Do you like thrillers?

Do you like a psychological twist on your thrillers?

Do you like a compelling family drama mixed into your psychological thrillers?

Do you like a teenage girl with multiple personalities who may have committed murder tossed into your family drama-style psychological thrillers? (Yeah, I said murderous multiple personalities.)

Well, look no further, THIS is the book for you!

WOW! I needed to stand up and be productive today, but when D.J. Palmer’s newest book is in my hand, resistance is futile. I was glued to my chair. This book would not let me move.

Plot: So, Grace comes home to find that her daughter, Penny (that’s one of her names, anyway) isn’t home. A few minutes later, the cops show up saying that a very bloody Penny has just been arrested for murder. Grace is all, “Sure, but did Penny do it, or was it one of her other personalities. ‘Cause we’ve had issues.”

Yeah.

Did she do the murder? How many people exactly are living in this chick’s head? Can the family survive all the murderous hoopla? Is Grace strong enough to support her daughter while she’s the subject of an intense investigation? Will a troubled doctor be able to help Penny? Will Penny’s brother, who is making a film diary about Penny’s...problems, figure out the truth?

Guys, D.J. Palmer is the real deal. He shines at writing believable characters. Those characters can be men, women, troubled teenaged girls, or concerned brothers. He breathes a spirit into every creation of his mind, and consistently offers his readers living, breathing characters that will stick with them long after they’ve finished the last page. I can’t get enough.

If you haven’t read his stuff, grab Saving Meghan or The New Husband and read those before, during, or after you read this one. Just do it!

4.5 Stars

“Ever heard the excuse ‘the Devil made me do it’? Well, what if you’re the devil?”

Grace was a mother blessed with two sons but longed for a daughter. Her prayers are answered in a most unusual way…a child has been abandoned in the park…a young girl so traumatized she is unable to speak. Grace immediately bonds with the girl, and they name her Penny. While finding love and security amongst her new family, Penny’s trauma still emerges by transforming and splitting into various personalities…and one of them could prove to be deadly…

Holy jaw-dropping endings Batman! I’ll not spoil the fun of all the psychological twists and turns in DJ Palmer’s newest thriller in a review, but I will say this is a story that not only delves deep into the psyche of the mind, but also the lengths a parent will go to save their child and the unconditional love needed to care for one with mental illness.

Another fantastic read by DJ Palmer! Loved and highly recommend!





**I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book that I received via NetGalley. All thoughts and opinions are my own. **

I do not know that I can write how much I LOVED this book... You will become riveted from page 1 and not want to stop reading. This book dives into DID (what most of us know as Multiple Personality disorder) all the while trying to prove that it is a real diagnosis, while capturing you in with the delving of a crime. I found the author to have written very believable characters, and must have done a huge amount of research to fully understand the mental health aspects that drive this novel. I wanted to read this book all the time, but life called... LOL.

For the love of dog, could you please pick a POV!?!?! I was so confused I would sometimes have to flip back to the beginning of the chapter to figure out who was talking. Way too repetitive. Could use some editing for repetition. Oh, did I mention it was repetitive.
Not the worse ARC I've gotten, but I remember enjoying this author's previous book, but this one was just meh, although it did elicit more than one "WTF?!?!?"

This is the 3rd book I’ve read by this author and it is by far the authors best work yet! The Perfect Daughter is a thriller that has a twist to the storyline that I would of never anticipated. It’s the story of Isabella Boyd, who at the age of 4 is found alone and abandoned in a park. Grace and her 2 sons find her and Grace instantly falls in love and wants her to become part of her family. From there the story goes on to tell of a murder and Penny (former Isabella) is accused of the crime. The murder victim just happens to be Penny’s biological mother, Rachel Boyd. All evidence points to Penny’s guilt but due to Penny having split personalities due to trauma suffered from her early childhood, everything is very confusing. Did she do it or is she telling the truth? It takes hearing from all her different alters to find out what really happened and who is actually guilty. This was a story that held my interest and had me reading late into the night. It’s definitely one I’d recommend as I truly believe that this is D.J. Palmer’s best writing yet. I’d like to thank Danielle Prielipp, Senior Marketing Manager at St. Martin’s Publishing Group for the invite and NetGalley for the arc to read, review and enjoy. I’m giving this a 5 star rating.

