Someone is after Samantha Bronwyn. After her friend, Ginny, disappears, she realizes she was the intended target.

Overall, I found myself flipping through this book and skimming a lot of it. The characters, Samantha in particular, comes off as rather immature. The plot was predictable. The only thing I liked about it was the writing. I don't like my mysteries to be so predictably done.

Downloaded through Netgalley to read for an honest review!


It's an interesting story that starts in the present day with Samantha Bronwyn. As the story progresses it's discovered that Samantha's current problem has something to do with her mother's past. Once we find this out we jump to 1996 following her mother Clare down her path that leads us to Samantha's problem.



Some of the information that, to me, could have been shocking reveals are told to us and then we learn how that information came to be in later chapters. Usually in the flashback chapters with Clare.



We go between the past and the present to explain how and why we are where we are. It's well written and fun to read. Some parts I wish she wasn't that great at writing because holy shit vivid imagery was not something I needed for certain scenes.



As everything happens Samantha learns that she doesn't know her mom like she thought she did. When the book ends she still has learning to do and wonders if her mother will ever open up about everything that went down.



This was a fun and different read I bought the next book after finishing this.

Definitely loved the beginning aspect; girls go on one fun trip and one gets taken. This book suckered me in and held my attention well enough. There were a few parts I was meh about, but overall it was a great novel. The author really kept me on my toes with a few surprises.

With a title as Daddy Darkest I suspected a book about this very wrong dad, doing things that no dad should ever do. In some way, that expectation was met when Samantha flew to San Fransisco with her best friend Ginny. On the plane Sam and Ginny met Levi; a handsome stranger warning them about the dangers of SF..
Shit hit the fan pretty quickly in this one, Ellery A. Kane does not play around. From the moment Sam and Ginny land and retrieve their luggage, things go south.

In Daddy Darkest we follow Sam and Levi in the present and Clare in the past. We find out why Ginny is abducted, why her abductor calls Sam Clare and why someone got abducted in the first place.
After a few chapters it becomes painfully clear that mommy dearest hasn't been completely honest with her daughter, which eventually lead to crazy adventures including maffiawars, drugs and a - very- obsessed serial killer.

I never expected daddy darkest to be thát dark. To be so manipulative, creepy and yet.. so polite. It frightened me a little to finally figure out what was what and who was who in the end. The plottwists did not dissapoint!

I'm really looking forward to the next book in Doctors of Darkness.

loved the way the characters was written,the personality and their background stories,the dillema and challanges faced by them when it comes to issues such as trust,betrayal,love etc.loved the plot and the shifting between the past and present.overall loved the book,and it had me hooked

This was an ok thriller, and if you need a holiday read, that is easy reading, then this is perfect. Unfortunately, it was not for me.

Really enjoyed this book; would recommend to others.

This story felt anti-climatic; I didn't feel what I was reading. The MC was just annoying the hell out of me. And the love interest... at the beginning he is posing as a 21 year old but it turned out that he was kind of a seasoned cop so... that made him a lot older. And the "random" encounters with the MC were so not obvious coincidences that I just rolled my eyes.

The wrong girl is kidnapped so the rest of the plot is dedicated to find out why the MC was the target. Well, right away the author takes you to the past and starts narrating MC's mother story of how she got pregnant, thus revealing why her daughter was wanted. A psychological thriller this book was not. When the narration went back to the past I knew right away what was coming.

The story felt flat, rushed and unappealing. I could not finish it. And it is a series?! Well, if you are looking for a light "psychological thriller" (no depth), this book might be for you.

Thank you Netgalley for providing me with a copy of this title.

On the cover there is a scene in the night forest with a shovel backed to a tree, a hole in the bottom with the title of the book indicated in the hole. A catchphrase is below the title: "Bury your secrets, bury them deeply"

The Hispanic takes place in the present with Samantha who graduated a month ago who after a plane flight to San Francisco sees her friend Ginny disappear into a bathroom at the airport. Because she was wearing Sam's jacket, she knew right away that she was the target. Who is she really, who can she trust? Who's hiding a gun in his backpack? Someone's mad at him, want to make him drool. A race against the clock is going to get her to find the truth.

I loved this first book with endearing characters a story that holds the road, too anxious to read the sequel that comes out soon.

Brought to you by OBS reviewer Heidi

Samantha Bronwyn leads a normal, albeit boring life in a small town in Texas, where she lives with her mom. She never knew her dad since he died when she was a baby. Sam’s a basketball wiz on the court and will be heading to Baylor soon.

Her best friend, Ginny, has talked her into going on a girls trip to San Francisco before they head off to college. A trip that Sam’s mom was against. Shortly after getting to San Francisco Sam wishes she had listened to her mom as a nightmare unfolds before her. Ginny went into the bathroom at the airport and disappeared. Her phone was found in the trash with a message to Sam’s mom displayed to ‘come find me’. Ginny was wearing Sam’s Letterman jacket (with Sam’s name on the back) and they soon realize that the kidnapper had intended to grab Sam instead!

