Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for my copy of this book. As a mother, a tiny sliver of myself related to Amy, the frazzled, stressed out, impatient mother of the little girl who goes missing, Emma. I think most mothers will relate to her feelings in a small way when we've felt like we're pushed to our limits.

In Amy's case with little Emma, it is so much more than that. In steps Sarah, a single, childless, highly successful businesswoman who has witnessed more than one "situation" between Amy and her daughter, Emma.

I won't say more about the plot other than I kept reading very curious to find out how the author was going to have it all play out. There were several twists and turns I was surprised at (one didn't seem realistic) and she did a great job of not coming to an easy, predictable ending. She also did a good job of giving us depth to the characters since people are not 100% all good or all bad, so we had a better understanding of what made them behave the way they did.

A unique storyline that I can't wait to see on the big screen!

I really, really wanted to like this book more than I did. The plot holes were just too much for me in the end.
1. The book is partially set in my hometown of Longview, WA. Its portrayal was quite generous and not very realistic, so that made the book automatically less believable overall.
2. There are so many things that just could not happen, most of all the ending. There's just no way that would ever fly in this real world, technologically advanced society. But there were way too many things throughout that were just beyond believable.
3. The contrast between Sarah and Amy is too stark. Sarah is nearly "perfect" and Amy is "grotesque". Amy has no redeeming qualities and Sarah (other than her loss of Ethan) has everything going for her. It made me root for Amy to get her life together and Sarah to fall apart.
4. There's no way that a five year old would just automatically turn into a perfect angel the minute she got away from her terrible mother. You mean she NEVER threw a tantrum? Sarah's patience ALWAYS won out and she never ever got frustrated and burned out? How nice for her, but no.

I did like the moral dilemma portrayed in the story, it does make the reader think--is it ever ok to break the law if it is the best thing for a child? But then how do you know that it is really the best thing and not just your limited perspective? This would make a great book club read!

Let me just begin by saying, this book had real potential. It just has so many holes and things that just didn't add up it made it hard to really believe half the stuff in this book because there were so many things that were like "wait, what"? Don't get me wrong it was a good book, but with a lot of short comings.

<spoiler>Like why didn't Ethan turn her in when she never returned the child? He just up and decided nah...it's cool? How did she explain the child to her family? Her friends? I don't believe for one second that she just up and dropped everyone forever and never visited them again. How did she get her into a school without a birth certificate? *I get it she just got like 10 million for selling her business and could have gotten a fake one, but still.* Plus many more "wait, what"? moments.</spoiler>

Amy Townsend hates her life. Mired in depression and self loathing, she was not meant to be a mother and she knows it. She and her husband barely tolerate each other. Most days, she can barely hold it together. She takes out these frustrations on her daughter, the epitome of everything she isn't. 

When successful CEO Sarah Walker sees 5-year-old Emma Townsend and her family at the airport, she recognizes herself in the little girl, watching sadly as her mother mistreats her, ignores her, and yells at her. When she serendipitously sees her again weeks later, she finds herself drawn to Emma and in an impulsive moment, decides to "rescue" her and give her the life she deserves; the life she herself wishes she had growing up.

What follows is a sometimes heart-pounding and sometimes heart breaking journey cross country to avoid the authorities. As the two get to know each other, a bond is created that really poses the question: what makes someone a mother? Not Her Daughter did a great job of asking that tough question and examining the relationships between mothers and daughters in a way that felt really fresh and exciting. It's not too often you read a book about a kidnapping and you want the kidnapper to get away with it!

The story flashes between Sarah and Amy's viewpoints, tracking Emma's kidnapping from both perspectives. I was really invested in the story and thought it was incredibly well written and the characters fleshed out beautifully. As we raced towards the ending, I kept asking myself how it was all going to get resolved and was really pleased that I was surprised by the ending! 

This is going to be made into a movie soon, and I can't wait to see it! (If anyone OTHER than Anne Hathaway plays Sarah it'll be a crime, since in the book it even references the fact that Sarah looks just like Anne Hathaway lol!) Can't recommend this one enough!

