I found this book engaging but struggled through most of it as I had a hard time suspending reality and believing the main character would actually do what she did and that it would end the way it ended. Having said that I will say the writing was good and even with that struggle I kept reading and wanted to know what was going to happen next.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an early release in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you so much Netgalley.com for the opportunity to read this book. This was one of those stories where you struggle with the moral aspect of who is the good guy and who is the bad guy.

Sweet little Emma Grace. An innocent five year old girl. So often ignored and at points physically and verbally hurt by her mother Amy, the mom who wasn’t cut out for parenthood and resented her beautiful daughter for ever being born. Sarah (the kidnapper-or is she a kidnapper?) takes Emma on a cross country trip to figure out how to “save” this little girl, all while dealing with her own past demons. Not going to ruin the ending for anyone because that’s just wrong, but I will say that this book had me in tears at the end. FIVE STARS! It pulled me in from the beginning and had me up all night finishing it! You MUST read this book!

Not Her Daughter is a whirlwind of an unbelievable tale, a tale that becomes almost believable as it unfolds.

Emma Grace Townsend, age 5, is a child abused by her mother. One night, she disappears, kidnapped by Sarah, who has some unfinished business with her own mother. She flees with Emma, who is apparently so happy to be freed from what was definitely a miserable existence, that she goes with this stranger. They spend a year traveling the country, getting to know and love each other, and keeping one step ahead of the law until Emma’s mother becomes the prime suspect in what law enforcement believes is Emma’s murder.

Throughout this book, I questioned Sarah’s sanity, but the story is not quite as far fetched as it often seems. There is a dramatic and surprising ending, which I will neither reveal nor hint at.

This is a well written book with excellent character development, allowing the reader to delve deeply into the rather sordid nature of many of the characters. I must confess I could not put the book down. Despite the premise, which I frankly found ludicrous, it’s a spellbinding narrative. Sometimes you just have to suspend disbelief and let the story take you on it’s wild ride.

I received this book as an ARC from NetGalley and the publisher. I would definitely like to read more by Rea Frey.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a free, electronic ARC of this novel.
“Not Her Daughter” is the first fiction novel by author, Rea Frey, and what a debut it is!
Sarah is a young entrepreneur, struggling after a breakup with her long-time boyfriend. As she tries to get on with her life, she comes across a young girl, Emma, with beautiful grey eyes and a bow in her hair, while waiting at the airport. Sarah continues to be haunted by the image of the young girl, and when she keeps accidentally bumping into the same child, Sarah knows that there is a reason this child keeps crossing her path. When she observes Emma being abused by her mother, Sarah takes it upon herself to make a decision that changes her world, and Emma’s, forever.
“Not Her Daughter” is both compulsively addictive and satisfyingly entertaining. The story is told in both “before” and “after” segments, from the viewpoint of Sarah, Emma and Amy (Emma’s mother). Although normally a difficult structure, I had no problem following the plot and in fact, found the novel written in this way made it far more suspenseful.
All of the characters in this novel are well-developed, and they all have their likable traits that encourage a fast bond with the reader. The plot builds, and continues to grip a reader’s attention from the beginning. I was thoroughly intrigued by the constant action and suspense.
Beautifully written, “Daughter” had the possibility to end up in a variety of different ways (and I speculated on many of them as I read the novel, trying to guess the ending), however the ending itself, although satisfying, was exceptionally unbelievable. I did enjoy how the novel played out, and found justice in its final pages, but I had a hard time believing in the sequence of events at the end. Maybe a reader who is a parent can give me some feedback on this one.....
Frey is a fantastic fiction writer, and “Daughter” is both creative and enjoyable. Her turn to fiction was a wise choice indeed and I am excited to read what Frey comes up with next!

Thank you Netgalley for a copy!
This was a great read....I highly recommend it!!!
I don’t want to give anything away but you realize reading this that somethings aren’t always as clear cut as they seem. I found myself rooting for Sarah and as a mother I would never have thought I could form this opinion of someone who made the choices she made.
I found this book to be very well written, it flowed perfectly. One of those books that you don’t want to put down.....and I didn’t, I read it in one day.
I had not heard of Rea Frey, and I am looking forward to checking out her other work!

Wow, this book was hard to put down! I like the way the author told the story from different character's voices. Discovering the backgrounds of Sarah and Amy by using the before and during timetable added to the depth of the story. This is a new author for me and I'm looking forward to reading other books by her. Highly recommended!

