Not Her Daughter by Rea Frey
Published by St. Martin’s Griffin on August 21, 2018
Genres: Contemporary, Fiction, Literature & Fiction, Women’s Fiction
Pages: 352
Format: Paperback
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Emma Grace Townsend. Five years old. Gray eyes. Brown hair. Missing since June.
Emma Townsend 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. Abandoned by her mother. Kidnapper.Sarah has never seen a girl so precious as the gray-eyed child in a crowded airport terminal–and 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 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 she’s gone without a trace.
As Sarah and Emma avoid the nationwide hunt, they form an unshakeable bond. But her real mother is at home, waiting for her to return–and the longer the search for Emma continues, Amy is forced to question if she really wants her back.
Emotionally powerful 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.
Through my association as a book blogger with various publishers and book reviewing sites, I often have the opportunity to learn about books by authors that I’ve never heard about before and might have missed the opportunity to otherwise read their books. Today’s post is exactly one of those books by one of those authors – Rea Frey’s new book, Not Her Daughter, which was just released by St. Martin’s Press yesterday, August 21, 2018.
The book had me from the back cover. I drank in this story right from the beginning. I was captured throughout – sneaking pages in the car, in the line waiting to make my purchase, and once, I’ll admit, even at a red light. I couldn’t help myself either. I felt like I was living right next door to some of the characters in this story. I was completely invested from the get go, and nervous to find out how things would ultimately turn out. That’s how real the story reads, folks.
The story goes in between Amy and Sarah and alternates between before, during and after. I felt like it was so crazy to be hopeful that the kidnapper would prevail instead of the grieving parents, but I just couldn’t help myself. Sarah could very easily be one of my friends whereas Amy would be someone I would steer away from. I wanted little Emma to live a happy life and that meant she and Sarah needed to get away and live “happily ever after”.
This book raised so many questions that I felt it would really make a perfect book club book for sure. To define the story in one word, I guess I’d use the word “gripping”. This was a gripping read. I’ve read so many books involving missing children and this one was very different and unique. Ms. Frey really knows how to spin a fabulous story! The story and the characters were well written and it was a quick and easy read to follow. I can’t even believe this is a debut novel, and I really hope to read many more of Ms. Frey’s stories in the future!
Rea always wanted to be a novelist. When she was little, her nose was either stuffed in a book, sniffing paper, absorbing words, or letting her imagination wander. If not reading, she was writing. In journals. In notebooks. In diaries. On walls. In the sand. On legal pads. On typewriters. With quills.
In college, she majored in fiction writing and somehow fell into nonfiction and personal training. Her dreams of sitting in a writer’s haven on the water, wrapped in a sweater, penning her stories, was swapped for health and wellness gigs and her first fractured steps into the important world of the Author Platform (aka social media).
After four nonfiction books were published, countless magazine and newspaper articles written, editing jobs taken, content management contracts executed, a gym co-owned, and certifications sought, she realized she was hustling for the wrong type of writing. So, she quit. She gave herself a window to write a novel. Eight weeks, she told herself. Eight weeks to change everything.
Never one to back down from a challenge, she wrote her novel in just a month. The rest went something like this: Secure a phenomenal agent, join a writer’s group, bear witness to the magic of self-belief as the book got into a bidding war and landed her a two-book deal with St. Martin’s Press.
Rea is a novelist. She writes books. And swears. And drinks lots of coffee. And has a daughter. And a dreamy husband. And still manages to find the magic in books. She hopes you will put down the phone and pick up a book (preferably hers when it hits the shelves). And find the joy in reading. Because there’s nothing quite like the power of words…
I received an advanced readers copy of this book from St. Martin’s Press in exchange for my honest review. I was not required to provide a positive review but couldn’t help myself but to do so because this was an amazing book!
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