I enjoyed this book from the beginning to the end. I would thoroughly recommend this book. It is Slaughter at her best. I love her book with the exception of Coptown.

Thank you to Net Galley, the publishers and to Karin Slaughter for an ARC copy for review..

Firstly this book has taken be longer than usual to read, as away for six days right in the middle of the book. This made it difficult to get back into the book fully.

Second, I do believe this book was too long...at 528 pages..

Karin Slaughter is a very favourite author for myself and my group which Karin has kindly done Q and A's before and many members love her books..

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.

Rusty is a notoriously able lawyer who believes that justice should be for everybody, such as defending innocent black people, and others deemed beyond the pale, like rapists. This has made Rusty a host of enemies, seen the family home burn down and bring fresh danger to his wife, the fiercely intelligent and double PhD genius, Gamma, and his two young daughters, Samantha and Charlotte, known as Charlie. Two masked men enter the family home, shoot Gamma dead, leaving Sam for dead, buried in a grave, though a bloodied Charlie manages to get away. This is a story that transcends the most violent of crimes, its about family, loss, love, sibling relationships, regret, survival, damage and forgiveness.

Twenty-eight years later, and Charlie 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 — Charlie 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 a thriller with a difference a unique story and two compelling main characters bringing a tragedy of today and memories of the past to one powerful story.

A four star book for me, good points the strength and characters of the two leads, but just a little too long for me.. Just my thoughts

My first Karin Slaughter, certainly won't be my last.
A great read: well-drawn characters, lots of twists and turns, and enough suspense to make the world disappear for a few days.
A story based around one family and their home-town. The parents flawed but interesting, the sisters close as children, but torn by the hideous occurrence in their teens. A family you can believe in, and root for.

Fiction - Crime

Score: 10/10


Once every few years you read a book that you know you will never forget reading. The Good Daughter is going to be that one for me. Slaughter has an amazing style of writing that gets you to feel the characters so deeply that they stay with you for days after you finish reading about them. I just couldn't put this book down, it captured you from the beginning right to the end. I rarely give out 10/10 but this is one of those occasions, it was absolutely brilliant.

This is the first Karin Slaughter book that I've read and I was pleasantly surprised. The plot deals with a pair of sisters who, after an awful tragedy in their lives 23 years earlier, find themselves together again in North Georgia having to deal with a school shooting incident which brings back memories of what they went through as teenagers. They learn a lot about themselves and each other while solving the case through their legal background and their astute intelligence.
Characterization is key in this slow boiler of a thriller as the events are fairly straight-forward. The writing is fluid and engaging and the reader is not snowed under my too much description. This novel is highly recommended to anyone who enjoys a good yarn and an interesting mystery novel

I am a huge fan of this author and so many thanks to netgalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this book. This is a stand-alone novel and differs from Slaughter's other books as the protagonists are the victims of an horrific crime rather than the investigating officers. This is the story of two sisters who are viciously attacked by an intruder in their home. Years later, a school shooting puts their home town on the map once again and of the the young victims, Charlie, is drawn back into events of the past.
I very much enjoyed this novel. One or two of the scenes are very graphic but they are extremely well written and powerful. The characters are strong and relatable as is always the case with Karin Slaughter's books. I would certainly recommend this to all lovers of crime fiction.

