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by Elizabeth Little
Former "It Girl" Janie Jenkins is sly, stunning, and fresh out of prison. Ten years ago, at the height of her fame, she was incarcerated for the murder of her mother, a high-society beauty known for her good works and rich husbands. Now, released on a technicality, Janie makes herself over and goes undercover, determined to chase down the one lead she has on her mother's killer. The only problem? Janie doesn't know if she's the killer she's looking for.
Janie makes her way to an isolated South Dakota town whose mysteries rival her own. Enlisting the help of some new friends (and the town's wary police chief), Janie follows a series of clues - an old photograph, an abandoned house, a forgotten diary - and begins to piece together her mother's seemingly improbable connection to the town. When new evidence from Janie's own past surfaces, she's forced to consider the possibility that she and her mother were more alike than either of them would ever have imagined.
As she digs tantalizingly deeper, and as suspicious locals begin to see through her increasingly fragile facade, Janie discovers that even the sleepiest towns hide sinister secrets?and will stop at nothing to guard them. On the run from the press, the police, and maybe even a murderer, Janie must choose between the anonymity she craves and the truth she so desperately needs.
A gripping, electrifying debut novel with an ingenious and like-it-or-not sexy protagonist, Dear Daughter follows every twist and turn as Janie unravels the mystery of what happened the night her mother died - whatever the cost.
"Starred Review. Little makes a thrilling debut with this gripping read. Fans of Tana French and Gillian Flynn are going to enjoy the smart narrator and the twists and turns in the case." - Library Journal
"[An] assured fiction debut... Little effectively intersperses outside perspective in the form of emails, text messages, and other communications in Jane's entertainingly caustic first-person narrative." - Publishers Weekly
"Janie keeps them all guessing... An unusual protagonist who will intrigue readers who favor strong, smart women." - Booklist
"This is breezy reading: nothing too deep or disturbing, and stronger on style than plot." - Kirkus
"This is an all-nighter... The best debut mystery I've read in a long time." - Tana French
"Really gutsy, clever, energetic read, often unexpected, always entertaining." - Kate Atkinson, New York Times bestselling author of Life After Life
This information about Dear Daughter was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
A graduate of Harvard University, Elizabeth Little is the author of the nonfiction books Biting the Wax Tadpole and Trip of the Tongue. She lives in Los Angeles with her family.
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