D.J palmer has quickly became one of my favorite authors! The story telling and suspension makes it impossible to put this down and will keep you up all night to get to the ending!

A murder and a girl covered in blood. Guilty...not so fast. The accused is a seventeen year old with DID or what we used to call split personality. Interesting learning about all the alters and their coping mechanisms. Good conclusion, concise and a nice little surprise on who the murderer is.
Thank s to Netgalley and the publishers for an ARC.

3.5 stars. This was not your basic "who done it" book and it starts with the prime suspect maybe having multiple personality disorder. This complexity might make the story interesting enough but this one also included a mother with a fierce love for this adopted disturbed daughter, a brother trying to make sense of things in order to write a movie script, a doctor trying to make sense of things in order to make a diagnosis, and an attorney trying to make sense of things in order to build a defense. I wanted to give it 4 stars but the ending seemed a bit disconnected from the rest of the book for me. But hey - 3.5 stars isn't too shabby!

Thank you NetGalley, St. Martin's Press and D.J. Palmer for the ARC!

This book started off with a bang and had me hooked from the beginning! Unfortunately, my interest got lost in the last half of the book. I enjoyed the mental illness aspect, as I think it will bring a lot of attention and learning opportunities to readers. There were many twists and turns that shocked me. However, the plot got too convoluted by the end and was totally unbelievable. My thanks to the publisher for the advance reader in exchange for my honest review.

The Perfect Daughter is where “Split”, “Case 39” and “Before I Go To Sleep” meet. It tells the story of Penny, a girl that has Dissociative Identity Disorder – DID, who is arrested for a brutal murder. Due to her condition, parts of her memory are missing, because what she lives as one alter/persona, she doesn’t remember when she’s her main self or when she’s another alter/persona. Now her family has to fight to prove her condition and for her not to go to prison for the rest of her life or maybe, just maybe, for a not-guilty verdict.

Plot: ★★★★
You can tell the author did an extensive research and treated the mental condition very respectfully, making us understand why all the challenges that DID brought on the trial and defense of Penny were not such a stretch of reality. I liked the sensitiveness while approaching the adoption subject also. The red herrings were very well inserted in the story to keep you guessing about everything up until the few last chapters, but I think maybe it was one too many. The plot twists were not completely shocking, but they are very well delivered - one in particular you can guess while it is being played out, but it surely doesn’t stop you from wanting to scream while it happens.

Structure: ★★★
This is what I liked the least about the book, I really think that Penny’s brother’s POV was unnecessary and kind of boring. It’s not slow paced but also not a book impossible to put down, is there a medium-paced category? What I can say is that the doubt whether Penny did it or not, whether she was mentally capable or not lingers until the very end and curiosity fuels up the read. ““Are you ill...or are you evil?” aaaaaa

Characters: ★★★★
I can’t really tell if I liked some of the characters but I can definitely understand them and their actions, and to me that’s what’s more important, not likeability. Grace’s character could have been more developed, falling a little flat and unrelatable. On the other hand, Penny’s character is simply perfectly elaborated.

3,7 ★

This is a very good psychological mystery, if you love exploring the human mind while enjoying a good thriller, it’s definitely worth the read!

Thanks NetGalley for this Advance Review Copy in exchange for my honest review!

Sixteen-year-old Penny Francone has been arrested for murder after being found alone in the victim's apartment, covered in the victim's blood, and holding the murder weapon. And she has clear-cut motive, as the victim is the birth mother who abandoned her twelve years ago. It's an open-and-shut case--except it isn't Penny who is currently awaiting trial in a state psychiatric hospital, but one of her alters, Eve. Because Penny has Dissociative Identity Disorder. With the help of attorney Greg Navarro and the hospital's attending psychiatrist Dr. Mitch McHugh, Penny's adoptive mother Grace seeks to prove Penny's innocence--or at least understand which one of her perfect daughter's alters could've committed such a horrible act, and why.