I have only just discovered this author (yes, I know!) and am still playing catch-up with her other series and am thoroughly enjoying that ride, so I really couldn't help myself when I saw that this was book one of a brand new series that I could join at the very beginning.
We start in the past as two small girls are at home with their mother when tragedy strikes and the mother is killed. It appears that this violence stems from the fact that Rusty, the father of the family, is a lawyer specialising in defending really bad guys and has recently been successful in getting an alleged rapist off, sparking the suicide of the victim.
Fast forward 28 years and one of the girls, Charlie, is now working alongside her father as a lawyer. One day after a one night stand, she realises that she has the wrong phone and tracks her "date" down and arranges to go swap. As she is doing this, in the local school where he is a teacher, tragedy strikes again as a school shooting. The shooter being Kelly, a young girl with learning difficulties. Obviously Rusty wants the case but circumstances prevent him so it is his daughter that takes the baton, to try and work out what happened and why.
This was an extremely well and tightly plotted book that kept me on my toes and held my attention throughout. As the layers were peeled back from both the present and the past, I lost count of the number of times my jaw dropped or I held my breath or sat back and said to myself "oh, of course, yeah!" It was also very character driven. Centered around Rusty's family, in both the present and the past, and Kelly's story in the present it really was a wonderful example of perfectly drawn characters that were so easy to connect to playing out intricate stories that merged, diverged and wove around each other all the way right until the end when all was finally revealed.
One of the things I love about this author is the brutal way she doesn't pull her punches with her writing. She also writes the most deliciously flawed character so very well without glorifying or caricaturing them and puts them in all sorts of challenging situations. Here, we have the lawyers defending the undefendable both morally and against the evidence. Everyone is entitled to the best defense they can afford and someone has to defend the real bad guys. Sometimes even win. Also, someone has to defend those whose guilt is pretty much nailed on, clinging onto every small shred of hope available. This book has both these things and, for me, it was a fascinating insight into this world. We also have characters in the present that have been affected badly by a shared past and how it has affected them all quite differently.
I really had to rein myself in towards the end though. I do tend to speed read a little, dictated usually by the pace of the book but the final scenes of this book were so frenetic that I really had to try and slow down, to savour every delicious twist turn and reveal as they were served up, desperate not to miss anything. I just about managed it and boy was it worth it.
All in all a wonderfully plotted, character driven book that kept me on my toes throughout and left me completely satisfied at the end. Definitely another winner from Ms Slaughter.

My thanks go to the Publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this book.

The Quinn family lives in Pikeville and consists of Rusty, his wife Gamma and their two daughters Samantha and Charlotte (Sam and Charlie). Rusty is well-known locally as a defence lawyer who will take on any case and is hated by many for defending a rapist, whose victim subsequently committed suicide. Their lives are then torn apart by an episode of unspeakable violence.

Twenty-eight years later Charlie is involved in another dreadful event in the town which again threatens to tear apart all the individuals involved. Everyone is hiding something and the truth is something which very few want to surface. The pain and the consequences would be too much to bear.

As always, Ms Slaughter has the talent to weave a storyline which is complex yet easy to follow. The characters are individual personalities in their own right and the reader will acutely feel their pain and their raw emotions. The dialogue in any novel is the most difficult part to get right but it feels real and not at all wooden. The plot progresses well as the different pieces of the jigsaw fall into place. Of course, there has to be a twist at the end and, in this book, we have the pleasure of being surprised by not just one, but several.

If I have any criticism at all it is that the novel is too long but it’s easily forgiven when reading a thriller of this quality.

mr zorg

Breakaway Reviewers received a copy of the book to review.

It's good to read a successful author's work when she's on top of her game and this is a great example. Ms Slaughter's ability to capture the reality and impact of violence without making the reader wonder if it was necessary is a real talent, especially - as in this work - when the violence is a necessary part of the story. It's a long book, certainly, but not one that loses pace or the reader's interest. Ms Slaughter's writing is never less than fluent and has an ability to paint characters so that they take on a life in the reader's mind.

Can I just up the ratings system so 10 stars are available, please? I read this on the back of a disappointing offering by another big name thriller writer, which made it even more welcome. The characters in this jumped off the page and lived, almost making the plot irrelevant. Almost. I thought at first that this was going to be a bit of a John Grisham court case narrative, but it was soooo much better than that. What impressed me the most was that, even though the plot twists were crackers, they weren't the main event. I'm struggling to articulate exactly what I mean, but I think it boils down the fact that, particularly in the last couple of years, thriller writers have been grasping for ever more outrageous turns. This book, however, proves that the twists don't have to be outrageous, they just have to be inevitable. The ones here (and they were good!) grew organically from an absolutely believable plot. I can't make a comparison with other Slaughter books, as I've so far not read any. An omission to my reading pile that I will be putting right as soon as I can. Thank you so much for the opportunity to read this book. I'll post a review on Amazon on publication day.

What an absolute belter of a book!! I didn't think Karin Slaughter could write anything better than the Grant County series but by God this had me gripped from the very first page. I could not put it down. The story is about Sam and Charlie and what happens to them during one horrible day back when they were young. The writing is impeccable and if this book doesnt turn into a series I'll cry more than I did when reading it......wonderful, wonderful, wonderful!!!

As a fan of the Karin Slaughter books I was at first unsure what to expect as a standalone thriller and not following the lives of her usual characters, I wasn't sure that I was going to like it. Was I wrong this was a fantastic book written to its usual high standard and the characters were strong and you felt yourself getting lost in the story, I couldn't put it down.

