This is a perfect review for this book from Goodreads: After reading the other two books by Kathy Hepinstall, I was excited about reading this one. Though different from the other two, the book still flows poetically with descriptions of place and time that take the reader back to the early seventies and into the world of a young child. Maybe that's part of why I liked this book so well...it's told from the innocence of a twelve year old but with the knowing of a smart young girl who knows she's in trouble but is fairly helpless to do anything about it.
On a day of picnicking with their mother Meg, Alice and Boone watch as a stranger saves Meg from near drowning. But from the beginning, Alice doesn't trust the man. As he becomes closer to being part of the family, the children find out just how cruel the man is. Each deals with it in their own way...Alice sacrifices things to some invisible God she's unsure about and Boone prays to his the God of heaven, preferring to find the goodness in their new stepfather while Alice just wants him gone.
As the stepfather becomes angrier and more volatile, so too does the premonition that something bad could happen. When their mother one day tells them to run away, they do so in fear of what their stepfather might do. Hiding out by the lake on a hidden island with an teenage girl who escaped from the mental hospital, the two must decide what to do.
As in the other books, there are subtly told twists that make the story even better to read (one I knew soon and one I never saw coming). The only part I had a hard time dealing with was the spousal and child abuse, but I have a hard time with that anyway. For this book, those descriptions were needed to tell the story.
This is definitely one I recommend for anyone.
Here is another review:
https://www.curledup.com/absence.htm