. The automated message informed her that the Sears catalogue order was in. She frowned. She hadn’t ordered anything. When the automated voice repeated its message, Megan grabbed her daily calendar and flipped through the last few weeks to see if she’d written down anything. Weird. There was nothing in her notes.

A quick glance at the clock after hanging up the phone confirmed Peter should be home any minute.

“All right, pumpkin, let’s go change your pull-up and get ready to watch the parade. Just wait till you see the clowns—” Megan turned to towards Emma only to find herself talking to an empty room.

“Emma?” Megan walked into the living room fully expecting to find Emma in there, playing with her new ponies Peter had given her before he left for work.

The room was empty.

She retraced her steps and headed out to the hallway.

“Emma, are you upstairs? Girls, is your sister with you?” Megan took a step, gripped the railing and waited to hear Emma’s running footsteps. She didn’t remember hearing the slam of the screen door when Hannah came back in.

“Not here,” Hannah called out.

Startled, Megan took her foot off the step, glanced around and looked at the screen door. “Hannah, did you lock the door like I told you to?” She fought to keep the panic out of her voice as she ran across the hallway to the open door.

Megan couldn’t breathe.

Unlocked.

“Emma!” Megan ran outside calling her baby’s name. She stopped in the middle of the driveway and scanned the area. Nothing. She wasn’t chasing butterflies, pulling flowers out of the garden or playing with dandelions. She wasn’t anywhere.

Megan screamed as loud as she could as tears streamed down her face.

Emma was gone.
Excerpt from Steena Holmes website
http://www.steenaholmes.com/

My Thoughts
Finding Emma is a very moving and emotional story about what happens when a child goes missing. Imagine the fear, disbelief, anger and other emotional feelings that must be the norm in a situation like this and can threaten to tear apart a family. I can only imagine what this might feel like. Reading Finding Emma to me was very heartbreaking in that the author's writing made me feel all the feelings that Megan was feeling during the two years that Emma was missing. A true eyeopener of a novel. I highly recommend this book and give it 5 stars. 

Thanks go to the author and Tabitha at SparkPoint PR for a copy of this book for review. I was not monetarily compensated for my review.