Reading this book made me think of the 1996 film Primal Fear thanks to the subject matter, albeit from the adoptive mother's perspective rather than the lawyer's, Fortunately, without giving spoilers, the ending of The Perfect Daughter is nothing like that movie's. This is a well=crafted book, with rich, believable characters. I was a bit thrown at first when the POV shifts to the first-person viewpoint of Penny's adoptive brother Jack, and I'm not entirely sure why it wasn't third-person like Grace's and Mitch's perspective, other than to throw in filmmaking references. By the middle of the book I was used to it, though. I will admit, I figured out the ending at the same time as Grace announces she's figured it out, but I didn't piece it together before then, so that says a lot about Palmer's skill in sprinkling clues without giving anything away. And it is quite a twist. All the loose ends are wrapped up properly by the end, with the epilogue mainly a feel-good denouement that goes a little heavy on the subject of addiction.

There were a few inconsistencies I noted, including one point where Mitch refers to Penny's "multiple personalities" (DID is now considered an identity disorder ,not a personality one), and another where Eve uses the wrong term to refer to Grace (calling her "Mom" instead of "Mother"), an important distinction between the alters. But these ended up not being critical plot points, and the version I read was an uncorrected proof so hopefully they will be corrected by the final print. Overall, though, Palmer does a great job portraying the complexity of DID, and gets a lot of other things right, like using correct adoption terms and accurate descriptions of psychiatric hospitals. If you liked Alex Michaelides's The Silent Patient, you'll enjoy The Perfect Daughter.

This one was just ok. The premise was interesting and the twist at the end was solid, but in between it DRAGGED for me and I had to make myself keep going. I wanted to root for the characters but they all felt two dimensional and parts of the plot seemed forced. Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

I will not be forgetting this book! This story was unlike anything I have ever read before! We meet a young adult named Penny who is being accused of murdering her birth mother. However, Penny has Dissociative Identity Disorder meaning she has multiple personalities. I love psychology and this book taught me a lot about DID. I was hooked from the beginning to the end. It even had a plot twist at the end I didn't see coming. We follow the perspectives of Grace, Penny's adopted mother, Jack, Penny's adopted brother and the doctor who is trying to prove that Penny has DID. I loved everything about this book. 5 stars! I can honestly see this being my favorite book of 2021. Thank you to netgalley for allowing me to read this book for free in exchange for an honest review.

Extra points go to this book for giving me something different to read about. I read so many books that sometimes I have trouble remembering one from another, unless I get that something "extra" and this book had it!

Take the usual murder mystery/legal drama and add in a girl with DID - multiple personalities. Suddenly, the story is elevated. We get to meet these personalities along the way. We also get the point of view of the mother, and the brother. What happened that night? Which personality murdered someone? Was it one of the personalities? How does Penny cope with this? How is the family going to handle this? I was tuned in through the whole ride..

I want to thank the author, the publisher and #netgalley for the advance read, which did not impact my review.

What a great book! I didn’t want to put it down!

On her way home from work with her youngest son, Grace comes across an abandoned little girl who is eventually adopted into their family. As a child Penny is bright, loving and fits right in with very few adjustment difficulties. Problems begin to surface as she enters her teen years and she is diagnosed with Dissociative Identity Disorder.

All seems well until one evening police show up at the door telling Grace they have arrested her daughter for the murder of her birth mother. She was found covered in blood, holding the murder weapon by the body, claiming to have no recollection of what happened.

As her defense is being put together, it is imperative to try to get the memories that are not Penny’s to surface. There are many twists and turns, keeping you guessing until the end.

Although fiction, the author has done a good job in representing what Dissociative Identity Disorder is and what a person dealing with this disorder experiences. I highly recommend this book. #netgalley #theperfectdaughter #amazon #goodreads

I find dissociative identity disorder fascinating to read about. The ability of the mind to protect itself by splintering into personality fragments is a mind-boggling feat, and while stories that address this happening are always painful to read because only horrific trauma produces this result, they also offer compelling glimpses into how our minds work. I must confess, I did not see the big reveal coming. It struck me at first as a little unlikely, but it grew on me over time. It made for a very dramatic finish, but in hindsight that seemed to fit with the overall tone of the rest of the book in a way that I ultimately think worked.

The interplay between the characters and the family dynamics were interesting to watch unravel. At times they felt a little overblown and overly dramatic, but that's par for the course in tale with this much trauma. I found the writing engaging and easy to follow, and watching the many faces of Eve (pun intended) roll across the pages made for a very entertaining and engaging read...

