Story for the Week
Who do you allow access for tracking your location? Is it ok for your spouse to always know where you are, or is that an invasion of privacy? What about a parent tracking their minor child? Every once in a while, this heated debate pops up on social media. Almost everyone lands firmly on one side or the other—safety first or invasion of privacy. Very few people settle in the middle of those two options.
We bought Corinne her first cell phone in grade school. Near the end of the school year for fourth grade, Corinne’s class was taking a field trip without parent chaperones. Dennis was more than a little over-protective. He immediately looked into buying her a phone. Verizon offered a deal at the time where we could get a new line with an iPhone for a penny.
We called her into the room to select a color, and she was over-the-moon excited. She had asked for a phone multiple times. We always told her that she didn’t need one because she was either with us, at school, or with my parents, so she had access to a phone. When we explained to her why we were getting it that time, she informed us that the teachers had already told them no cell phones. Since we had already told her we were buying it, though, we felt that we had to follow through.
In fifth grade, Corinne started taking a bus from her grade school to the middle school for band twice a week. So at the end of the day, it turned out to be a worthwhile purchase. And she was really good about leaving it in her backpack during the school day, so we didn’t worry there.
As she got more and more involved in after-school activities, we learned about Life 360, an app that allowed you to create a circle of people to share locations. You could set it to notify you when someone arrived at a specific location—home, school, and (in our case) Grandma and Grandpa’s. For me, I didn’t need to see where she was 24/7. I wanted to know that she got to the places we expected. Safety first.
Life 360 morphed into Family 360, which has now rebranded as Family Nest. Same app, new name, same functionality. I added my dad to our circle a couple of years ago when he wasn’t answering my calls one day. He’s older now and lives alone, and sometimes as an adult child, your mind kind of goes to worst-case scenario. I feel better knowing I can see where he is…or at least where his phone is.
Corinne and I have talked about how parents can’t help but see their kids as the children they used to be. And it doesn’t matter how old our kids get or how old we get. Parents worry. Heck, we took a road trip about five years ago. My dad checked in on us several times every day…said to make sure we let him know when we got to each destination for the night. And I was 55 at the time! No matter how old our kids get, they’re still our kids. I think we all agree on that.
Most of the time, though, we don’t think about Family Nest. I never track Corinne’s location just to be nosy or to invade her privacy. However, I do use it if I want her to stop somewhere for me. 🫣 In fact, I remember one weekend when she was coming home from a school event, and I was hungry. I didn’t want to cook or go out, so I checked her location. Then I looked on Google Maps, figured out which restaurants she would pass, and called her to ask her to stop. 🤭
But sometimes…sometimes I check because moms worry. A few weeks ago, she left for school and mentioned she might stop at Starbuck’s. She orders in the app, but her order could take five minutes or 15 depending on how busy they are.
About 20 minutes after she left, I heard sirens. Normally, I don’t pay attention to the outdoor traffic when I’m working. That day, I checked her location. She was on the highway driving at a normal speed. I chuckled to myself, and then I called her. She answered hesitantly, thinking she had forgotten something because she had just left home and I don’t typically call her on her way to school.
I explained that I just thought of this idea for the blog post to go with this book (reviewed below). I wanted her to understand how a parent’s mind works. (And I knew I would forget to tell her if I waited until later.🤷🏼♀️)
When I hear sirens and know she just left or should be arriving home soon, I check her location. I make sure she’s moving. I make sure she’s not where the sirens are. When I told her, we both laughed. And it surprised her to hear I had checked her location like that before. I just hadn’t mentioned it in the past.
She said, “Well wait…do you check because you really think something happened to me?” I explained that I don’t assume something happened. I’m not normally a worst-case scenario person. (That was her dad’s job.) I want to ensure that she is what I call “outside of siren range.” Because on that particular day, knowing she planned to stop, and hearing the sirens and which direction they were heading…. She absolutely could have been in the vicinity. She wasn’t, but she could have been.
Family Nest would not have helped the characters in the book below, but how a parent might think, what a parent might worry about, totally spot on. And Corinne understands that the app on our phones sharing our locations isn’t about invading her privacy. I want to know she’s safe because the world is a crazy place.
