The Marsh King's Daughter
Book - 2017
THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER
"Brilliant....About as good as a thriller can be."-- The New York Times Book Review
"[A] nail-biter perfect for Room fans."-- Cosmopolitan
"Sensationally good psychological suspense."--Lee Child
Praised by Karin Slaughter and Megan Abbott, The Marsh King's Daughter is the mesmerizing tale of a woman who must risk everything to hunt down the dangerous man who shaped her past and threatens to steal her future: her father.
Helena Pelletier has a loving husband, two beautiful daughters, and a business that fills her days. But she also has a secret: she is the product of an abduction. Her mother was kidnapped as a teenager by her father and kept in a remote cabin in the marshlands of Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Helena, born two years after the abduction, loved her home in nature, and despite her father's sometimes brutal behavior, she loved him, too...until she learned precisely how savage he could be.
More than twenty years later, she has buried her past so soundly that even her husband doesn't know the truth. But now her father has killed two guards, escaped from prison, and disappeared into the marsh. The police begin a manhunt, but Helena knows they don't stand a chance. Knows that only one person has the skills to find the survivalist the world calls the Marsh King--because only one person was ever trained by him: his daughter.
A Michigan Notable Book!
"Brilliant....About as good as a thriller can be."-- The New York Times Book Review
"[A] nail-biter perfect for Room fans."-- Cosmopolitan
"Sensationally good psychological suspense."--Lee Child
Praised by Karin Slaughter and Megan Abbott, The Marsh King's Daughter is the mesmerizing tale of a woman who must risk everything to hunt down the dangerous man who shaped her past and threatens to steal her future: her father.
Helena Pelletier has a loving husband, two beautiful daughters, and a business that fills her days. But she also has a secret: she is the product of an abduction. Her mother was kidnapped as a teenager by her father and kept in a remote cabin in the marshlands of Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Helena, born two years after the abduction, loved her home in nature, and despite her father's sometimes brutal behavior, she loved him, too...until she learned precisely how savage he could be.
More than twenty years later, she has buried her past so soundly that even her husband doesn't know the truth. But now her father has killed two guards, escaped from prison, and disappeared into the marsh. The police begin a manhunt, but Helena knows they don't stand a chance. Knows that only one person has the skills to find the survivalist the world calls the Marsh King--because only one person was ever trained by him: his daughter.
A Michigan Notable Book!
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Publisher:
New York : G.P. Putnam's Sons, [2017]
ISBN:
9780735213005
Characteristics:
310 pages ; 24 cm
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From Library Staff
From Library Staff
Michigan Notable Book, 2018.
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Add a CommentThis book’s storyline was the best thing about this book. The writing style was a little boring for me and at times seemed unorganized and confusing. Present day Helena is shocked to hear that her secret is out, her father (who abducted her mother when the mother was 14 years old) has just escaped prison and is on a wilderness hunt to make it back to Helena. Her father raised Helena in the marshes and psychologically/ physically abused both Helena and her mother in this isolated cabin but at the time Helena had no idea she was being abused and loved her father. Helena uses all of her skills that her father taught her from living in the marshes to chase him down before he gets ahold of her family. It was an interesting read but I was ready for it to end 3/4 of the way through.
Complex characters with an interesting story to tell, but the narrative falls short of riveting. None of the characters are particularly likable, though I did like the ending.
Highly recommend this audiobook-An engrossing, suspenseful cat and mouse thriller. in which the narrator is hunting for the prison escapee father who had held her, and her mother in the Wilds of Michigan.
Great book. Easy read.
Weekend Mystery Book Club BOTM
Captivating and suspenseful...read it in a weekend.
I'm a huge Karin Slaughter fan and she recommended this title so of course I had to read it! Beautifully written, I enjoyed how Karen Dionne allowed her protagonist Helena's story of her sometimes magical but mostly grim childhood unfold over the course of the novel. A really interesting, quite suspenseful first-person read.
this book was ok I liked it
B- … Enjoyed the back and forth between captivity life and adult life with her family. Actually stories were far more interesting when she was younger. Didn't get the whole Calypso and Cousteau bit... Wasn't necessary IMHO to the overall story.
In a former life, I've spent a lot of time in the U.P. of Michigan and am not a swamp/marsh lover particularly. It's true that "civilization" is different up there, but not full of survivorist types. I found myself thinking about brain-washing, despair and other unsettling thoughts. And I think that it's tough to lyrically describe the environment of the U.P... some beautiful, inspiring locales, but mostly mosquito misery, scraggy scrap pines, and a pervading sense of economic and other kinds of doom. Notwithstanding, I found myself insufficiently aroused to care for any of the characters.. even the tangential ones (i.e. husband and kids of the heroine). There was this impression I got that a 15 year-old kid was writing it and not a 28 year-old rescued housewife with love for the area. Maybe my failure of imagination... but isn't stimulating that the writer's job?