Mumsnet book club: January book of the month, Elizabeth is Missing by Emma Healey. Join the discussion and put your questions to author Emma Healey on Wednesday 28 January, 9-10pm.

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Our January choice is a debut novel that comes with a whole heap of accolades: ELIZABETH IS MISSING is currently shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award 2014, and was shortlisted for the National Book Awards Popular Fiction Book of the Year 2014 and for the National Book Awards New Writer of the Year 2014. It also comes with high praise from previous Mumsnet web chatters Emma Donoghue and Jonathan Coe, among other fans. The book is narrated by Maud, who suffers from dementia, but knows that something has happened to her friend Elizabeth. Clues and mysteries are interwoven with her childhood memories, as Maud's confused mind jumps between past and present. It is a gripping suspense story, as well as a compassionate portrait of a 'missing' woman's struggle to find the truth.

You can find out more at our www.mumsnet.com/books/bookclub/2015/elizabeth-is-missing-emma-healey, or at Emmas's own website.

If you weren't lucky enough to bag one of the free books we have given away, you can always get a copy here.

We are delighted that Emma will be joining us on Wednesday 28 January, 9-10pm to discuss Elizabeth Is Missing, her tips on writing plus much more. Please feel free to discuss the book here throughout the month (avoiding spoilers if possible) and then come and meet Emma on the night, and ask her a question or simply tell her what you thought of the book.

Look forward to seeing you here on the 28th.

Totally amazing book. You need to start it on a day when you're not busy! I read it in one hit. Gorgeous, moving, clever, poignant. It stays with you afterwards.

Ooh by coincidence I have just bought this Book. Looking forward to getting into it now

Read this before xmas. I loved the way half way through i had NO idea what was going on and which narrative was happening. Of course this totally mirrored the experience of the Maud, but was done so subtly.

Emma - would you recommend that people with relatives with dementia read this book or not?

I'm halfway through and absolutely loving it.

Still waiting on my copy. Got an email saying I have got a copy and being sent out but not here yet!

My copy arrived today ! I am thrilled and will start it tonight when it's quiet.
I have been so looking forward to reading it

My copy arrived today - thank you Mumsnet.
I am not reading any posts on this thread until I have finished it!

Received an e-mail to say that I would receive a copy of this book by end of last week but as yet this has still not arrived. As I work full time, not sure I will get the opportunity to read before discussion day, but looking forward to reading it when it does arrive.

Got my copy this morning (thank you!) and have read the first couple of pages. Can't wait to read more and to discuss it!

I've read this and really enjoyed it. If anyone would like my copy please pm me and I'll post it on.

My copy arrived today & already I am on chapter 5, & can't put it down. It is such a different book to what I have read before. I would like to ask Emma what experience she has of dementia, & what formatted the idea of writing a novel with this thread going through it?

Received my copy today

Got my copy today thanks both my dad and father in law had dementia part of me is apprehensive to read it . will report back

I'm mid way through (not via mumsnet) and I love it - it's very accurate from the outside - Elizabeth's actions seen by the other people are really in line with my experiences. What I'm interested in is the internal monologue - Elizabeth is self aware (the daughter pretending to strangle her for example) but I'm not sure that her dementia frightens her in the way that I would have thought. Maybe that changed but at the moment she seems quite contented.

Got my copy today, will do my absolute best to read and join the chat. Starting tonight...

Got my copy today. Good timing as I'm planning on sitting on the sofa most of the day nursing my broken toe

Got my copy yesterday will start it tonight x

Got a copy from my sister - both loved it. Hooked from the beginning, didn't feel like a first book at all. Lots to think about through portrayal of dementia, felt very sensitively done

I'm more than 3/4 through it now. It's simply brilliant and also heartbreaking with its portrayal of dementia. I hope to God I never get it.

Weirdly, my mum is having the same experience reading it : that Maud is more amnesiac than suffering dementia. Very interesting hearing others with different views.

Received my copy 2 days ago and have just read the first chapter, now dying to put the kids to bed so I can keep reading! My grandmother and FIL both suffered from dementia and it is very interesting to be inside Maud's head. What a horrible condition to be in.

Hoping to be able to join the chat, date is in the diary!

only second chapter in but still cant wait to in ... bargain buy in sainsburys! !

Got my free copy, thanks Munster, and finished it in a day. Really enjoyed it, although I found it emotional at times.
Will be back to pose my questions for Emma, as don't want to type spoilers just yet.

Just finished! Took me a day and a half. Gorgeously written, so descriptive and emotive. Reminiscent of Maragret Atwood.
It caught my eye on the shelf in WHS, so pleased I managed to bag a copy!
Dementia features in our family too, and at times I read with tears streaming down my cheeks. Simply wonderful.

Thanks to Mumsnet and Penguin Books for my free copy of Elizabeth is Missing. I was very happy to get the chance to read the book of the moment. It has received incredible reviews. Good on author Emma Healey for such amazing success with her first book.
But, sad to say, I was so disappointed. I genuinely do not understand its rapturous reception. There is no doubt Emma Healey is a good writer, her sentences are beautiful and packed with evocative detail. But I did not get this book.
Heroine Maud, who has dementia, is patronised by the people around her, including her dutiful but impatient daughter, her granddaughter (who cannot understand why an old person such as her grandmother does not like the music of Vera Lynn), and her carers. This is really well portrayed.
The author says her grandmother, who had dementia, inspired her to write the book.
Staff www.alzheimers.org.uk/site/scripts/documents_info.php?documentID=2729&pageNumber=6
and carers forum.alzheimers.org.uk/showthread.php?73180-Elizabeth-is-missing on the Alzheimer’s Society website have praised it.
But for me there is an essential problem at the heart of the book, which is written from Maud’s point of view. She is depicted as forgetful but with an articulate insightful inner voice. It is fair to point out that just because Maud has dementia, it does not mean she is wrong about everything, including the plight of her friend Elizabeth. (Or is she?)
However, we do not know inside the minds of people who have dementia, so for me this made the book unconvincing and lacking credibility.
I was also not keen on the flashbacks to Maud’s life as a young woman and the mystery surrounding her sister Sukey.
But I seem to be in the minority!