And Then She Vanished is the first book in the Joseph Bridgeman series by Nick Jones. While fourteen-year-old Joseph was busy trying to win his adored little sister Amy a plush toy at the 1997 King’s fun fair in Cheltenham, she vanished. No one saw where the seven-year-old went, and she was never found so, Joseph reasons, she could still be alive, somewhere.

Twenty-three years on, his mum is in a care facility with dementia, his dad absent, and his accountant and good friend, Martin is telling him the family home is in danger of repossession. Joseph is again plagued with the nightmares that replay the moment of Amy’s disappearance. It’s playing havoc with his sleep, and his online antiques business, usually assisted by his psychometric ability, is suffering.

Just to please Martin, he sees hypnotherapist, Alexia Finch, who teaches him a somewhat successful relaxation technique. In a bizarre side-effect, or maybe coincidentally, he finds he’s time travelling. He’s not quite sure how it works, so he’s being cautious not to change anything, but his immediate thought is to return to 1997 and prevent Amy from vanishing.

Needing to learn more about it, he does a few jumps back in time, sorting out his immediate financial problems in one instance, but his return to 1997 is too short to learn anything. He takes his good friend, Vinny into his confidence. Vinny is excited and enthusiastic, but ultimately Joe decides he needs the expertise of his friend, Mark D’Stellar, a Professor of Mathematical Sciences.

While Vinny took little convincing, Mark needs a demo, but then both are on board to help him save his little sister, with good advice, support and theory on how and why. Dreams of Amy, and his psychometric ability (visions from objects) help to narrow down the search, but even following Mark’s logical suggestions, Joe fails. Something else is needed…

In this first book of the series, Jones gives the reader an intriguing mystery with a clever twist, and time travel that’s not too complicated to follow. His characters are fairly likeable, with believable quirks and flaws, and it will be interesting to see where the second book, The Shadows Of London, takes them. A very enjoyable time-travel mystery.