I am such a big fan of Karin Slaughter and this does not disappoint! A really interesting plot that differs from most other options on the shelves at the moment. I think the character of the daughter needs tweaking a little - she's not massively believable but it doesn't ruin the story.

This started out sounding like something you would find under 'Womens Fiction' and I wondered if I had made a mistake. Andrea had chased her glamorous dreams to New York City and failed, winding up waiting tables. When her mother telephoned her with disturbing news, she leaves New York without looking back to go home to small town Georgia and help her mother through a fight with breast cancer.

After taking a job fielding 911 calls for the emergency services, her life looks very ordinary and at a dead end. However, when a crisis situation arises, some real drama enters the story and by the end of the first chapter, Andrea finds out there are aspects of her mother that she's never known and the story becomes very interesting indeed!

This is a Mystery story. I didn't like Andrea because she just freezes up in situations when a stronger person would react and she makes some seriously stupid decisions, like just kill her now and put her out of all of our misery stupid. The other female characters were also either pathetic or psychotic, yet for the most part it worked in the story. Paula got on my nerves pretty quick, not least of all because she reminds me of someone I met once, and Jane was too much like Andrea. To be fair, the male characters were mostly unpleasant as well, apart from Gordon, her step-father.

All this adds up to a pretty twisted situation that begins to get explained about a third through. There's a time flashback that takes us out of Andrea's story and gives us the background behind her mother's actions. Then it moves forward again to resolve the situation she manages to get herself into.

The characters do develop and the reason they had to be so weak becomes essential to the plot, so they're forgiven. I actually enjoyed the story quite a lot, despite the weaknesses in the main characters. I would read something else by this author.

As an avid reader of Karin Slaughter I was very pleased to get the opportunity to read this book and provide a review. This book is not like anything I have read by the author previously but that just made it all the better to read. I would absolutely recommend this book to fans and new readers alike, I read it in two days, it really is that good! The changes in timelines were easy to follow and brilliantly written and the characters were very engaging. This book is great

Andrea's mother Laura is a pillar of the community in the well-heeled town of Belle Isle, leading a quiet life and well-respected for her speech therapy career. Staid, reliable and loving, Andrea knows everything about her. Until, celebrating Andrea's birthday with brunch in a local diner, a sudden incident of horrific violence destroys everything Andrea thought she knew and she finds herself running in terror, on a desperate road trip to piece together the truth about Laura.

Like her superb last book (The Good Daughter), Pieces Of Her demonstrates a growing social conscience to Slaughter's writing, which I particularly enjoyed. Strong, too, are the sections of the book dealing with Andrea's terrified flight, in which tension ratchets to unbearable levels. Andrea, however, is flawed as a heroine - not in a literary way, but in a 'oh my f-ing god why are you so bloody wet and passive?' way. I thought that perhaps this irritating passivity would change as the narrative progressed, that the 'point' of the novel would be Andrea learning to stand up for herself... or even just to learn how to respond like a normal person when someone asks her a question. But no, she's content to barrel from one terrifying situation to another, whining all the while, which made it difficult to respect her as a character (despite her reactions probably being exactly how I would cope - or fail to! - in a similar situation).

Pieces Of Her also lacks the big twists we've come to expect from Slaughter, with the sections dealing with Laura's past being especially slow-burning. And while these sections also come with a sense of terrible inevitability, this predictability and lack of twists However, this was not at all to the detriment of my enjoyment of the novel.

Another good read from Karin Slaughter. It is a real page turner and moves along at a pretty fast pace in both the past and present narratives. I was really intrigued to see what secrets were being hidden. I did have an inkling of Laura's true identity part of the way through but that didn't detract from anything as there was still a lot to be uncovered around that. I read it in less than a day, which gives you a good idea of just how fast moving the plot is.

Many others have explained the plot so I won't expand any further. This is a great thriller with so many different characters and facets. Set in two different time periods, the full story does not unfold until the last section of the novel. Be patient as you get into it and you will be rewarded with a complex unfolding life story. Perhaps it is realistic that I didn't really like any of the characters portrayed and therefore for me that aspect, combined with rather a lot of graphic violence, means that I would not give the book 5 stars.

