The Perfect Daughter

Grace returns home to find her daughter, Penny along with the car of missing. Penny is a teenager so initially Grace chalks it up to her teen taking the car without permission. Shortly, thereafter there is a knock on the door. The knock that changes everything. She is told her daughter is at the police station having been arrested – the charge: MURDER.

Thus begins the tale, as the book progresses, we learn that Penny is diagnosed with DID (Dissociative Identity Disorder). Grace and her husband, Arthur, adopted Penny after Grace found Penny abandoned in a park. They know little about her life before Grace found Penny as she would not speak or share what happened to her.

Now, Grace is fighting to help her daughter in any way that she can. But it is not an easy case as Penny’s alters emerge. Could one of them hold the truth to what happened that night?

There are plenty of twists and turns and the most interesting ones come at the end (as they tend to do) which ties everything up. Perhaps too neatly? Decide for yourself. Readers will get the answers. Will you have seen the ending coming? I did see one reveal coming – I have limited experience with DID on a professional level, add that with being an avid reader of mystery/suspense/thriller books, which led me to think “hmmm…. I wonder if…….”

For me, the book started off interesting as we learn of Penny’s arrest, and we begin to slowly be introduced to her diagnosis, and how she became a member of their family. But along the way the pace slows down, and it tends to just hoover a little before picking up quite nicely at the end. Although I enjoyed the ending, you must suspend some disbelief. Some will have to suspend a lot of belief.

Plus, if you are not familiar with DID, this book does give a description to what is a widely debated and polarizing diagnosis in the Mental Health field.

Thank you to St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley who provided me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All the thoughts and opinions are my own.