This is the story of three women and the children who temporarily are not in their lives. The main character, Rachel, is living away from her family after a huge altercation with her husband. She misses her daughter Becca and her new friend Leona misses the daughter she gave up for adoption. Rachel's other new friend Viv had to put her child into a home after he was diagnosed with schizophrenia. All three women feel guilty about the reasons they're apart from their children and offer each other hope and a reason to carry on.
This book was very hard to put down because of the many twists and turns in the story. I especially liked the character Becca, who at 13, seemed wise beyond her years.
I received this book in a Kindle edition from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. I'm glad to have had the opportunity to read it before its release. I'll watch for more by Ali Mercer.

The book was quite different. It had all what the blurb promised and beyond that too. My first book by Ali Mercer, I went in thinking it was a thriller, but it wasn’t. It was about how a moment of lost control could lead to repercussions.

Rachel was a good mother, she worked hard, looked after the needs of her husband and her daughter Becca and was always working. Her husband was a house husband, but to me, he was quite a slimy character with a holier-than-thou attitude. Oh how I hate such people!

Then Rachel’s mother died and she went into depression, and one rash act caused her to lose custody of her daughter. She herself moved away according to her daughter’s wishes, leaving her home to her husband and living in a shabby place.

Rachel met with women like her, Viv and Leona, who had lost their children due to circumstances, and the book was more about Rachel finding her strength and in the process, getting to know the human psyche.

Ali’s writing had the power to pull me in thoroughly at some places, there was innocence and honesty. The emotions shown by all the characters were controlled. I kept thinking how glorious it would have been if they had let go and said what needed to be said. Then the book would have been at a whole new level.

Overall, the lives of the three women were weaved well, enmeshed into the bonds of the story. This book was not only about lost daughters but also about relationships, old ones and the new. It was about human nature with its strengths and flaws. A good read.

Read and reviewed in exchange for a free copy from NetGalley. I really enjoyed this book, and got through it in an afternoon. Mercer writes well and creates sympathy for the characters, especially Rachel, and I was intrigued to find out the circumstances which led to the events of the book. I liked how the story was told from multiple perspectives, and I liked having a happy ending (not all that common in the books I read!)

This book was a really interesting, intriguing one. There were lots of twists and turns that keep the reader guessing. I felt the ending wasn't in keeping with the rest of the book as it was from the perspective of a secondary character within the book and I would have preferred to finish with the voice of one of the main characters. Nonetheless, a very good book.

I received this ARC copy from Net Galley in exchange for my honest opinion of it. This story centers around Rachel and two other woman who do not have custody of their children. Each person's storyline and how their lives come together.

A book with multi-layered and emotional stories. While centered around the trials and tribulations of one family breaking apart, it also nicely weaves together three women who have experienced the loss of their children in differing and devastating ways. Ali Mercer is new to me and I look forward to her next book!

At times, this book got extremely hard to understand. Some chapters had titles or were specific from a characters POV and others were just filler material so to speak. After Rachel, mother to teenage Becca loses her job and ends up discovering her husband Mitch has been cheating with her coworker, Rachel loses it. She strikes Mitch which costs her both her marriage and her daughter, who wants very little to do with her mother. The story mainly surrounds Rachel's attempts to work her way back into her daughter's life.
The story alternates between the current situation and the events that led up to it. Again though often times those lines seem to be jumbled making it confusing. It was a good story, but the layout of it just made it hard to read.

Lost Daughter by Ali Mercer is an engrossing and heart-rending journey through motherhood, loss, and heartbreak. Within, the author has given life to characters that will stay with the reader long after the final page has been turned.

Rachel is a woman struggling to come to terms with her surrendering of primary custody of her daughter, Becca, following an ugly altercation with her husband. At the heart of the dissolution of the marriage is the love and loyalty of a thirteen year old daughter. Trying to come to grips wth the family's new reality, Rachel meets Leona and Viv, two women who, through very different circumstances, have also redefined the stereotypical maternal relationship with their children, and the women form a bond in this commonality.

This is an emotive read that will surely tug on the heartstrings of anyone on either side of the mother/child relationship. The primary characters are well-developed, and I have not read a more empathetic figure than Rachel in recent memory.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Bookouture for this ARC.

A new author for me and I wasn't sure about it at first but I kept on reading and enjoyed it. It is a well developed story with good characters although a heartbreaking and sad read.

Thank you to Netgalley and Bookouture for giving me the opportunity to read this book.

If you think photos aren’t important… wait until they’re all you have left of your child.

Your life isn’t perfect, but you’re still happy. Your husband has stuck by you and he’s a good dad. Your daughter Becca makes your heart explode with love. And then, in the time it takes to say ‘bad mother’, there’s no longer a place for you in your own family. Your right to see your child has disappeared.

Life goes on in your house – family dinners, missing socks and evening baths – but you aren’t there anymore. Becca may be tucked up in bed in Rose Cottage, but she is as lost to you as if she had been snatched from under your nose.

Everyone knows you deserve this, for what you did. Except you’re starting to realize that things maybe aren’t how you thought they were, and your husband isn’t who you thought he was either. That the truths you’ve been so diligently punishing yourself for are built on sand, and the daughter you have lost has been unfairly taken from you. Wouldn’t that be more than any mother could bear?

Lost Daughter is a very heartbreaking novel. I was hooked and felt anger, sadness and needed it to be a happy ever after.
Thanks as always to NetGalley for the advance copy.

Enjoyable and a fun read!

The story caught my eye from the moment I read the blurb, and I just knew I wanted to read this book. I was not let down and can recommend this to everyone!