Pieces of Her by Karin Slaughter

It is August 2018 and it’s time for 31-year-old Andrea (that’s Andy to you and me, but not to her mother) to make some decisions about her future. It’s time for her to leave the family home once again and stand on her own two feet. At least that’s what her mother Laura thinks. And it’s right in the middle of their discussion about this in a shopping mall restaurant (surely not the right time or place for this debate, Andy thinks), when a young man walks in and shoots dead another mother and daughter standing nearby. The gun is then trained on Laura and Andy. With barely time for hesitation, Laura kills the boy with his own knife. Andy cannot believe her eyes. She looks at her mother and no longer knows who she is.

And this is just the beginning. As events escalate, Andy has no choice but to go undercover, to run for her life while chasing the truth about Laura. In so doing, Andy will not only learn who her mother is, she’ll also learn lessons about herself. If she can stay alive, that is…

Pieces of Her is the latest stand alone thriller by Karin Slaughter. I absolutely loved The Good Daughter and so I have been really keen to read this, snapping up the rather lovely hardback to supplement my review ebook copy. Once more we have a novel that puts a family under scrutiny – the crime or mystery at the heart of the book secondary to its portrayal of a family divided by secrets and shocked into action by sudden violence and trauma. The premise of Pieces of Her is compelling.

The narrative is divided between the present day adventure of Andy’s cat and mouse chase across much of the United States and another story set in 1986. I’m not going to say anything about that but it is in these sections that the truth can be found. I’m not sure that there are any surprises here in what happens but it’s certainly compelling and the pages fly through the fingers. I love books divided in this way.

I really enjoy Karin Slaughter’s writing. Her depictions of these small towns in America, the great distances between them, and the people met along the way, are all done so well. My one issue with the novel was with the character of Andy. I know that she’s trying to find her own voice, to establish her independence, essentially to grow up, but you can see why she annoys one character in particular. She certainly irritated me with her unfinished sentences, her laboured thinking – sometimes it’s as if she has lightbulbs pinging above her head – and her fumbling around. Andy feels very young for her 31 years. I realise that this is all purposefully done, Andy is supposed to be like this, but it does make her a pain to be around. Laura is a much more interesting person to spend time with. She too has her agonising moments of indecision but there’s a good reason for it in her case. I did enjoy the psychology behind Laura’s personality, as opposed to Andy who was just irritating. I also had some issues with a male character who keeps popping up in Andy’s storyline.

Pieces of Her is a substantial novel at over 450 pages but it is such a fast and furious read. I found it very difficult to put down and read huge chunks in one go. I think Karin Slaughter is a fascinating writer. I love her portrayals of (most) people and places, her understanding of both. It all seems very real and it’s engrossing.

Other review
The Good Daughter

Three years ago thirty-one year old Andrea (Andy) left New York and returned home to help nurse her mother Laura, after a breast cancer diagnosis. Andy has no drive or ambition and no meaningful personal relationships to speak of. Her mother has made her life so agreeable that Andy doesn’t know how begin to take control herself.

She and her mother are in a diner at the mall when the unthinkable happens. Andy hears a pop…then another pop..pop. Two people lie dead on the floor. Laura’s reaction to the shooter and the ensuing violence stuns Andy into a terrified state of shock. She can’t equate the woman in front of her, and her actions, with the mother she thought she knew. When Andy is involved in more violence at her mother’s house she embarks on a desperate journey, following clues to her mother’s past, to save herself and discover who Laura really is.

The mystery of Laura is at the heart of the story, a story which leads the reader down dead ends and in many wrong directions. Who is Laura? Certainly much more than the bridge playing, speech therapist and prominent member of the community that Andy thought she knew. The terrible incident in the diner marks the beginning of the end of their life as they know it. The police are involved. Laura becomes infamous and exposed but won’t talk—to anyone, much less Andy.

