Joan's picks: All the Colours of the Dark and Storm Child

All the Colours of the Dark by Chris Whitaker: A truly immersive thriller which begins in 1975 when young girls are going missing from a small town in Missouri. Patch Macauley and Saint Brown are best friends - and lonely teenage misfits whose lives are forever changed when Patch gets caught up in one such abduction. They carry the ramifications of that through almost 30 years in lives which are affected by the trauma and see them both constantly searching for something - and someone. This is big, epic, and brilliant. Storm Child by Michael Robotham: This is the 4th and final book in the Cyrus Vance series by this author. Cyrus is a psychologist with his own trauma, who in the first book discovered Evie, a young girl who had been hiding in a room after a particularly violent and unpleasant time in captivity. He works with her to try and help her lead a normal life, but in this latest instalment that all comes crashing down when they’re at the beach and see 17 bodies wash up from a refugee boat which capsized at sea, which brings all Evie’s own memories flooding back. Michael Robotham is a terrific writer – these books are great and I was very sorry to be saying goodbye to Cyrus and Evie. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.