The Return of Ellie Black
Detective Chelsey Calhoun has spent her career chasing missing girls, haunted by the sister who disappeared when they were teenagers. Then Ellie Black, a girl who vanished two years earlier, walks out of the woods of Washington State alive. Ellie will not say where she was, who took her, or who she is protecting. As Chelsey works to earn Ellie's trust and unravel the truth, the story moves between the present investigation and what Ellie endured during her captivity. Emiko Jean builds a tense, emotional thriller about survival, sisterhood, and the long shadow of trauma, with twists that build to a hard final stretch.
What you might want to know about The Return of Ellie Black
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
A detective whose own sister vanished years ago investigates a missing teenager who has suddenly reappeared from the Washington woods and will not say where she has been.
Yes. Stephen King praised it as a page-turning suspense novel he could not put down until he had read every twist.
The Return of Ellie Black was written by Emiko Jean, published in 2024 by Simon & Schuster.
The Return of Ellie Black is 320 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, The Return of Ellie Black takes most readers 5 to 7 hours to finish.
The Return of Ellie Black is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.