This is a stand alone novel by author Karin SLaughter that also featured in a prequel titled 'Last Breath'.
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 defence attorney – devastated. And it left the family fractured beyond repair, consumed by secrets from that terrible night.

Twenty-eight years later, and Charlie has followed in her father's footsteps to become a lawyer herself – the archetypal good daughter. But when violence comes to Pikeville again – and a shocking tragedy leaves the whole town traumatised – Charlie is plunged into a nightmare. Not only is she the first witness on the scene, but it's a case which can't help triggering the terrible memories she's spent so long trying to suppress. Because the shocking truth about the crime which destroyed her family nearly thirty years ago won't stay buried for ever.

I enjoyed the writing in this one, small town feel with some superb characters that make this book a very good read.

I would like to thank Net Galley and HarperCollins UK, HarperFiction for supplying a copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

This is the first time I've read a book by Karin Slaughter but it won't be the last. I thoroughly enjoyed it. The plot was multi dimensional and the characters believable and, at the same time, troubled and far from straightforward. I thought the way the author developed the story, telling the reader about events of the past and linking these with current happening, was excellent. It wasn't until fairly well on in the book, that I appreciated the effect the horrific events had on each sister. It was descriptive, emotional and fast paced. I'd definitely recommend it.

This is my first Karin Slaughter book, and whilst I did enjoy it there were some glaring flaws that put me a bit off my stride. For me, the plot seemed a little haphazard and, for lack of a better word, unrealistic. Normally I would have issues getting through a book when I am already so far ahead of what is playing out because I find it unenjoyable. But actually, the characters saved the book for me, as I truly did enjoy reading about Sam, Charlotte, Rusty, Lenore and Ben. So, even though it took me longer to read this book than with other thrillers, I think it's a solid effort providing you can suspend your disbelief for a couple of hours and just enjoy the ride.

would like to thank harper collins uk for letting me read and review this book

what a stunning and disturbing book all rolled into one...two sisters who had the world at their feet and one night their lives are changed dramatically...

karin slaughter can write an amazing book this one i couldnt even put down..i needed to know what happened to all of the characters, no spoiler alerts you will need to read it yourselves but know if you start this book you wont be able to put in down...

What another outstanding book from this brilliant author. I review each book on its own merits, so although Karin Slaughter is one of my favorite authors, if I didn't like it , I'd say so.

Karin has such a talent in writing, totally engrossing the reader with the strength of her characters and stunning plot. Charlie and Sam have followed in their father's footsteps, however much they despise him as a criminal defense attorney. Both woman take very different lives, although bound by the same bond. Outstanding.

I enjoyed this stand-alone novel very much. I have read several of Karin Slaughter's books, and found that her stories are a hit or miss for me. This book is definitely a hit.
There are a number of satisfying twists and turns which lead to the conclusion - a lot of emotions throughout. It is a strong thriller, a little long but I literally read it in two sittings as I could not put it down.
I would definitely recommend this book.

Great psychological suspense novel by Karin Slaughter. This book is intense and gritty at times (much like her other books), with well thought out characters and back story.

The Good Daughter blends two crimes – a current school shooting and a twenty-eight year vicious attack on sisters, Samantha (Sam) and Charlotte (Charlie) and their mother. Layered on top of this is the present day sisters’ story – them trying to come to terms with the horrific childhood incident and rebuild their turbulent relationship. Charlie initially links the two crimes, having the misfortune of being present at both of them, but when Charlie’s dad, Rusty, a lawyer, decides to act on behalf of the school shooter, the Quinn family become more entwined in the case than they really want to be.

As the school shooting thread of the plot takes centre stage at first, you are led to believe it is a classic crime novel that will piece together all the clues of this case, but what I enjoyed was that this book is far more than that. It focused more on sisters Sam and Charlie than I was expecting and on their relationship with each other, their parents and Charlie’s estranged husband, Ben.

Charlie and Sam are both interesting, engaging characters, written to be highly believable – far from perfect yet both trying to do the best they can to deal with a hugely traumatic incident and live, rather then just get through, their lives. It’s always a good sign when you find your mind wandering to characters and looking forward to when you can read the next part in their story, which I found myself doing a few times.

The pace and suspense was perfectly pitched throughout this book, so those pages easily turned themselves, and although the school shooting thread didn’t quite live up to my expectations, it was nicely balanced out by the more psychologically focused Quinn family storyline to create a clever, multi-layered thriller.