Huge thank you to @netgalley for the free ARC of this book. All opinions are my own.
Synopsis from Goodreads:
The Perfect Daughter is a thriller that explores the truth or lies behind a teenage girl's multiple personality disorder, from D.J. Palmer, the author of The New Husband.
Grace never dreamt she’d visit her teenaged daughter Penny in the locked ward of a decaying state psychiatric hospital, charged with the murder of a stranger. There was not much question of her daughter’s guilt. Police had her fingerprints on the murder weapon and the victim’s blood on her body and clothes. But they didn’t have a motive.
Grace blames herself, because that’s what mothers do—they look at their choices and wonder, what if? But hindsight offers little more than the chance for regret.
None of this was conceivable the day Penny came into her life. Then, it seemed like a miracle. Penny was found abandoned, with a mysterious past, and it felt like fate brought Penny to her, and her husband Arthur. But as she grew, Penny's actions grew more disturbing, and different "personalities" emerged.
Arthur and Grace took Penny to different psychiatrists, many of whom believed she was putting on a show to help manage her trauma. But Grace didn’t buy it. The personas were too real, too consistent. It had to be a severe multiple personality disorder. One determined psychiatrist, Dr. Mitch McHugh, helped discover someone new inside Penny—a young girl named Abigail. Is this the nameless girl who was abandoned in the park years ago? Mitch thinks Abigail is the key to Penny’s past and to the murder. But as Grace and Mitch dig deeper, they uncover dark and shocking secrets that put all their lives in grave danger.
Grace never dreamt she’d visit her teenaged daughter Penny in the locked ward of a decaying state psychiatric hospital, charged with the murder of a stranger. There was not much question of her daughter’s guilt. Police had her fingerprints on the murder weapon and the victim’s blood on her body and clothes. But they didn’t have a motive.
Grace blames herself, because that’s what mothers do—they look at their choices and wonder, what if? But hindsight offers little more than the chance for regret.
None of this was conceivable the day Penny came into her life. Then, it seemed like a miracle. Penny was found abandoned, with a mysterious past, and it felt like fate brought Penny to her, and her husband Arthur. But as she grew, Penny's actions grew more disturbing, and different "personalities" emerged.
Arthur and Grace took Penny to different psychiatrists, many of whom believed she was putting on a show to help manage her trauma. But Grace didn’t buy it. The personas were too real, too consistent. It had to be a severe multiple personality disorder. One determined psychiatrist, Dr. Mitch McHugh, helped discover someone new inside Penny—a young girl named Abigail. Is this the nameless girl who was abandoned in the park years ago? Mitch thinks Abigail is the key to Penny’s past and to the murder. But as Grace and Mitch dig deeper, they uncover dark and shocking secrets that put all their lives in grave danger.
Genre? Thriller
Backlist? No. It's pub day was April 20, 2021.
New to me Author? Yes.
What did I think?
Backlist? No. It's pub day was April 20, 2021.
New to me Author? Yes.
What did I think?
Before I started this book, I had seen multiple reviews about how it wasn't any good. So I was hesitant. But boy, there's a reason I don't always read reviews. I thought this book was great! Penny is a teenager, who is found one day with blood all over her body, murder weapon in hand. The thing is, she cannot remember anything about where she was or what she was doing there. Penny's mom goes on a search to find out what really happened because she knows deep down that her daughter is innocent.
This book was really interesting to me, especially with my background in psychology. Grace swears up and down that Penny has Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID - previously known as Multiple Personality Disorder) ever since she was found in a park at 4 years old, but that's such a hard disability to diagnose, so others have a hard time believing her. Grace believes that Penny is fully innocent, but even if there was a chance that she committed this murder, it was one of her alters, not her. This book has the right amount of family drama thrown in with some legal themes, as well as the overarching theme of mental health awareness and trauma.
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