Rea Frey does such an amazing job painting a picture of two separate lives. Not Her Daughter, a book based on a kidnapped little girl named Emma her mom Amy and the women who kidnapped her Sarah. I was hooked from the very beginning reading it in only 12 hours. I fell in love with this little girl watching her turn from a mink, shy broken child to a thriving, happy and loved kid. I did not want to like Sarah she kid napped this little girl and took her from her family! But a part of me really started to like her. As you read you find out the home Emma came from was not good. She was not loved or appreciate by her mother. Amy physically and verbally abused her daughter daily. Sarah takes her glues his broken girl back together.
There is so many emotions in this book so many questions. For instance, How can Amy as a mother treat her child like that? How can Sarah as a bystander make the call to take the child offering it a better life? You learn so much about each women throughout this book which in the end made me side with Sarah. Against everything in me that wanted to root for the Mom. I just could not picture that child going back to Amy.

This was an interesting read. It really makes you think about "crimes" and the mother/daughter relationship.

4.5/5 stars

I would have swallowed this book up in one day, but horrendous headache made me wait. In other words this book was so hard to put down! I just had to keep reading, I just had to know how everything would end.

This is a fantastic debut novel, it's actually hard to believe that this is just a debut - everything flows so nicely, and Frey's writing is simply addicting.

This is such a creative take on a kidnapping story! I've never read anything like this and this book just didn't want to let me go.
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​Is kidnapping wrong? This book will change your perspective and flip your world upside down.
I loved how Not Her Daughter portrayed media attention in this book - how all of those TV stories only show you what's on the surface, only what they want you to see - twisting the truth just so they can make the headlines more shocking. But what if in some instances kidnapping is actually. good thing? What if it's not kidnapping, but saving?

The bond between Emma and Sarah in this book was so tender and real, and full of love it seeped through the pages. Amy's insecurities, and anger and hate were so strong - frankly, it was very hard not to wish for her to die the most painful death imaginable.

If not for the few plot flops that I just couldn't overlook this book would have been a shining 5 stars, but 4.5 coming from me (so critical!) is a high praise too. I just couldn't understand some of the decisions Sarah made - why would she stay at the cabin for so long, why would she trust Ethan, how come he didn't just turn her in (he knew her name and much more). Also the plot line with Charlie's father went nowhere, and I felt like I needed a little bit more closure there.

If you want an impossible-to-put-down summer book - read this. If you want a perfect book club discussion novel - read this. If you want a perfect women fiction book - read this. Not Her Daughter will make you sad, happy and angry - all at once, so don't miss this little rollercoaster of a read.

Big thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for an e-arc copy provided for a review. All opinions are my own, honest and come from the heart. Not Her Daughter comes out on August 21st!.

Omg! This has been the best book I have read all year!! I was 90% done and kept putting it down because I didn't want it to end!! I loved it!!! So descriptive it was like I could see All the characters completely!! Great book!!!

When a child is kidnapped, everyone wants the child to be found and safely brought home. But no one really stops to question if maybe the child is better off with the kidnapper than with the parents. In NOT HER DAUGHTER by Rea Frey (published August 21st 2018 by St. Martin’s Griffin), the readers will find themselves hoping that the kidnapper is never caught because this child is better off with her kidnapper than her parents.

Sarah Walker’s life is forever changed when she witnesses a five year old girl being verbally abused and bullied by her mother at the airport. It brings back memories of her own unhappy childhood, and her horrible relationship with her mother before her mother took off without a word. Sarah can’t forget the girl – or her desire to somehow help her – and she takes her second meeting with the child as fate. Sarah kidnaps Emma Grace Townsend with the intent to rescue her from her abusive mother and give her a new, happy life. Leaving her life and her business behind, Sarah takes Emma on a cross country journey as they evade the police who are determined to bring the little girl home to her parents.

Yes, what Sarah did is wrong. She kidnapped a child and took her away from her parents. But the parents were negligent and abusive. Emma’s young life was miserable. Sarah might be Emma’s kidnapper, but Sarah is also her savior. The readers will find themselves cheering for Sarah as she eludes the police and provides the little girl with a happy, abusive-free summer.

Amy Townsend was not cut out to be a mother, and she feels like a failure because she has been unable to bond with the little girl. To be honest, Amy feels like she has failed at everything in life. When Emma is kidnapped, Amy does what she can to help the police find her daughter. But, the longer Emma is gone, the more Amy comes to realize that she doesn’t want her daughter back. If Emma never comes back, Amy gets a second chance at life…

NOT HER DAUGHTER is an entrancing, emotional novel. I was pulled into the story and couldn’t put it down because I wanted – no, needed – to know what happened next. Frey splits the novel between Sarah’s first-person narrative and Amy’s third-person narrative, giving the reader both sides of the story and the fall out of the kidnapping. Frey also bounces back and forth in time from Sarah’s and Amy’s childhoods, to their adult lives before and after the kidnapping. The different sections and jumps in time are clearly sectioned off and announced so that it is easy to keep track of the story’s timeline. The sections that flashback to Sarah’s and Amy’s lives before Sarah kidnaps Emma help show the reader the events that shaped the two women and how they became the people that they are now.