Sarah Walker is a successful business owner, still recovering from a failed relationship, but seemingly healthy in all respects. While on a business trip, she witnesses a disturbing scene between a mother and her young daughter at an airport. It’s clear the mother is frazzled but not enough to excuse her treatment of the little girl in the red dress, hair bow and shoes. Not long after, Sarah discovers the little girl again during a trip to a Montessori school to pitch business and follows her home, just to make certain her life is better than what she first witnessed. Unfortunately, it’s not and Sarah and 5-year old Emma both make a decision that permanently alters their lives and that of many others.

I began this story knowing that Sarah takes Emma but couldn’t believe there would be any circumstances where I would condone her actions. Incredibly, I found myself rooting for Sarah and Emma but also felt compassion for Amy, Emma’s mother, despite her horrible parenting. There are a host of issues presented in this story, none of them explored in any real depth but enough to stimulate thought provoking inquiry. You see society passing harsher judgment on the mothers in this story while the enabling fathers seem to get a pass. The story provides quite a bit of background on both Sarah and Amy, providing some insights and contrasts into and between the two women.

This was a Traveling Friends group book selection that generated a robust discussion, raising some provocative points of view I hadn’t considered. One dealt with how tough women are on other women as parents, maybe reflecting their own insecurities. While the ending left a lot of dangling resolutions, I enjoyed the book for challenging paradigms about parenting, child abductions and female/male stereotypes. It doesn’t provide a lot of answers but it made me think and left me to my imagination about the story’s outcome.

This is a book without a single character having any redeeming qualities. This is a book with a plot which at times lacked common sense. This is a book that I totally enjoyed. Read it and you will too.

I had so many emotions while reading this book. I can't tell you how many nights I have stayed up thinking about what I would do in this situation and it breaks my heart how it ended. So. many. questions. Did she get another birth certificate? How did she stay hidden? What about her father? I did love how in the book went back and forth between Sarah & Amy POVs- I would have truly hated Sarah if not for hearing Amy's side as well. I am giving it 4 stars because I could not put it down and this was a book that will stay with me for awhile. I would truly love a follow up book to see how their lives are after the fact.

When your mom leaves from your life at 8 years old you are haunted for the rest of your life. When Sarah Walker sees a little girl getting badly treated by her mom at the air port it affects her deeply. While out at a achool doing demos for her company she spots the same little girl. Is this fate.is it meant for Sarah to find out more. This leads to a situation that Sarah has to change and this takes Sarah on a journey to save this child.

2.5 stars. Too much implausibility for me.

A five-year-old girl goes missing. A broken family with many hidden secrets. A highly successful young business woman with a weight on her conscience. This book had so much potential, however, the storyline just didn’t add up.

The novel started off strong and I enjoyed the writing and narrative flow. I really liked the way the dual narratives were broken down into ‘Before’, ‘During’ and ‘After’ – it kept the story fresh and intriguing. However, once I started to taste the sense of implausibility in the plotline, I just couldn’t snap out of it and my enjoyment faded. After the halfway point, it seemed to be a downward slope into eye-rolling territory.

This was a Traveling Sister read. A wide variety of feelings on this one which lead to some intense and wonderful discussion. Myself and a couple other Traveling Sisters are definitely the outliers with our lack of love for this book. I highly recommend checking out the many raving reviews for this novel.

Thank you to NetGalley, St. Martin’s Press and Rea Frey for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review!

I enjoyed this thought-provoking story, but I was most intrigued by the character studies. Within the drama of precocious 5-year Emma’s kidnapping by good samaritan Sarah is an interesting cast of characters. Rea Fry brings them to life, albeit they aren’t all that likable except for young Emma! The elements of the characters, their current circumstances interspersed with those from their past dysfunctional family environments provided great insight into current motivations and errors of judgement. Author Rea Frey successfully melded past and present making for a good story.

I love the moral dilemma it brings up-- is something that seems so obviously wrong really wrong under these circumstances? Gripping and I love stories like this.

I was immediately captivated by this book, which is what I was hoping for given how intriguing the synopsis had been. From moment one, I couldn't put the book down. This is absolutely a book I would recommend to others.

It's true that the book synopsis grabbed me but having never read Rea Frey before, I wasn't sure what to expect. I've been fooled by other books and new authors (new authors to me at least) in the past. But Frey's novel lived up to any and all of my hopeful expectations. The story moved and never stalled, the characters were so well rounded that I couldn't always decide which character to side with, and the writing allowed me to lose myself in the story rather than picking through unnecessary language and/or description.