Many thanks to NetGalley for granting an advance read of this fascinating thriller. Like many many other readers and moviegoers, t can't resist the premise of someone leading a tortuous life of multiple personalities. It's a gripping, nightmarish idea and I've been hooked since the classic Joanne Woodward film, "The Three Faces Of Eve" and then on to Sally Field in "Sybil" and James Mcavoy in "Split".
"The Perfect Daughter" might easily be called, 'The Four Faces Of Penny' in its compelling story of an adopted teen girl afflicted with different personalities. She's about to stand trial for murder.......the horrific, knife-butchering murder of her birth mother.
Penny's distraught adopted mother Grace, who found Penny abandoned as a toddler, desperately pursues two different strategies to exonerate Penny, now incarcerated in a state mental hospital. With the help of the hospital's sympathetic doctor, she attempts to find out which, if any of Penny's separate alter personalities might have committed the murder......and thereby provide grounds for an insanity plea. Concurrently, Grace launches a reckless amateur investigation to hunt for some other potential suspect for the murder, including the victim's dangerous, violent ex boyfriend..
Now that's quite a setup for a thriller and this book does not disappoint.........with false leads, tantalizing clues and some startling vivid sequences, including sudden, terrifying attacks from one of the hospital's other inmates, a madwoman given to murderous rages. And while all this is going on, there's the added traumas of Grace dealing with an estranged son and the doctor's coping with his own son, a recovering drug addict.
Your heart will break for Penny and her three 'alters and I couldn't race through the pages fast enough to get to the revelations and her ultimate fate And again, in that regard, this book really delivers the goods, with a satisfying and stunning turn of events.......(I kept thinking this would make one hell of a movie with a guaranteed Academy Award nomination for whichever lucky actress plays Penny)
"The Perfect Daughter" will probably become one of this summer's most popular beach reads......because it's one of those, "I 'think I'll read just one more chapter 'before I stop' kind of books.
And naturally, you don't end up stopping till you finish.

Thank you NetGalley, D.J. Palmer and St. Martins Press for the ARC of “The Perfect Daughter” I loved “The New Husband” so I was thrilled to receive a copy of the author’s latest book!

Pub Day: April 20, 2021

Right from the start I was hooked. I was so interested in the main Character, Penny who is thought to have Dissociative Identify Disorder (DID). Penny was found abandoned in the park at the age of four by Grace, who eventually adopts her and brings her into the family.

Slowly, throughout the years we are introduced to Penny’s different alters; Chloe the perfectionist, Ruby the spunky Britain, and Eve the badass and protector. Many doctors have had difficulty confirming if Penny had DID with lack of evidence, and suggest it could just be anxiety and depression from her unknown past.

One night, Penny is found standing over a body, covered in blood and holding the murder weapon. She has no memory of doing it and is now spending time at Elmhurst Hospital trying to be treated until her trial. Throughout the story both her mother Grace and Dr. Mitch are trying to prove her innocence and find out what happened the night of the murder and in Penny’s past. Does Penny have DID or is she just a psychopath?

Each chapter is told from a different POV alternating between Grace, Dr. Mitch and Penny’s brother Jack. Every chapter left me on the edge of my seat and I had a hard time putting this book down! I never knew what to believe and was shocked at the ending!

I was so impressed with the research that went into creating a book about this topic. I highly recommend this psychological thriller!

2 STARS

I didn’t really like “The Last Husband,” but I decided to give “The Perfect Daughter” a try. I wasn’t a fan.

The plot was slow and boring to me. The characters were that interesting. And I just didn’t care how the book ended...sorry guys.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for the my digital ARC. This book will be released on April 19, 2021.

The Perfect Daughter by D.J. Palmer is an interesting ride. Penny is a girl accused of murdering her birth mother. Penny says she wasn’t alone but Penny is never alone. She has multiple personalities and no one knows which one it was that night. Could Penny be right and another person was there? Her adoptive mother, Grace is determined to figure this out, even at the cost of all aspects of her life.
Multiple personality disorder is so interesting to read about and this book really showcased that. However, where the story veered off course for me was the brother’s perspective. I felt the side trips into his thoughts, while being good background info, were very jarring and did not flow with the rest. The best part was the suspense and how you were never quite sure of anything. I would definitely read another book by D.J. Palmer.