There is a lot more to NOT HER DAUGHTER than just the kidnapping. Sarah’s and Amy’s entire lives come in to play, forming different storylines that have nothing to do with Emma or the kidnapping. These secondary storylines provide a break from the main kidnapping plot, and show that other people that doesn’t come to a standstill despite what has happened. Amy still has a husband, a young son, and her daily life to slog through. And Sarah has a business to run, family issues to deal sort through, and people who wonder what happened to her.

NOT HER DAUGHTER by Rea Frey is an all-consuming thriller that threatens to never let you go. It asks: who is a real mother ... the woman who gives birth or the one who commits a crime to safe-keep an abused child. Taut, poignant, suspenseful, and a definite must-read! 5/5

Thanks to the author, St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for the review copy. Opinions are mine.

#NotHerDaughter #NetGalley

This book was very thought provoking. Although what Sarah did was wrong, she did it with good intentions and Emma’s quality of life improved immensely. Good book!

I stayed up way late last night, past my bedtime to finish Not Her Daughter by Rea Frey. I liked this book and it definitely kept me turning the pages. BUT…

First, read the plot:

Sarah is struggling with a breakup. She and her boyfriend Ethan have called it quits and she’s dealing with that heartbreak. A successful entrepreneur, she’s busy with work but carries around the pain of being abandoned by her mother as a child. When she sees a little girl at the airport being mistreated by her mother, and later sees the girl again, something comes over her and she takes the girl Emma. Sarah is both making up for the emotions of being left by her mother and is also saving the child who is clearly abused.

The story goes from Sarah’s point of view and Amy, the mother of Emma.

Is it wrong to save a child who is not being treated well? Should Sarah have taken Emma?

…the author did a great job of keeping the reader thoroughly engaged and wondering what was going to happen. I struggled (this is the BUT…from above) with Sarah stealing Emma. She knew it was wrong, but she did it anyway. Would a person take a child and go on the run with them even though they knew if they were caught, they’d be thrown in jail? Though I felt for Sarah, I kept thinking of taking someone’s child is just WRONG.

That being said, it was a good story and worth your time to read. It begs the question, what would YOU do?

I really enjoyed reading this book! From the very beginning it had my attention and I couldn't stop until I was finished reading it. I had never heard of Rea Frey before reading Not Her Daughter, but now I can't wait to read more of her. #NotHerDaughter #NetGalley

This book is a great read, little hard to understand at times and the ending was just blah. You have a beautiful, gray eyed little girl who is perfect in every way her mother is not. Her mother gets so angry and frustrated with this little girl she smacks her around and tells at her. A perfect stranger walks into the picture and decided that she will kidnap, protect, and go on the lamb for this little girl. Can a mother really be ok with a perfect stranger wanting to keep her child?

Wow. This was an awesome book! How far will one go to keep a child safe? This book covered a lot of issues and kept me completely engaged. Great summer read. Thanks to St. Martin’s Press and to NetGalley for providing me a galley of this book in exchange for my honest opinion.

Sarah was raised by an abusive mother, so when she sees Emma being abused by her mother, Amy, one day at the airport the encounter sticks in her mind. Later, she sees Emma again and when she witnesses Amy strike the little girl across the face, Sarah makes a rash decision to save Emma by kidnapping her. And Amber Alert goes out, but the longer the search goes on, the more Amy's bad parenting and abuse point to murder... and she's the prime suspect!
This book jumped between past and present, showing the perspective of both Amy and Sarah. The farther I read, the more I was rooting for the kidnapper, Sarah, trying to save a little girl from the physical and psychological scars that she still suffers from her own horrible mother.

This book was a little harder to read. I really wanted to read this book and I really wanted to love it, but I could only give it three stars. The plot was GOOD. REALLY good. The problem with this was that it was poorly written which made it hard for me to read. The characters stories for why they were the way they were (Amy especially) was riveting, it just didn't flow the way I would have liked it to because of the writing. Overall it was a good story and I would recommend it, the writing just could have been better.

Not Her Daughter will have you hanging on till the very end, unsure of how it will turn out. Interestingly, it will also keep you unsure of how you WANT it to turn out.
This book is told from two points of view. Sarah, the kidnapper, is ultimately trying to help a little girl escape a home where she is physically and verbally abused. Amy, the mother, has let her depression get ahold of her, and has such a terrible relationship with her daughter, she is nearly relieved when she disappears. Surprisingly, both characters are at least somewhat relatable.
The author did a great job keeping up the intensity throughout the story. I could feel the anxiety in my stomach each time Sarah had a close call. This book will keep your mind turning, even when it's over. What exactly is the right thing? Was it a kidnapping or an attempted rescue? Does Amy deserve another chance, or is the child better off with Sarah??
I was provided an ARC of this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.