The Missing Half Audiobook by Ashley Flowers, Alex Kiester – contributor

There’s something about late-night rain—the kind that taps insistently on your window and makes you feel suspended between worlds. That’s exactly the mood I found myself in while listening to The Missing Half by Ashley Flowers and Alex Kiester, cocooned in my little Portland reading nook as the city slipped quietly into darkness. And wow, did this audiobook match the weather: heavy with grief, thrumming with tension, shot through with an intimacy so raw it almost made me flinch.

Ashley Flowers—whose voice I know from Crime Junkie—dives fearlessly into the trauma of unresolved loss. Here, we meet Nic Monroe: twenty-four years old and emotionally stalled since her sister Kasey disappeared seven years ago. Nic isn’t “plucky heroine” material; she’s battered by guilt, isolated from life (and herself), stumbling through days numbed out by pain—a portrait heartbreakingly familiar if you’ve ever grieved someone whose story didn’t get closure.

The arrival of Jenna Connor feels like oxygen flooding a suffocating room. Like Nic, Jenna carries scars—a parallel loss that draws these two strangers together for one desperate purpose: finding out what really happened to their sisters. Their alliance is not neat or convenient; instead, it pulses with messy urgency and suspicion as they excavate buried secrets in a town that seems determined to forget.

One thing I truly appreciated was how real both women felt—their fragility, their anger at each other and themselves, even the clumsy hope that blooms when they realize they’re no longer alone in their search. It reminded me painfully of friendships forged during hard chapters of my own life: unlikely but necessary lifelines.

The plot itself is crafted with meticulous patience—a slow burn where every conversation could hide a clue or misdirection. There are times you want to shake Nic for hesitating or yell at Jenna for charging ahead—but these flaws only deepen your investment. By midpoint I was suspicious of everyone (my dog included) because Flowers drops red herrings like breadcrumbs… yet still managed to pull off a twist so devastating it actually had me pausing playback just to breathe.

Narration is everything in audiobooks like this—and Saskia Maarleveld (with Ashley Flowers herself joining) absolutely nails it. Maarleveld channels Nic’s exhausted resignation without overplaying it; every sigh lands like an admission of defeat you wish you could take away from her character. Meanwhile, Jenna’s determination simmers underneath each line—an edge that keeps things moving even when the world feels frozen around them.

What struck me most was how much silence mattered here—not just literal pauses between sentences but narrative gaps where emotions pooled and tension simmered unseen beneath everyday interactions. Those moments made the story feel less like entertainment and more like eavesdropping on two women mid-breakdown…and possibly mid-breakthrough.

My only small quibble? Sometimes the pacing dips into bleakness long enough that I worried we’d never see daylight again—but honestly, that’s also true to real-life cold cases: some truths come slow or don’t come at all.

Ultimately though? The Missing Half left me gutted—in awe of its emotional honesty yet haunted by its refusal to tidy up pain just for catharsis’ sake. If you love dark mysteries steeped in psychological realism—and don’t mind losing sleep over impossible questions—you’ll find yourself replaying this one long after its final reveal rolls past your ears like distant thunder fading down wet pavement.