Sam is alone in a strange town while trying to find answers and running into trouble at every turn. She knows Ginny is quickly running out of time with an escaped serial killer, Clive ‘Cutthroat’ Cullen on the loose and he’s the most likely suspect for the abduction. Sam does find an unexpected ally in Levi, who sat next to the girls on the plane. But can he be trusted? He did carry a gun on the plane after all.

Sam’s mom is making her way to San Francisco, but she is acting strange. What do you do when everything you’ve ever known about your life turns out to be a lie? And when the sins of your parents truly do come to haunt you …

I actually really enjoyed this book! I liked it a lot better than I was expecting to as it sucked me in from the very beginning. I do love an exciting mystery and this one kept me on the edge of my seat. I liked that I didn’t know who to trust. Is Levi a good guy or will he lead Sam to those that want to do her harm? Although I quickly, fell in love with him and his humor, I would have been devastated if he’d been a bad guy!

“Levi didn’t seem surprised by my accusation. “I guess that bedsheet wasn’t as soundproof as I thought.”



I also actually liked the flashbacks to Claire’s past as the truth was revealed to us bit by bit. I enjoyed watching the interactions between her and Clive and how things developed. Clive was definitely a charmer and you could see how he reeled women in to do exactly what he wanted! I was definitely rooting for him and desperately wanted to see him be redeemed in this book! I do love my bad boys! But Claire was a bit nuts herself and kind of a slut so maybe they were meant to be … crazy does attract crazy.

The timing of reading this book couldn’t have been better. My oldest daughter is getting ready to start college this year and we’re making all those plans now. She has fallen in love with her psychology class in her senior year of high school and has decided to major in psychology in college. She absolutely loved doing the case studies and criminal profiles of known serial killers so this book made me think of her. I have already recommended the book to her. I think Kane’s background in forensic psychology shines through in her writing and makes this book even more interesting and it has a ‘real’ feel to it. I think this series on serial killers could be rather fun.

My only complaint about this book is that the story doesn’t feel complete to me and I saw that the next book is about completely different characters. It feels like there should be another book with these characters because there is more story to tell. The relationship between Levi and Sam has just begun, not to mention I would love to see more of Clive and Claire as their story has a lot of potential as well. I so want to see their happily ever after. Besides, Clive needs to meet his daughter!

I absolutely loved this book and hope to get my hands on the next book, The Hanging Tree once it’s released! If you love dark and slightly twisted psychological thrillers, you should definitely give this series a try!

*OBS would like to thank the author for supplying a free copy of this title in exchange for an honest review*

The Bottom Line:

A terrible waste of time, Daddy Darkest is a story that does not (even remotely) do justice to the psychological thriller claim and is actually painful to read at most parts.

My review:

A big ‘Thank you’ to NetGalley for a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review (‘honest’ being the key word here).

Daddy Darkest begins with a lot of promise. It starts with Samantha and Ginny traveling to San Francisco, Ginny’s disappearance, and a shifty but somewhat-trustable man coming to help Samantha. All intriguing factors, and all with great promise.

Then, it goes back to the past, to the story of Clare Keely, which (as it’s painfully obvious in the first three sentences) is the story of Samantha’s mother. It’s about two chapters into the past when everything gets really bad.

At the outset, I should probably state that I don’t really have a problem with characters who are anti-heroes or anti-heroines. No one is categorically black or white. And gray makes books and characters interesting. I think ‘gray’ was what Ellery Kane was aiming for with Clare (Bronwyn) Keely. What she ended up with, instead, is a very whiny, annoying, selfish, bratty b***h of a main character.

Sure, Clare has a past – one that’s not too nice either. It messes her up a bit. But that is really not enough of a foundation to become the person she does. In fact, most of her personality traits were highly conflicting with one another. And much more than the ‘this is who I need to be, but this is who I really am’ conflict that complex characters have. Plus, who she needs to be and who she is are both really annoying. To put it down in some discernable order, this is what she’s like:

Oh! I’m so pretty, it’s such a curse. Oh! I’m so pretty, every man lusts after me. Oh! I wish they wouldn’t. Oh! I need some information from this guy, let me just flirt with him and sleep with him and he’ll tell me. Oh! I wish he wouldn’t touch me. Oh! Come, let’s jump into bed together again so I can get you to do what I want. Oh! I wish every man didn’t lust after me, it makes me feel uncomfortable. Oh! I’m so bad. And I love it. No, I hate it. Oh! I’m such a good girl, why don’t people just let me be? Oh! My beauty is my curse. Oh! My beauty is my power. No, curse. No, power. And so on and so forth. Until Clare Keely whined about everything she didn’t like, and everything she liked too.

There are characters who are tainted but who you call still sympathize with – but Clare Keely is not such a character. She’s just annoying, and there is a point where you just want her to shut up.

And Samantha isn’t the brightest bulb either. Likable at first, you can sympathize with her for a bit. Until Kane seems to absolutely lose the shape of the character and Samantha melts into some kind of mix of her old self and her mother.

