Jess enjoys her life. She is happily married with a young daughter. That is until a new head teacher comes to the school. An old flame. It is at that point that life starts to unravel and things are never the same again. Even years in the future it all comes back to haunt her - possibly literally!
This is a well constructed psychological thriller. There is an excellent build up throughout the book. The scene where Beth has a terrible accident at school at the start of the book is particularly well written and moved me to tears. Perhaps this isn't to be read in public!
There is a big twist at the end which I did actually see coming. I am not sure what clues led me to see this but I did. It didn't stop me enjoying the end of the book, however. The ending was quite in keeping with the story and worked well for me.
This is a good psychological thriller & I would be happy to read further work by this author.

I really loved this book I couldn’t put it down ! Real edge of the seat stuff. An excellent psychological read ! 8/10

This was such a page turner! The story revolves around a missing child, which is always chilling, and I could wait to know what had happened in the past and how the mystery would be solved. Gripping!

The Daughter by Lucy Dawson is a psychological thriller that should come with a box of tissues with every book purchase. The first few chapters of this one take the reader back to a time when Jess was a happily married young mother to her little girl Beth.

After enrolling her daughter into a new school Jess has a blast from the past when the man she had loved at nineteen turns out to work at the school. This opens up a whole mess of secrets and lies but before Beth even gets a chance to wrap her head around what it all means she gets the phone call that is every parent’s nightmare, her daughter Beth has been rushed to the hospital.

The story then jumps seventeen years into the future for Jess and picks up with her seemingly now having gotten her life together and again at a happy place. But things begin happening in Jess’s life that begin to shake her to the core and bring back the memories and nightmares of that day years before.

The way the author set up this story was a twist of genius since the reader already knows just from the small description that Jess is going to lose her daughter but taking a close look at just what happened was a surefire way to pull me into the story and have me emotionally invested within the opening pages. It was such a heartbreaking beginning to the story that I do think it will be handy to have tissues at the ready and prepare yourself beforehand.

After the time jump I wondered if the story would still flow and be as engaging but I didn’t need to worry at all as I found myself still connected to Jess and wanting to know what was now going on with her life. The book has a creepy vibe with some things thrown into the story as events begin happening which I rather enjoyed too. I did find myself guessing the outcome which led to my 4 star rating but this was still an engrossing read that I would recommend checking out regardless.

I received an advance copy from the publisher via NetGalley.

The daughter was such an addictive read that you will not want to to put down, I enjoyed every minute of this book it was brought

Thanks to Netgalley for my copy.

A young couple Jessica and Ben lose their young daughter Beth in a tragic playground accident.These early chapters are so emotional and heart breaking. Thank goodness for Kleenex. Fast forward seventeen years and Jessica is remarried with a two year old son. Ben is also in another relationship with step children.

Someone wants to upset the applecart however and doesn't want Jessica to enjoy the cosy happy little life she has managed to attain after years of unhappiness and guilt. Strange things begin to happen in their house and soon Jess, her family and the French nanny Sandrine are subjected to some strange and horrifying events that threaten their existence. Who is out to get Jessica?

This is a well written story that kept me guessing and engrossed. My heart bled for Jessica and Ben over the loss of their darling daughter and the terrible effect it had on their lives. I had a feeling who the culprit was but quite honestly it could have been several people and I was pleasantly surprised how it all came together and the ending panned out. A clever and emotional book with both likeable and unlikeable characters. I will definitely be looking for more by this author.

How does a young Mom move on with her life when her five year old is dead from a school yard accident?
Jess needs to get her life together, but she can't. The father of her daughter's wife, is stalking her and threatening her.
The plot thickens.
The years go on, and Jess is finally able to move on with her new husband and son,
But.... is she?
This is a book that will have you on the edge of your seat as you quickly read each page of the novel.
Definitely not the ending I was expecting and I was not disappointed! Well written, with so many details to keep the reader enthralled!

I am a huge fan of this author and this book - wow! It blew me away. From the first page to the last this book took me over, and I just couldn't put it down. What an utterly gripping story! Every page reveals a new twist and I didn't know if I was coming or going until the absolutely stunning ending. Brilliant. Original. Unputdownable. An incredibly tense and thrilling read!

