DAUGHTER BY JANE SHEMILT
PENGUIN (PAPERBACK), 2014
400 PAGES
HTTP://JANESHEMILT.WORDPRESS.COM
BLURB FROM THE COVER
THE NIGHT OF THE DISAPPEARANCE
She used to tell me everything.
They have a picture. It’ll help.
But it doesn’t show the way her hair shines so brightly it looks like sheets of gold.
She has a tiny mole, just beneath her left eyebrow.
She smells very faintly of lemons.
She bites her nails.
She never cries.
She loves autumn, I wanted to tell them. She collects leaves, like a child does. She is just a child.
FIND HER.
ONE YEAR LATER
Naomi is still missing. Jenny is a mother on the brink of obsession. The Malcolm family is in pieces.
Is finding the truth about Naomi the only way to put them back together?
Or is the truth the thing that will finally tear them apart?
EXTRACT
ONE YEAR LATER
The days grow short. Apples litter the grass, their flesh pockmarked by crows. As I carry logs from the stack under the overhang today, I tread on a soft globe; it collapses into slime under my feet.
REVIEW
I really enjoyed Daughter. Shemilt does a great job of making a first person narrative work amazingly well. I love this point of view when a writer pulls it off and take you right into a character’s psyche. Daughter was much more complex than a standard missing person tale. The plot is complex and takes dizzying twists and turns that left me breathless. I loved the way the story moves back and forth between the present and the night of the disappearance and the few weeks leading up to it. The time shifts were spot on and really built tension and suspense, compelling me to read on and join the confusing mess of dots. The ending left my jaw scraping the floor. A great novel. I can’t wait to see what Shemilt does next.
RATING