Not Her Daughter by Rea Frey is a book that all contemporary readers should read.

I received an advanced copy of this book through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. This book had me on the edge of my seat the whole time! It was definitely a book that kept you thinking! I would definitely recommend this book to fellow readers. Thank you!

This one took me awhile to get into because I was so torn. I didn’t know what side to be on - which made it a very interesting read. The writing was solid and I felt like I could understand the main characters. While the plot felt far-fetched and some main things weren’t exactly flushed out (Sarah’s relationship with Ethan and her mother), I did enjoy this “thriller” although it took me much longer to read than normal. I would recommend it to psychological thriller fans. 3 stars. This book took me 4 hours to read. Thank you to Netgalley and St Martin’s Press for my copy!

This book had some great spots. But some of it was hard to believe. Like no one connected Sarah and Emma? No one noticed her all of the sudden around the neighborhood then disappears at the same time as Emma? She always seemed to catch a break, to be just a step ahead. And the ending with the mom! How could she do that?! I know some people aren’t cut out for being a mom but giving up full custody of the son and then telling some stranger to keep the daughter?! After finishing the book, it makes me wonder why did they have to keep moving? I understand the mom couldn’t just come out and say ‘oh by the way, I gave my kid away to some stranger because she didn’t want to come home.’ But I would have thought the story would die down, especially with everything else going on and the length of time. Why didn’t they go back to Chicago to be with Ryan and Charlie? It had a ‘feel good’ ending but I would have liked some sort of reconnection. It did have some great thriller parts though I’m not sure I would put it in the thriller genre. Overall, I enjoyed the book.

EXCERPT: "Where's my mommy?" She whispers, so that I have to lean in to hear.

"She’s. . ." I hear the question and consider my answers. Her mother is at home. Her mother is searching. Her mother had her chance.

ABOUT THIS BOOK: Gripping, emotional, and wire-taut, Not Her Daughter raises the question of what it means to be a mother—and how far someone will go to keep a child safe.

Emma Townsend. Five years old. Gray eyes, brown hair. Missing since June.

Emma is lonely. Living with her cruel mother and clueless father, Emma retreats into her own world of quiet and solitude.

Sarah Walker. Successful entrepreneur. Broken-hearted. Kidnapper.

Sarah has never seen a girl so precious as the gray-eyed child in a crowded airport terminal. When a second-chance encounter with Emma presents itself, Sarah takes her—far away from home. But if it’s to rescue a little girl from her damaging mother, is kidnapping wrong?

Amy Townsend. Unhappy wife. Unfit mother. Unsure whether she wants her daughter back.

Amy’s life is a string of disappointments, but her biggest issue is her inability to connect with her daughter. And now Emma is gone without a trace.

As Sarah and Emma avoid the nationwide hunt, they form an unshakeable bond. But what about Emma’s real mother, back at home?

MY THOUGHTS: Once I had started Not Her Daughter by Rea Frey, I didn't want to do anything other than read this book. I did not want to go to work. I didn't want to talk to anyone. I just wanted to read. Usually I take my book to work and read at lunch time. But I didn't dare do that because I knew that when it came time to start work again, I would have allowed myself 'just one more page', and then another, and another . . . you know how it goes! I would have still been reading when it was time to go home, and would have accomplished nothing for the day. It was a very long day, and I felt naked without my book.

Rea Frey knows how to write. She had me captivated from beginning to end. There was one point, just prior to the end of the book ,where I just froze. Stopped reading. Stopped breathing. And just let the tears flow.

The story is told from Sarah's and Amy’s points of view and alternates between before, during, and after Emma goes missing. And there the similarity to any other book I have ever read ends. This is a fresh and novel approach to the 'missing child' story. It is beautifully written and raises a lot of good questions about the ability and suitability of some people to be a parent.

Not Her Daughter is riveting and compelling. A book that I wanted to get to the end of to find out what happened, a story I wanted never to end.

I had questions at the end, but I decided that, in the interest of a great story, they just weren't that important. Thanks for the great read Rea Frey, and I am pleased to see that you are busy at work on your next book, for which I will be first in line.

THE AUTHOR: Rea Frey is the author of four nonfiction books. Her debut novel, NOT HER DAUGHTER, will be released by St. Martin’s Press August 21, 2018.