As the book proceeds, all characters other than Clare sort of slip away from the limelight and become secondary, to the point that the book doesn’t even wrap up their story cleanly. The story actually had the potential to be multi-arced, but all of it is pushed to the sidelines while Clare Keely rambles on and on, until you just don’t care about any of those promising angles.

That, unfortunately, is how this book makes you feel – uninterested. I actually found myself physically straining to push ahead instead of just giving up (a lot of people gave up, so I know I wasn’t alone in this struggle). Then I reached a point where I started fast-reading a lot of the book to remain informed of the points that mattered (skimming over the whining and lamenting, which made up for a surprisingly large amount of the book throughout). I did this in the hope that the book somehow redeemed itself. Short answer? It does not, in any way. I actually think it just gets worse as it goes on.

So all in all, this book has no redeeming factors. There’s nothing dark or psychologically thrilling about it. The story isn’t really twisted like the blurb states. And the only thing criminal in it, is Clare Keely’s character.

I would recommend this book to:
- No one.
- Seriously. Pick up any other book. Literally, any!

This thriller started off very strong, and the writing was strong the whole way through. I definitely found it gripping, but as I went on, I did find myself a bit confused by some of the choices one character in particular made, which resulted in an ultimately lower rating.

When Sam’s best friend, Ginny, disappears in an airport bathroom while wearing Sam’s letterman jacket, it soon becomes clear that the kidnapper intended to take Sam. As she struggles to find Ginny, she starts to question whether everything she’s ever known is a lie…

The book alternates between chapters in Sam’s first-person POV and her mother, Clare’s, bacak in 1996, when she worked as a prison psychiatrist. I enjoyed Sam’s chapters, I thought her voice was really authentic. Even if it did sometimes stray into YA tropes such as kissing the hot guy you’ve known for two days, despite the fact he seems to be pretty shady.

Clare’s chapters were well-written and unraveled the details of Clare’s past at a good pace. It was Clare herself I couldn’t figure out. I couldn’t work out whether her messed up upbringing could be blamed for her bad decisions, or whether she was just completely irresponsible. While the author was going for the former, I expect, the more I thought about it, the more it felt like the latter to me.

There were a few aspects of the plot that I had predicted, but it wasn’t completely predictable overall. It was interesting to see how all the characters were tied to one another, not just in obvious ways. The ending was intriguing, but I felt it fitted the events of the book. I think it is just an ambiguous ending, and that there will be no follow-up, but it works that way.

Thank you to NetGalley and the Publishers for a free copy of this book in exchange for a review.

A thrilling read with complex and sympathetic characters. I was able to better understand the characters motivations because the author offered detailed insight into their thought processes. I especially loved the author's similes and metaphors because they were so creative helping to paint an even more vivid mental picture. I look forward to reading more books by this author!

wow this was wonderful. it had twists and turns.. it had scary times and good times.. it had suspense and had things i didnt see coming.. some of the story was very normal.. i knew what was next but then something would happen and id be like holy crap i didnt see that coming lol. it was good

It took me a few attempts to get into this book, and the start is very good, full of mystery and suspense. But as the book went on i found the story disjointed and going darker than i felt it needed. What started off as a mystery and filled with suspense became a story of darkness and with some themes of abuse, so some readers may want to be aware if this is a subject matter that they have difficulty with. Do not really know what i wanted from this book or was fully expecting but in either case the book and myself did not click

This book had an interesting blurb, and there were parts of it that I really enjoyed.

Reading about Clare’s experiences as a psychologist working in a prison was very interesting, and there were so many times I wanted to shake her and tell her she was making bad choices. To me, that indicates a good story being told and an investment in the character. I also liked the parts happening in the present, where Ginny was mistakenly kidnapped and Sam learns more about her mother’s past to explain what’s happening in the present.

The part where I got a bit lost in everything was with the gang rivals and he drugs, and Rodney Taylor’s involvement in all of that. I felt like the author tried too hard to tie everything together and to make the story more intricate, but at the expense of the parts that worked really well.

So color me surprised because I really enjoyed this book a lot. I'll be honest after reading a bunch of the reviews I wasn't expecting to like it much as it seems to have a lot of mixed reactions. But I was pleasantly surprised. Was it the most fantastic book I have ever read? No. But the writing was very good. The pace was perfect. We jump back and forth from Clare's story in the past to Levi and Samantha's in the present. I found the past the more intriguing narrative as Clare was undoubtedly the most interesting of all the characters. The present could have been a bit more fleshed out, and I was left with some unanswered questions and loose ends. But this looks like it is going to be a series so perhaps these characters will be seen again in later books. All in all, it was a very enjoyable read, and I'll be keeping my eyes peeled for the next book. Plus the cover is very cool as well. Therefore this one is getting a solid two thumbs up from yours truly.

Soooobim not entirely sure of what to say other than this was so boring and it takes forever to get through and I didn’t even read the whole thing.
I read the first 15 chapters and got so bored I just skipped to the last few chapters.
Even though I had just skipped like more than half the book I still had an idea of what was going on so there was no loss.
Would not recommend.