Duckling by Eve Ainsworth

Publisher: Penguin

Released: 1st of April 2022

What if your neighbour asked you to watch her seven-year-old daughter for an afternoon, and didn't come back?

Lucy's life is small, but safe. Every day she goes to work, checks in on her unstable, alcoholic father, then spends her evenings watching old Columbo reruns, isolating herself away from the rest of the community on her South London estate.

Her routine is all that she can handle, given what happened in her past.

So when her new neighbour Cassie asks Lucy if she could look after her seven-year-old daughter Rubi, she is reluctant to agree.

Then when the hours pass, and then days, and Rubi's Mum doesn't come back, Lucy's worst-case-scenario is now her reality. Lucy is not only responsible for herself anymore. She is responsible for a scared little girl who needs her help.

Something has happened to Cassie, and Lucy must find her before it's too late.

What I Have to Say 

I enjoyed this book a lot. It's not my usual sort of book. I prefer contemporary YA, but it didn't have the sorts of things that put me off adult books (stress about jobs, worrying that they haven't done enough with their lives ect.) It was up to Ainsworth's usual quality of writing, had characters that I could really care about and love and had a great mystery element to it that was really great to read. 

The mystery was really the big thing about this book for me. It's what hooked me in and made me keep reading. It was well done, though perhaps not as gripping as I would have liked. But it was well set up and had a conclusion that really made sense. 

I loved Rubi so much. All the characters were great, but Rubi was really sweet. My favourite thing about her was how she kept listening in on all the adult conversations. 

In all, this was a great book. I'll definitely read more of Ainsworth's adult stuff in the future. 

My thanks go to Netgalley and Penguin for providing me with this copy for review.