Pieces of Her is a dual timeline psychological thriller, set in the present day and the mid 80s. Each chapter’s heading is clear so the reader knows the exact sequence as the narrative weaves from one period to the other, exploring the mother/daughter relationship along the way.

The characters are devised extremely well, even though I found myself irritated many times by Andrea to begin with. She seems incapable of uttering a complete sentence and has no get up and go, no direction in life. But now she has no choice and needs to make her own decisions. No-one is going to make them for her….and if she makes the wrong ones her life could be at stake. Laura’s secrets are liable to destroy….one or both of them.

I began to enjoy Andrea more as she begins the search, following the trail her mother left and finding her own strength of character as she goes. It works well, the reader doesn’t really know anything before Andrea and so are following the clues with her, not knowing how anything would unfold. The flashbacks are quite complex and confusing initially but Karin Slaughter ties both stories together smoothly, while including current, relevant issues, and leading to a very surprising conclusion.

This was the first time I had read a book by Karin Slaughter. It took me ages to get used to the characters and found it very difficult to follow the story as it jumped from past to present, however I worked out the connection very early on.
I enjoyed the book but found it a bit too dark.

Karin Slaughter is such a well trusted entity when it comes to writing books. You don't even need to read the blurb about the novel in your hand. You know that, because it was written by this super skilled lady, it is going to be great stuff. The same is true of Pieces of Her. It is well written, well cast piece of fiction that is going to take you on an emotional roller coaster with plenty of stressed tension and moral tightropes to walk. I found it just a titch slow to get up and running but once there it gave the reader no chance to apply the emergency brake. The mystery was established and we were on the road with Andy as she searched for answers to the new, startling developments in her life.

It's possible that since reading The Good Daughter not that long ago, and having expended my emotional empathy for the sisters of that novel, I had nothing left for Jane. Or, that she just cried too much and wrung her hands too often for me to feel pity for her. Her agonizing did linger a wee bit too much for my liking but not so much as to detract from the book by any margin. Beyond that I really liked Andy and Laura. Their mother/daughter relationship was straight out of the parenting playbook. I enjoyed the chemistry between Andy and Mike and all the sharp sarcasm sprinkled liberally throughout the novel. Ms. Slaughter is flawless when writing this kind of book about emotional turmoil and complex interaction between people. Folksy people are her bread and butter and no one does them better. A good read is to be found here, with Pieces of Her, and it was a joy to track Andy as she unraveled the mystery of Laura.

This is very different from previous books I’ve read by this author. . For me it was very much a book of 2 parts and to be honest, I found the first half a tough slog. After the initial excitement dies down, the reader spends a lot of time alone with Andy & I found her a tiresome travelling companion. Her chapters consist of very little dialogue as she interacts with few people. Instead we listen in on her every thought & emotion. She covers the same ground over and over again in an endless loop of fear and despair. I had to keep reminding myself she was 31 as her behaviour & emotional maturity was more in keeping with those of a teenager. I'd give this book a 3 stars. I miss the Will Trent series.

I love the Sara / Will series and the Good Daughter was one of my top reads last year. Pieces of her is good but just doesn't seem to hang together as well as Karins other works. I found Andrea's character a bit annoying and the whole premise a bit fanciful.

I found the prologue unnecessary as it underlies the whole concept of this book and felt that, for some, the beginning might be a little dull. However, it does mean we feel we know the two main characters reasonably well before the action starts. And when the action does begin it runs like a roller-coaster. The bumpy ride takes us along many twists and turns, with an untold number of surprises and false guesses.
Although we think we understand how some people can be overwhelmed and controlled by others, Slaughter's characters really had me horrified at the possibility of just how easy it is for one person to manipulate the thoughts and actions of others. Just as you think you can predict the characters and the plot you are confronted by something different.
Overall, to be highly recommended for lovers of modern-day action thrillers.

Thank you to NetGalley and Harper Collins Publishers for this copy in exchange for an honest review.