When she’s not exercising, mothering, adulting, wifing, eating, or writing about herself in the third person, you can find her hard at work on her next book and ghostwriting for other people.

Read more at reafrey.com.

DISCLOSURE: Thank you to St Martin's Press, St Martin's Griffin via Netgalley for providing a digital ARC of Not Her Daughter by Rea Frey for review. All opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own personal opinions.

The beginning of the book pulled me in immediately. I devoured the first 70% of the story. Emma Townsend is a beautiful, precocious 5 year old girl with cruel, unhappy and abusive mother and detached father. Sarah Walker is a successful, self-made business woman. On one of her business trips she comes across the Townsend family. It is apparent they are a dysfunctional, unhappy family and Sarah immediately feels strong emotions for Emma, who is unfortunately at the receiving end of all her mother, Amy's, unhappiness.

Had fate not intervened and brought Emma back into Sarah's life months later she may have remained a sad memory, forgotten after awhile. When Sarah finds herself back in the presence of this little girl - she simply can't ignore it. It must be a sign! She is meant to rescue Emma!

Sarah makes a bold (& somewhat unbelievable choice) to kidnap Emma. Sarah's choice may have been extreme but it was definitely borne out of her own childhood. While, I had to certainly suspend believe here I was initially able to do so. The relationship between Emma and Susan was heartwarming. My momma heart was happy that this little girl was finally getting some positivity, love and nurturing. Even if it was in this outlandish, crazy way.

Unfortunately, there were a few things in the last 30% or so of the book that didn't jive with me. Even in a work of fiction, I just can't suspend ALL belief. Things just kept getting more and more unplausible and I had a problem with it.

The first thing that really bothered me (that was just beyond suspending my belief) was the entire section of the book with Ryan and his son Charlie. They meet at a park, he helps her find Emma, they have dinner together and he invites her to stay at his house & she accepts! What?! They end up staying with them for awhile and she even leaves Emma alone with him. That was bizarre, unsafe and I just didn't even see the point of having any of that in the book.

The second thing that I had a hard time accepting was the ending. I know many readers who loved it. While I found it to be a happy ending for Emma, it was just so unbelievable. Putting aside the fact that there had been a manhunt for Sarah & Emma, I couldn't believe that Amy who up till this point had been described as angry, resentful and honestly in mind jealous of her own daughter would simply allow for everything to end the way it did. She didn't strike me as the type who would sacrifice herself, as the prime suspect, for her daughter's happiness.

Overall, I did enjoyed a good bulk of the book. The part with Ryan was unnecessary and could have easily been cut out and it would not have affected the book at all. I honestly think it would have been better without it. The ending though - I would have liked to see it play out differently. I think Frey tried to tie things up, hastily, into a happy ending and the result fell a little flat for me

I am a serious outlier on this one. Not Her Daughter had me riveted and reading at breakneck speed, but not because I enjoyed it but because I couldn’t quite believe what I was reading. This is yet another child abduction psychological thriller. The twist in this case is that Sarah abducts 5 year old Emma because she is concerned that Emma is being abused by her mother Amy. The story opens with the abduction, and is told from the points of view of both Sarah and Amy at different points in time. I don’t object as a matter of principle to this odd sub genre of psychological thrillers. In fact, I’ve enjoyed a few including [book:What Was Mine|25111142] and a few others I listed in this review of What She Knew https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1505837793. But in this case I just couldn’t suspend disbelief and found myself shaking my head over and over. A few issues in no particular order:

-The characters — including their motivations and actions — just didn’t ring true. For example, while Sarah’s decision to abduct Emma is completely nutso, she is far too perfect in how she treats Emma. Also, no 5 year old would behave that perfectly after being abducted no matter how dysfunctional the original family.

-There were a few glaring logistical inconsistencies in the plot. For example, Sarah emphasizes that she can only pay for things with cash, but at one point rents an AirBNB apartment online.

-There were too many weird plot threads, including why things didn’t work out with Sarah’s ex, the over the top success of Sarah’s business and Amy’s exploration of prior lives through some kind of hypnotherapy.

-And the ending! Good grief! It leaves so many questions unanswered...

Again, my objections to this one are not on moral grounds. I just found the story to be one hot mess.

But I’m an outlier. So don’t listen to me...