So I hope she’ll always let me track her location. I’m certainly happy to let her track mine. Not that I have anything to hide because I barely leave home. 🤣 I’d also be willing to bet that she checks my location more than I check hers. 😜
Book Review
⭐⭐⭐⭐
4 Stars for Caller Unknown by Gillian McAllister
352 pages
Publisher: William Morrow
Publication Date: May 5, 2026
I received an advance copy of this title from NetGalley and William Morrow.
Publisher’s Description
There is nothing that Simone won’t do for her daughter, Lucy. The two have always been close, and with Lucy about to leave home for university, they depart the UK for a vacation to Texas to spend some quality time together. But when Simone awakens on their first morning in the desert, Lucy is gone, missing from their rental cabin. In her place is a cell phone, and a voice on the other line issues a shocking ransom demand. Don’t tell the police. Come to this location. And be prepared to do a deal.…
Though Simone’s husband urges her to bring in the authorities for help, she knows she can’t take any chances. The kidnappers might kill Lucy if she tells anyone. No mother would take that risk. Instead, that night, she drives to the isolated meet-up.
What she finds there changes everything. The mysterious kidnapper doesn’t want money. They want Simone to do something. The unthinkable.
A catastrophic chain of events is set in motion, with chilling consequences that extend beyond Simone and her family. What follows is a heart-pounding journey through the small towns and punishing deserts of remote Texas, in which Simone’s courage—and morality—is pushed to the brink as she discovers what it truly means to be a mother.
************
Main Characters:
- Simone Seaborn – mid-40s, a chef and co-owner with her husband of a restaurant in London, hoping for a Michelin Star rating, met Damien almost 20 years ago when she was bartending at a networking event he attended, grew up in and out of social services because her parents were drug addicts
- Lucy Seaborn – 18 years old, Simone and Damien’s daughter, an aspiring actress who plans to attend Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) in the fall, had planned to live on campus but changed her mind since RADA is only a few doors down from the restaurant
- Damien Seaborn – mid-40s, does the books and HR for the restaurant, had a pretty charmed upbringing in Tottenham with his parents and siblings
- James Moody – early 50s, a lawyer in Terlingua who specializes in wrongful convictions, also owns some rental cabins
Trigger warning: kidnapping, drug trafficking
Caller Unknown is my first read by Gillian McAllister, and I doubt it will be my last. The story takes place in a remote desert area of Texas and revolves around close-knit mother and daughter Simone and Lucy Seaborn. With a pending placement from Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, Lucy attended a week-long singing camp in Texas the previous spring. After she fell in love with the area, she decided to spend her summer there at a longer camp and then spend two weeks camping with Simone before heading home to London.
Simone’s excitement at seeing her daughter after nearly six weeks is palpable. After some delays retrieving her luggage, Simone drives herself to their AirBnB and prepares for Lucy’s arrival. The two stay up late catching up and go to bed exhausted.
When Simone awakens the next morning, she discovers an empty cabin. As time passes, she begins to panic. She sees a chunk of Lucy’s hair stuck in the door frame, Lucy’s shoes on the floor, and then an old flip phone under Lucy’s pillow starts to ring. When she answers the “caller unknown,” she hears a distorted voice tell her to check the messages: “We have your daughter.”
A convoluted story begins in which Simone needs to decide whether to involve the police, which Damien insists that she do before he catches a flight to the States, or to blindly follow the instructions given to her by the kidnappers.
I don’t want to give too much away. A lot happens in this story, and Simone finds herself faced with decisions I don’t know that I could make. But she has a complicated family history that I don’t have.
There’s also an undercurrent of tension between Simone and Damien about whether mothers and fathers can love their children more than the other parent. Does a mother love “better”—is a child more the mother’s child—because she gave birth? What a question! And not a discussion you want to be taking on when your child is missing.
The author also does a great job of making everyone a suspect. The only person truly off the list of suspects is Simone herself, which is obvious because almost the entire book is Simone’s point of view. There are a handful of chapters from “The Kidnapper,” which also made for an interesting twist near the end.
I do think the story resolves a little conveniently. I rolled my eyes a bit and didn’t think it would really happen the way it did. But at the end of the day, lots of twists and a number of suspects make this a solid mystery with a pretty interesting ending.
If you enjoyed this post, please comment below. Subscribe for regular updates, and share it with your friends. If you’re interested in starting a conversation, send an email to booksundertheblanket@gmail.com.
As an Amazon affiliate, I earn a small commission at no cost to you when you make a purchase using the links on my site.