A book of heartbreak twisted in deep with mystery. A mother feeling the loss of her child deep in the marrow, always and forever, the pain bleeding out, sometimes expected, sometimes totally unexpected. A husband, an affair, a mistake, a threat, and a new life. But past seeping slowly into the present, like the eerie claustrophobic fog, creepy and sinuous, attacking the lives, winding its way around, till it starts choking and attacking them all

The atmosphere is wild, the roads are twisted, the winds blow willy nilly, the characters collide when they were meant to be away and locked in solitary. The jealousy invades deep into the psyche. The guilt cores the soul. The decisions pull apart when they should be together. The sinister tricks, the death omens, the deja vu. The girl who never was. The daughter who is gone and the daughter whom no one can see.

All this is found in the daughter by Lucy Dawson. And what a spinner of a tale she has written. What I thought the book was, and what it turned out to be is quite chilling. Lucy has kept the atmosphere of the book extremely gripping, every page has an incident which makes the previous one look milder.

The story is simple, Jess lost her 5 year old daughter in an accident in the playground, she leaves everything and seventeen years hence, she has settled into her new husband Ed and son. Then things start happening, in and around her, to make pay for the secrets of the past…

I didn’t find the plot of the story and the reasons given very convincing, and I wanted something deeper from the plot. But this is overshadowed by Lucy’s writing, by the suspense that is weaved and entwined in the scenes and incidents. At one point, I didn’t know where the story was moving to, all I knew that it was leading to a crashing finale… And it did..

It crashed into all our lives, and I realized that sometimes the nightmares of the past are so dark that light of the present reality hardly penetrates.

I read the book in the afternoon, and it took me awhile to process all that had happened. I was pretty hyped up, and at the same time shocked, by the reasonings of the characters and their decisions.

A winner of a book, an unputdownable, entertaining potboiler, where the pages turned on its own as the scenes brought the twists, the characters reasoned their way, and I was left shaken in the aftermath, wide-eyed and dry-mouthed...

An excellent offering from Lucy Dawson which will keep you gripped until the end.

Beth is 5 when she loses her life in an awful accident, Jessica and Ben, her parents are devastated. Jessica has been hiding a secret and when it comes to light and she is threatened with exposure she decides to leave Ben and start a new life.

Fast forward 17 years and Jessica is now married to Ed with a new son, life is pretty easy when a blast from the past leaves her feeling vulnerable and not knowing who to trust.

A gripping thriller with plenty of twists, although I guessed who was causing some of the problems and the way the obsession of one person caused so much trouble was amazing. An excellent well written story.

Loved this one! Fast paced and grippy from start to end. Read this book in one day. A must read for any fan of this genre.

A complex,creepy & at timesunbelievably sad book. The Daughter begins fast & ends with a twist you won't see coming. The Characters are so well written that I felt sorry for each of them in turn. There everthing in this book....Shocks,Twists,Scares & plenty of emotion! Only my 2nd book to read in 2018 but already this one is going to be big.

An easy read but a bit far fetched and unbelievable. Didn't really like most of the characters either.

Enjoyed this book. Highly recommend! Looking forward to reading more by this author

Oh my gosh. Was she or wasn't she Simon's This book was full of surprises and my haw dropped several times. A great book.

Let me start by saying that I was wrong about this book. I read the first sentence in the blurb and immediately made an assumption on what the word lost meant. The first chapters caught me by surprise. I didn’t expect to feel such heartbreak. I was fighting back tears as I turned the pages. However, the story gradually changes as it progresses.

So 17 years ago, Jess lost her daughter and this is where the story begins. Readers are taken back to that day. The author shares details of the day right from when it started. Some of the details later prove to be key in the story. After the first chapters, the story moves to 17 years after the tragedy when weird things start happening.

Jess is the MC in the story and the story is narrated from her POV. She is easily likeable and relatable. There are events that took place that made me want to yell at her. However, her character was so well crafted that it was easy to understand even her crazy actions.

I loved the suspense in the story. I was able to guess part of the mystery a bit early. I knew who the perpetrator was and guessed their backstory. However, I wasn’t one hundred percent certain. The author brilliantly managed to throw me off and I ended up changing my mind a couple of times. In the end, my guess was right but I was still shocked by the revelations. I think the author handled this aspect really well.

