Dear Child by Romy Hausmann

Today I’d like to talk about Dear Child by the German author Romy Hausmann. I’m typically not a big ‘psychological thriller’ person, but there’s always an exception to the rule and Dear Child is one. Hausmann is a former TV screen writer turned author and lives in a small cabin in a remote forest in Germany. She has written two books, only one of which, Dear Child, has been translated into English and which won the 2019 Crime Cologne Award honoring a detective novel that has been published in the original German language, is convincing in terms of language, subject matter and psychology and offers exciting entertainment at an outstanding level. Her second novel is Marta is Sleeping and has only been published in Germany.

One reviewer said that Dear Child is “…the kind of book you are best not knowing too much about before reading” so I’m not going to say too much about the plot.

4,993 days ago Lena Beck, age 23, disappeared in the early hours of the morning after making a phone call to a friend and was never heard from again. Now, a woman also named Lena, escaped her abductor, only to be hit by a car and taken to the hospital. Alongside her was her daughter Hannah. As the story unfolds, Lena smashed in the head of her unknown abductor to the point he is unrecognizable. She had been imprisoned in an isolated windowless cabin in the woods along with two children, 13-year-old Hannah and her 11-year-old brother Jonathan. The cabin had a system to recycle air. The abductor had total control over their lives, determining times they could use the bathroom, eat meals, study, etc.

When Lena’s parents, Matthias and Karin are notified by the police of Lena’s accident, they rush to the hospital only to find that the accident victim isn’t their Lena. However, Hannah is the spitting image of their missing daughter at age 13. Eventually, DNA confirms that Hannah is Matthias’ and Karin’s granddaughter. How could Hannah be related to them if Hannah’s mother isn’t their daughter?

The story is told in three voices: Lena as she comes to terms with her freedom but who has not escaped from her ordeal, Hannah who might be on the autism spectrum and whose ‘normal’ is everyone else’s abnormal and who must learn to exist in an entirely new environment and Matthias who has never lost hope that Lena will be found and who must now take care of his granddaughter. All three narrators are hiding something, however, that could help identify the dead man and bring closure to this harrowing nightmare.

The tension, sometimes nail biting, in Dear Child builds throughout. Dear Child is not only a mystery/thriller in the sense we need to identify the unknown abductor, but it is also a psychological study of how people of all ages, teenage Hannah, new adult Lena and middle-aged Matthias react to and recover from deep trauma. Each has their own mechanism to face the truth as they know it. It is also a book about inner strength.

It is interesting to note that, as I said before, the author herself, lives in a remote cabin in the forest.

Dear Child has often been compared to Emma Donoghue’s book Room (which I haven’t read).

If you are looking for something different, something psychological, something intriguing, I’d highly suggest Dear Child by Romy Hausmann. I am anxiously awaiting the publication of Marta is Sleeping in English. And while I wait, I’ve picked up Marked for Revenge, the second book by Emilie Schepp after Marked for Life, which I’ve written about earlier.