The Birthday Party — Shalini Boland

A party. A nightmare. A child gone without a trace.It started out as a party: six little girls gliding and giggling at the ice rink to celebrate Natalie’s daughter’s eighth birthday.But by Natalie’s next head count, it’s turned into a crime scene. Six children went onto the ice—and now there are just five. Nobody saw her niece, Elle, being taken. Nobody saw the person in a cartoon costume lure her quietly away.Traumatised by what happened on her watch, Natalie spends the next decade supporting her sister, Jo, as the years since Elle’s abduction tick by. But as the tenth anniversary approaches, Jo becomes convinced that someone is stalking her—someone who knows the truth about that day on the ice.As long-buried secrets start to surface, the sisters must relive the horror of losing Elle—and watch the world as they know it shatter before their eyes.