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an opportunity to read an advance copy.

Thank you for the opportunity to read, Not Her Daughter by Rea Frey. At this time, I do not feel I can finish this book and write a positive review. I have spent several days trying to identify what exactly about the book is making it impossible for me to read and I am not sure. I think it is that I do not like reading about physical abuse of children and the idea of taking a child, even one who was abused is abhorrent to me. I also think the jumpy writing of moving so quickly between scenes is bothering me. Anyway, I am asking that you excuse me from reviewing this book as I will not be able to write a positive review. I do not leave negative reviews on my blog, nor do I feel comfortable leaving them on any site. There are many books that I didn't like that are loved by others and visa versa. I do not want to prevent any writer from selling a book based on a negative review.

I hope you will continue to allow me to read ARC novels via your company and my inability to complete my task with this book will not be held against me.

2, this book has more plot holes than swiss cheese stars!!!

I'll start this by saying I really, really wanted to like this book. When a novel with such high ratings falls totally and completely flat for me I get a bit nervous about leaving the lone bad review. However, it would be a disservice to rate this anymore than the 2 stars it has warranted.

Sarah: she's beautiful, thin and fit. She's incredibly successful, she created her own company, maintains long term healthy relationships, self describes herself as not being needy or over-the-top. She's an "Anne Hathaway" look alike to boot (pre-casting our upcoming 'Major Motion Picture are we Frey). Meet Emma's kidnapper.

Amy: she's "fat, ruddy and gassy", she eats too much cheese and hates being a parent. She hates her husband, her monotonous life and everything in between. She is neglectful and resentful at best and borderline abusive at worst. She is the stark opposite to Sarah's "Mary-Sue", written to have literally not one redeeming quality. Meet Emma's biological mother.

Emma: child of two ugly parents, one hateful and one neglectful, she is still somehow (of course) stunning and beautiful. She is a strong willed and difficult child (but what children aren't sometimes).

When Sarah sees Emma at an airport causing a scene, she also sees Amy's reaction and while it's overly aggressive and not appropriate it is not abusive. Fast forward a few months and Sarah sees Emma again by happenstance - she's playing alone in a sandbox where she's slinging a product her company distributes to schools for children.

When Sarah sees Emma this second time, apparently everything Frey has led us to believe about Sarah short circuits and she swan dives in olympic proportion into insanity. Sarah follows Emma home, pulls the good ol' Peeping Tom routine in her back yard and after an altercation between Amy and Emma (that while wholly wrong, again, is not evidence of prolonged abuse) she just plucks Emma from the only life she's known and goes on the lamb.

The implausibility here compounded with the horrendous descriptors used for Amy's physical appearance lost the first 2 stars for me. When we are introduced to Sarah she's successfully running her own business, she's a literal workaholic and incredibly passionate about the life she's building for herself. However, she sees a beautiful child in an inarguably sub-par family and out of literally nowhere decides to commit a felony that could ruin everything she's worked for? I don't buy it. As every page turned my questions built one on top of the other until it felt like I was drowning in a sea of unrefined plot points that hadn't been fleshed out.

The last star got knocked out of the park like the home-run in a baseball game that's gone into extra innings with that ending. If I thought this novel couldn't have gotten more implausible I was sorely mistaken. I wont spoil it for future readers, but the sheer impossibility of that scenario happening in 2018 (let alone any recent time period) is astounding. For all of the wasted attention to detail throughout a fairly quick read it's shocking to see so little attention paid to the ending and final "twist". It's literally just thrown at the reader in the second to last chapter like a swift slap to the face. I don't see how Frey could spend such an inordinate amount of time describing how ugly and physically horrible Amy is and we're just given a grand total of 3 pages on the ending.

My biggest disappointment in reading is when I feel a story has endless promise but doesn't deliver. This is the perfect example of that. I loved the idea of seeing the other side of kidnapping, seeing a child who really was dealt a bad hand end up with a good, loving and caring mother. All the pieces are there but Frey did not deliver a cohesive story.

I completed this as a Traveling Sisters read and turns out I'm in a coulee all alone on this one. Most of the sisters rated this quite highly and really enjoyed the story but it was not mine to be had. I do think this book is riddled with discussion opportunities about different moral obligations and questions but the development into the characters and motives (or lack thereof) left me unimpressed here.