Sunday 12 July 2015

The Daughter's Secret - Eva Holland



My daughter is a liar. A liar, liar, liar. And I'm starting to see where she gets it from.

When Rosalind's fifteen-year-old daughter, Stephanie, ran away with her teacher, this ordinary family became something it had never asked to be. Their lives held up to scrutiny in the centre of a major police investigation, the Simms were headline news while Stephanie was missing with a man who was risking everything.

Now, six years on, Ros takes a call that will change their lives all over again. He's going to be released from prison. Years too early. In eleven days' time.

As Temperley's release creeps ever closer, Ros is forced to confront the events that led them here, back to a place she thought she'd left behind, to questions she didn't want to answer. Why did she do it? Where does the blame lie? What happens next?


What did I think?

I loved the way this book was set out - counting down the days until Stephanie's teacher, Nathan Temperley, was released from prison for abducting her.  The family is clearly damaged and broken following this incident, Stephanie drinking herself into oblivion, Ros flirting with a fellow student and Dan having secret assignations of his own.  I didn't really feel like I got to know the characters, though.  I thought Ros's paranoia was brilliantly described, and perfectly understandable after what they have gone through.  

As we approach the release day, the tension does build and I was turning pages at speed towards the end, but it hadn't really been a page turner up until that point.

I did enjoy the book, but I felt that the characters lacked depth - or perhaps they were meant to be so shallow.  Nathan Temperley had destroyed them but Ros is determined to hold on to the shreds of her family whatever the cost.

I received this e-book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

My rating:




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