Pieces of Her is a dual timeline thriller. Our focus is mainly on Andy who finds herself thrust into danger when she is caught up in a shooting incident. Andy and Laura, her mother, come face to face with the gunman – they are the last two standing but Laura steps in front of her daughter to confront the shooter.

She tries to persuade him to shoot her in order that Andy may go free. As she speaks to the gunman Laura is also urging Andy to run for freedom. There is a flurry of activity and before Andy can know what is happening the shooter is dead and her mother stands over his body. Self defense she claims yet the incident has been caught on film and any suggestion that Laura may have been a vulnerable victim is gone – it looks like she has used combat skills to eliminate a threat.

This all takes place very early in the story but Andy finds herself querying if she even knows who her mother is. There are clearly secrets which Laura has buried deep and of which Andy has no knowledge. Andy’s story is uncovering the pieces of the puzzle as to who her mother really is.

I mentioned this was a dual timeline story. Alongside Andy’s flight from a crime scene on a quest to understand Laura better there is also a story thread running which introduces new characters – this part of the tale is set in 1986.

Readers will know that the two story threads will eventually intertwine and that there will be some overlap to explain why an industrial accident in the 80’s has an impact on a random shooting in the present day.

While you read it can be perplexing to randomly spring to a different story and you have to trust in the skill of the author to know that everything shall make sense in the end. But when the author is Karin Slaughter you know that the author has all the skills to weave a deft tale which rewards the reader.

Pieces of Her was often surprising and a highly enjoyable reading experience.

I was hooked from page one and had started to clear my diary for the following 24 hours so I could follow Andy and Laura’s journey after their unfortunate wrong place wrong time encounter with a gun man. But then the book shifted to Laura’s back story which went on for just a little bit too long that I just wanted it to end so I could see what Andy was doing in the present. This went on throughout the book but I accepted the style of writing and again couldn’t put the book down. Excellent writing and characters that are perhaps a little bit unbelievable at times but are full of endearing traits. Can not wait for Karins next book.

The book begins with a killing in a restaurant and then goes back 32 years and tells the story of Jane’s life, who she is and what happened with her. I enjoyed reading this book and it kept me interested, though not as much as other books by this author.
I chose to read this book and all opinions in this review are my own and completely unbiased. Thanks to NetGalley and HarperCollins UK!

Very good thriller - enjoyable and action-packed

This is the second Karin Slaughter book that I've read and, although I enjoyed it, I probably preferred The Good Daughter. This novel concerns itself with Laura, a speech therapist, and her daughter, Andrea, who suddenly find themselves embroiled in the death of a killer. There's quite a lot of complications behind what happens next and I shall not reveal those here. The novel is peppered with flashbacks to 31 years previously to explain some of Laura's background and how she has got herself into the present situation. The book also heavily involves the daughter, Andrea and her quest for answers in 2018.

There's a good deal of characterisation with several important characters involved and the plot moves long quite well although I enjoyed the present-day scenario more than the flashbacks. There's also a lot of introspection by all the main female characters, probably more than I needed. As thrillers go, it's very successful and well worth a look.

Thank you for providing me with a copy of this book. Gripping as always from Karin and a very good read. Well recommended

Wow.

I’ll admit it now, days passed between the moment I agreed to take part in this tour and the day I picked the book to read it. For this, I am glad. I relied on the title, the author’s name, and my intuition, not remembering the blurb at all. I entered a dark room, and when I got out, I was not the same person!

There is so much to say and so little I wish for you to know before you experience Pieces of her that I have no idea what to write. This is going to be messy, vague, raw, but at least you can be sure you get the honest view of someone who wonders why on earth she did not read anything from Karin Slaughter sooner!!!

Andrea. Andy. A person, a woman, a daughter. The girl next door. The nice neighbor who sometimes forget to take out the trash on garbage day. Andy has nothing you look for in an action thriller. She is not ready for danger, for blood, for secrets. Yes, her job keeps her close to the police force without actually being part of it. She sits on the bench. It seems she’s been doing this for thirty-one years. In fact, Andy is so clueless at times you’ll want to shake some sense into her. I did! But it’s part of the game…

Then a shooting happens, forcing her suburban mother to show a face Andy didn’t know, and everything falls apart. Literally.

