The Marsh King's Daughter

Goodreads Description

'I was born two years into my mother's captivity. She was three weeks shy of seventeen. If I had known then what I do now, things would have been a lot different. I would have been a lot more understanding of my mother. I wouldn't have adored my father.'

When the notorious child abductor known as the Marsh King escapes from a maximum security prison, Helena immediately suspects that she and her two young daughters are in danger.

No one, not even her husband, knows the truth about Helena's past: they don't know that she was born into captivity, that she had no contact with the outside world before the age of twelve - or that her father raised her to be a killer.

And they don't know that the Marsh King can survive and hunt in the wilderness better than anyone... except, perhaps his own daughter.

My Review

This is one of those books that received such glowing reviews, not only from bloggers that I follow and Bookworms in general, but also from some serious authors (like Lee Child and Karin Slaughter), that I couldn't wait to get my hands on a copy and dive in. And if I'm totally honest, I also loved the cover and that totally sold the book to me when I first came across it months ago.

You can imagine my disappointment then when I realized that this book just wasn't for me. I was battling through the pages, skimming now and then, thinking that there must be something wrong with me because everyone that I trust, loved this book. How sad, for me that is. But, there isn't anything wrong with me, I just didn't like this story and I wasn't gripped. In summary then, here is what I liked and didn't like:

What I liked: This author has a natural writing style and I thought her writing was first class. The story flowed, and was easy to read. There were no typo's, nor editing issues (well, none that I picked up on). I also liked the alternating chapters, and generally I'm a big fan of that type of plot structure. In this book, the chapters alternate between Helena's childhood, and her adulthood where she's stalking her father after his escape from prison.

What I didn't like: I wasn't gripped by this story and I found the descriptions of Helena's time spent in the marsh, long winded and a bit boring. Also, I didn't like the scene's about hunting, shooting animals, gutting them etc, and although they might have been necessary in terms of the story, I just didn't like them. I'm just not a fan of hunting animals, any animals, at any time, so those scenes left me uncomfortable. Also, the scenes about Helena's childhood in the marsh were so overly descriptive that I found myself skimming them at times, and I don't like reading like that. There was very little dialogue in this story, and I'm a massive fan of great dialogue. I often find that it moves the story along and leads to a gripping story. For that reason, I wasn't in love with the long chapters with not much other than description. And lastly, the suspense that I thought I would feel, I just didn't. I didn't find the story gripping, thrilling, suspenseful or any of those things. In fairness, it did pick up towards the end but by then I wasn't engaged and so I didn't much care.

But Bookworm's, I must tell you that this book comes with some seriously strong recommendations. The inside of the front and back covers are full of praise from other authors, and a quick glance at the Goodreads reviews will show you that the majority of people really liked this book. Unfortunately though, it just wasn't for me.

My Rating: * *

Publication Date: August 2017 (South Africa)

Genre: Thriller

Format: Trade Paperback

Source: Review copy received from the publisher. Many thanks to author, Karen Dionne and Jonathan Ball Publishers in SA for my copy.