The Perfect Daughter
A Novel
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4.2 • 88 Ratings
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
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.
Meet Ruby, who speaks with a British accent.
Then there’s Chloe, a perfectionist who strives for straight A’s in school.
And along comes Eve, who is spiteful and vicious.
All of them live inside Penny…
Or do they?
Penny Francone, age sixteen, is a murderer. Her guilt is beyond doubt: she was found alone in the victim’s apartment, covered in blood, holding the murder weapon. The victim’s identity and her secret relationship to Penny give Penny the perfect motive, sealing the deal. All the jury needs to decide now is where Penny will serve out her sentence. Will she be found not guilty by reason of insanity, as her lawyer intends to argue? Or will she get a life sentence in a maximum-security prison?
Already reeling from tragedy after the sudden passing of her beloved husband a few years before, now Grace is on her knees, grateful that Massachusetts doesn't allow the death penalty.
As Penny awaits trial in a state mental hospital, she is treated by Dr. Mitchell McHugh, a psychiatrist battling demons of his own. Grace’s determination to understand the why behind her daughter’s terrible crime fuels Mitch’s resolve to help the Francone family. Together, they set out in search of the truth about Penny, but discover instead a shocking hidden history of secrets, lies, and betrayals that threatens to consume them all.
The perfect daughter. Is she fooling them all?
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A tenacious, loving mother fights to prove her daughter is innocent of murder in this well-crafted psychological thriller from Palmer (The New Husband). Grace Francone knows that her 16-year-old daughter, Penny, has dissociative identity disorder, but Penny's multiple personalities have never been violent. Adopted by the Francones after she was found alone at age four in a deserted park near their Swampscott, Mass., home, Penny is accused of murdering her biological mother, with whom she recently reconnected. The evidence against her is overwhelming—she was covered in the victim's blood, and her fingerprints are on the murder weapon. While Penny awaits trial in a decaying state hospital, she's treated by a compassionate psychiatrist, who struggles with his own mental problems. Palmer digs into the fraught family dynamics of the Francone household, where Penny was embraced by one brother, Jack, and resented by the other brother, Ryan. Alternating points of view between Grace and Jack, a college filmmaker, ratchet up the suspense. Palmer's take on a complex psychological disorder will keep readers in its grip. Agents: Meg Ruley and Rebecca Scherer, Jane Rotrosen Agency.
Customer Reviews
Wait for it, the ending!
The Perfect Daughter an addictive psychological thriller by DJ Palmer that dives into the world of mental health and its stigmas eloquently.
Penny a fragile teenager diagnosed with Disassociative Identity Disorder, is charged with the brutal killing of her biological mother. In what appears on the surface as a slam dunk case dissolves into multilayered story revealing the multiple personalities living inside Penny - Chloe, Eve and Ruby.
Her adoptive family is in a fight for her innocence amidst the constraints of the legal system that believes she’s guilty and the psychiatric facility Penny is residing awaiting trial. Aid by a determined doctor, struggling himself with mental health issues, they uncover the dark secrets Penny has buried deeply in order to survive the threats from her past.
The ending was brilliantly executed, plausible and until the reveal I didn’t see it coming. The Perfect Daughter is riveting, edgy entertaining read.
Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for an ARC for an honest review.
Great
This book is amazing
Loved!!!!!
My Review:
I loved, loved, loved this book. This was by far the best book I read all year. I never read anything by this author before but I’m sure glad I did. The blurb and cover really caught my eye and I knew I had to read it. I will be reading more of this authors books in the future.
I want to start off by saying that I enjoyed reading this book so much. It dealt with subject matter that I find so interesting, the human mind. The way people think and why they do what they do has always been an interest to me. This book dealt with a teenager who supposedly committed a murder and who also had multiple personalities. Her lawyer wanted to show that it was one of her personalities that did the killing. I have never read a book that has dealt with this subject that was so in depth before. This author really did his homework and I learned so much about people who have multiple personalities. Along with the psychological aspect of this book there was also a mystery to be solved. The mystery was not the main focus of the book but it was definitely a shocker to find out what happened a why someone was killed. This book was like a roller coaster ride that I never wanted to end. It had so many twists in the end that I thought I would get whiplash. This book was wrapped up so nice and tight in the end that I didn’t have any questions that was left unanswered. What a great, amazing, awesome, thrilling, book this was.
Between the plot, characters and all the twists in this book it made it an easy and fast read. I would definitely recommend it and happily give it 5 Hearts❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️