Karin Slaughter’s Pieces of Her is a magnificent and riveting exploration of what makes us who we are, what makes us tick, which hardships make us grow. She doesn’t shy away from putting her characters in situations where you want to scream orders to put them out of danger, she reminds the reader that they have no control over what unfolds between the pages. Numerous times, I wished for Andy to make different choices, to stand up for herself, to muster the courage to help her mother. But what do I know? How would I react? Who am I to judge?

Through past and present, two voices tell a tale of choices (mostly BAD ones!) and their consequences. Don’t think it is an easy ride. I was confused during more than half the novel, wondering where the author was taking me, unable to connect the dots between timelines that seemed to have nothing in common but still tainted each other. I drove me mad. It takes a lot to drive me mad. My kindle never stopped recalculating my reading time as I was going faster and faster, eager for answers to appear, for someone to take my hand and let me know what was going on.

But just as Andy learned, no one was around for this. So, clue after clue, one question after the other, I let doubt wrap me in a tight blanket, I let myself be shaken to the core by a beautifully plotted work of fiction with enough adrenaline to leave me breathless and burning calories from my couch!!!

Mother/daughter bounds are fascinating, and very different in each family. But I could feel the love and the protection of a mother, the need and affection of a daughter, and this broke my heart more than once. Yes, I might be biased when it comes to mommies, but I think this is why Piece of Me had an even stronger grip on me. I just couldn’t let go until things were right again. But what does right mean? Especially when you are running.

Andy doesn’t know what she is running from. Laura knows what is chasing them. Make sure your heart is ready before picking Pieces of Her, or it’ll take a piece of you! This novel is a puzzle in its truest form, you can’t finish it because some parts will always be missing. A torn-up picture and you swear when you realize you don’t have all the faces. A corpse without vital parts. Pieces of Her dissects the past and the present, two lives, love in different uniforms, right, wrong, and everything in between.

You didn’t hate someone unless part of you still loved them.

Highly addictive, beware you’ll always carry Pieces of Her with you, even long after finishing it.

I don't think there is a Karin Slaughter book that I haven't enjoyed and I have to say I find her a very versatile writer, from her Grant county series to her Will Trent series and from her stand- alones like the historic Cop Town to last year's The Good Daughter. And, I have to say Pieces of Her is among the best of them. It is complex, gritty, thought provoking and get's right to the heart of the emotions of the two main female protagonists.
A brilliant read!
Blurb
You’ve known her your whole life…
Andrea Oliver knows everything about her mother Laura. She knows she's always lived in the small town of Belle Isle; she knows she’s a pillar of the community; she knows she's never kept a secret in her life.
but she’s hiding something…
Then one day, a trip to the mall explodes into a shocking act of violence and Andy suddenly sees a completely different side to Laura.
and it could destroy you both…
Hours later, Laura is in hospital, her face splashed over the newspapers. But the danger has only just begun. Now, Andy must go on a desperate race to uncover the secrets of her mother's past. Unless she can, there may be no future for either of them…
What I think
What I found so appealing about this book was the puzzle. Just like the pieces of the title, I spent the entire novel trying to work out how these pieces of Andrea's mother fit together. It was strangely mesmerising. The reason for that, I think, is that as Andrea tries to piece together who her mother is, we see her growing and developing In Pieces of Her, Slaughter has again created two strong female protagonists and what makes them each so appealing is that they are so different and yet so alike. Both are striving to be themselves- to shake off the constraints that they've inherited and, for Andrea, the road trip she takes is her coming of age story.
I loved the way that Slaughter took us back in time through flashback and, so tantalisingly, dotted in clues throughout Andrea's journey. The suspense was delicious, the writing beautifully poignant and the subject matter, although hard to digest at times, was compelling.
Slaughter's plotting is second to none. With skill and aplomb, she filled in the gaps, yet simultaneously, left enough out to keep me hooked. She is the master of red herrings and I loved it.