No Series

SUSPENSE MYSTERY

Two girls are forced into the woods at gunpoint. One runs for her life. One is left behind.

Twenty-eight years ago, Charlotte and Samantha Quinn's happy small-town family life was torn apart by a terrifying attack on their family home. It left their mother dead. It left their father—Pikeville's notorious defense attorney—devastated. And it left the family fractured beyond repair, consumed by secrets from that terrible night.

Twenty-eight years later, Charlotte has followed in her father's footsteps to become a lawyer herself—the ideal good daughter. But when violence comes to Pikeville again, and a shocking tragedy leaves the whole town traumatized, Charlotte is plunged into a nightmare. Not only is she the first witness on the scene, but it's a case that unleashes the terrible memories she's spent so long trying to suppress--because the shocking truth about the crime that destroyed her family nearly thirty years ago won't stay buried forever. Packed with twists and turns, brimming with emotion and heart, The Good Daughter is fiction at its most thrilling.

“A trial is nothing but a competition to tell the best story. Whoever sways the jury wins the trial.”

What an emotionally depressing book.

It’s one of those stories where it’s easy to keep reading because it’s a tragedy you can’t look away from, but it’s difficult to enjoy because the subject matter is incredibly heavy. It’s grim, it’s depressing, it’s gloomy. THe writer is talented with her pen and gives characterization a realistic gleam. Based on the writing and characterization, it’s a 4 star rating, but when you add in the personal enjoyment factor, I lowered it a bit.

Some of the slower pacing gives it a lower rating as well, but this much heaviness can’t be rushed through anyway, so perhaps that’s a moot point. There’s tragedy and triggers, grimness and struggles, teary deaths and unfairness. The last portion of the book offers up some inconsistency and confusion and sometimes the story unravels a little bit, but this could be because things start rushing forward in their pacing to wrap up the sad storyline.

The primary focus is on the two sisters, Charlotte and Samantha. The book is filled with memories and comparisons to their adult lives later, who they’ve become despite their past struggles. Both are semi-unreliable narrators as they take turns telling the story, but this added to it. I do think the story could have been shorter and told its tale better in a more compact form; some of it gets a little repetitive, especially with two narrators. Being set in a small town setting adds to that creepy and disturbing “wrong ambience” feel.