The Daughters by Julia Crouch
Genre: Psychological thriller, Suspense
Read: 23rd May 2022
Published: 26th May 2022
★ 1 star
DESCRIPTION:
My father said my mother killed herself. My sister says he’s lying.
The day of our mother’s funeral, my little sister Lucy and I clung to our father’s side. He promised he’d get us through it, and we believed him. But then I discovered that the coffin we wept over was empty.
Dad says he was trying to protect us – that he thought it would be easier to grieve if we didn’t know our mother’s body was never found.
His new wife says she just wants to help us move on from the past.
Then Lucy has a flash of memory that leaves her shaking. Our father. A woman she doesn’t recognise. A knife…
She insists she knows something about the day our mother died, but it’s buried too deep to see clearly.
What happened to our mother? I need to find the truth. But I have no idea who I can trust. And what if the answer puts my life in danger?
A completely gripping psychological thriller that will make your heart pound as you try to decide who is telling the truth. Perfect for fans of Lisa Jewell, Paula Hawkins and Gillian Flynn.
MY THOUGHTS:
**TRIGGER WARNING** This story contains: racism, violence towards children, sexual assault, suicide and self harm.
Secrets and lies abound in this tale that begins off very slow and keeps up the glacial pace for as long as I could bear it. That's if I could find them amidst all the other fluff.
I wanted to like THE DAUGHTERS. I loved Julia Crouch's previous thriller "The New Mother" and was looking forward to this one, but...I just couldn't. Yes, there are plenty of secrets. Yes, there are plenty of lies. But there is also plenty of fluff about eco-buildings and hummus and rice cake snacks for a five year old that just had me thinking that this book must be the love child of Greta Thunberg and Elon Musk.
I'm sorry, but I am not interested in vegan life or eco-buildings when I want to delve into the secrets surrounding the girls' mother, Bill's first wife Alice. Nothing I read in the first 20% or so reflected anything from the premise so I kind of felt robbed. And I certainly don't have the patience to wade through glacial fluff before getting to the thrilling part of the story. Life is far too short to read books that do not hold my interest. And this one didn't.
Many reviews promised the book does get better if I just stick with the boring bits and move past them, then it does pick up and the story moves a lot quicker. I'm sorry...but why? If there is nothing interesting to grab me in the beginning, what's to say I will enjoy the promise of what is to come? Of course it didn't help that I didn't like anyone. Lucy, Sara and definitely couldn't stand Carys. Didn't see enough of Bill or Binnie to form an opinion, but I felt for the poor girl being fed hummus and rice cakes. Just ewwww.
And then there was Lucy taking us on a journey to the cliff top, talking about fairies and celtic legends that live under hawthorn bushes. Seriously? Come on. This is supposed to be a thriller but I was bored to tears and honestly by that point, I didn't care what happened to any of the characters and Alice had been dead twelve years and nothing was happening to make me want to find out what actually happened.
After an exciting and twisted previous thriller with "The New Mother", I had high hopes for THE DAUGHTERS. Sadly, it did not live up to expectation. And certainly not gripping in the slightest.
I would like to thank #JuliaCrouch, #NetGalley and #Bookouture for an ARC of #TheDaughters in exchange for an honest review.
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