I really enjoyed this book. I liked the premise and enjoyed the twists and turns along the way. I enjoyed reading aboutthe characters and I admit, I absolutely fell in love with one, little gentleman called James. This was an entertaining, gripping read perfect for fans of psychological thrillers.

This was a very good book, with a wonderful beginning. Although the end was predictable, I really enjoyed it from cover to cover.

Thanks to NetGalley, I’ve read a lot of books lately which I know next to nothing about. I read the synopsis, request the book, then by the time I get approved and get around to reading it, I’ve generally forgotten what the synopsis said. This has been quite refreshing as I’m a lot more unspoiled than I would otherwise be, not knowing even the basics of what a story is going to be about.

This was perhaps a mixed blessing in the case of The Daughter, as I was unprepared for the very emotionally distressing first part of the book. It’s very well written and really quite devastating. Readers should be aware that the story hinges on a very difficult topic, the death of a young child. This could have gone badly wrong but thankfully is portrayed with sensitivity and compassion.

I liked the character of Jessica, who at the start of the story is a young mother who feels somewhat out of place among the affluent, mainly older parents at her daughter’s private school. Jess is a devoted mum who wants nothing more than to keep her little girl safe. When something terrible happens to Beth, the consequences not only for Jess and her husband Ben but for others too will echo down the years... Seventeen years later Jess has rebuilt her life to some extent, but while the past will never go away, it’s now coming back to haunt her in ways she could never have expected.

I certainly didn’t predict the ending - though in true psychological thriller tradition, I had suspected absolutely everyone at some point - as the author no doubt intended. Lucy Dawson has constructed her plot very ingeniously and it really does keep you guessing. When the reveal came it was one of those “Oh, I should have guessed” moments.... but I didn’t.

There are some troubled people in this book who can act in bizarre ways, and I did find some of the behaviour of one character in particular hard to understand. Actually more than one when I think about it!

A great read which I would highly recommend, but do be prepared for some emotionally distressing moments.

Review will also be posted on Amazon and on my blog. Thanks to the publishers and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review.

3 hours ago I started The Daughter, and I am now sitting here gasping for breath, having not been able to move or put my kindle down or acknowledge any part of the real world for those three hours as I read this completely addictive and unputdownable book.

The first part is very emotional, and shows just what depth Lucy Dawson has with her writing, I was almost in tears at parts of it, and then as the story moves up to to the present day, it becomes creepier and at no point are you really sure just what the cause of it all is.

I certainly didn't expect or predict any part of the thrilling finale, which is what has left me so amazed at the story.

I don't think I can say any more about the plot than the blurb has, as I know I would give away the wrong information. What I will say is that every book I read by Lucy Dawson is more and more impressive, and I can't believe that I read this so fast and in one sitting, when I'm fairly sure I had other things I needed to do instead!

The Daughter will take you on a fabulous journey and make you wonder just what lengths you may be prepared to go to, to protect a loved one. It has reached under my skin and completely unsettled me, so I am completely blaming the author if I don't sleep this evening.

Although its probably a bit early in the year to state this, I suspect this could be one of the psychological thrillers of the year, I am that impressed by how little I was able to predict, and was just swept away in the story. In fact that first part makes me think the author could probably turn her hand to women's fiction just as well too.

It's not necessarily your typical psychological thriller, it had quite a different feel to it initially but all the background was very relevant and incredibly well written and was pulling me into the story, before the more unsettling behaviours were occurring.

This is definitely a must read for fans of the genre, just wow!

Thank you to Netgalley and Bookouture for this copy which I have reviewed honestly and voluntarily.

I received a free ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an unbiased review.

For the most part, The Daughter is a fine read. A child has died in an horrific accident, and the parents, of course, are devastated. Dawson's descriptions of their emotions and earth-shattering grief are well-done.

The mother's secret about her daughter's father is at the core of this novel. Years pass, remarriages and new births happen, yet the loss of Beth colors all life's experiences for Jessie, Beth's mother. Guilt hovers over Jessie who questions every move she made (or didn't make) on the day Beth died. The vast majority of the novel concerns Jessie's emotions as she attempts to move on with a new husband and child. When mysterious occurrences, with undeniable links to Beth, begin to happen to Jessie and her family, the pace picks up substantially.

The character responsible for much of Jessie's turmoil is a surprise with the satisfying ending happening rather quickly.