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    The Murderer's Daughter: A Novel
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    The Murderer's Daughter: A Novel
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    The Murderer's Daughter: A Novel
    Audiobook14 hours

    The Murderer's Daughter: A Novel

    Written by Jonathan Kellerman

    Narrated by Kathe Mazur

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    From the creator of the acclaimed Alex Delaware series comes a tour de force standalone novel that illustrates perfectly why "Jonathan Kellerman has justly earned his reputation as a master of the psychological thriller" (People).

    A brilliant, deeply dedicated psychologist, Grace Blades has a gift for treating troubled souls and tormented psyches-perhaps because she bears her own invisible scars: Only five years old when she witnessed her parents' deaths in a bloody murder-suicide, Grace took refuge in her fierce intellect and found comfort in the loving couple who adopted her. But even as an adult with an accomplished professional life, Grace still has a dark, secret side. When her two worlds shockingly converge, Grace's harrowing past returns with a vengeance.

    Both Grace and her newest patient are stunned when they recognize each other from a recent encounter. Haunted by his bleak past, mild-mannered Andrew Toner is desperate for Grace's renowned therapeutic expertise and more than willing to ignore their connection. And while Grace is tempted to explore his case, which seems to eerily echo her grim early years, she refuses-a decision she regrets when a homicide detective appears on her doorstep.

    An evil she thought she'd outrun has reared its head again, but Grace fears that a police inquiry will expose her double life. Launching her own personal investigation leads her to a murderously manipulative foe, one whose warped craving for power forces Grace back into the chaos and madness she'd long ago fled.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateAug 18, 2015
    ISBN9781101889749
    Unavailable
    The Murderer's Daughter: A Novel
    Author

    Jonathan Kellerman

    Jonathan Kellerman is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of more than thirty bestselling crime novels, including the Alex Delaware series, The Butcher’s Theater, Billy Straight, The Conspiracy Club, Twisted, and True Detectives. With his wife, bestselling novelist Faye Kellerman, he coauthored Double Homicide and Capital Crimes. He is also the author of two children’s books and numerous nonfiction works, including Savage Spawn: Reflections on Violent Children and With Strings Attached: The Art and Beauty of Vintage Guitars. He has won the Goldwyn, Edgar, and Anthony awards and has been nominated for a Shamus Award. 

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    Reviews for The Murderer's Daughter

    3.5/5

    192 ratings57 reviews

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    • 5/5
      The Murderer's Daughter includes the prequel at the end of this book: The Right Thing to Do. The prequel is a short story by Kellerman which serves as an explanation of the profession of one of the major characters in the book, Malcom Bluestone. It's definitely worth the read. It explains a lot about the character's relationship with the heroine of the main story.
    • 4/5
      I enjoyed this book! I have always wanted to try Jonathan Kellerman's work so I decided to give this book a try. Unfortunately, life got a little busy when I had originally planned to read this book and my review is about two and a half years late. I really wish that I had read this book when I first got my hands on it because it was really good. This really is Grace's story. Grace was a wonderful character and incredibly complex. She had a less than ideal childhood but as adult, she is a highly respected psychologist. I loved the fact that we get to know Grace both as a child and as an adult. I thought the contrast between the two periods was really well done. I wouldn't really say that I ever liked Grace but I really did enjoy trying to figure her out and was very curious about her past.Grace does have a bit of a secret life and that life intersects with her professional life early in this book. As she tries to figure out what really happened, she finds that things may be connected to her past. I thought that the mystery side of this book was really just okay. It was rather complex and I never had everything quite figured out but it wasn't the most enjoyable part of the book for me.I thought that the first parts of the book were the strongest. I really enjoyed all of the book that focused on Grace as a child. Adult Grace was really more interesting to me during the first part of the book as well. The book continued to bounce back and forth from past to present but as the story progressed the two timelines grew much closer to each other. As the focus of the book moved towards bringing the mystery to a conclusion, it seemed to fizzle out just a bit. I would recommend this book to others. I really enjoyed the writing style and found this to be the kind of book that was easy to keep reading. I do hope to read from this author in the future.I received a digital review copy of this book from Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine via NetGalley.
    • 5/5
      I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book.
    • 3/5
      Six-word review: The Psychologist's Protege: An Annoying Spinoff.Extended review:I think Jonathan Kellerman has been reading too many Tana French novels. I've enjoyed his Alex Delaware novels in the past; they pretty reliably delivered what they promised. Now, with Alex's former student Grace Blades, he seems to think that leaving us without a clear plot resolution and without answers to some major questions is fair play. Perhaps he imagines that it serves some higher dramatic or literary purpose. Whereas, as far as I'm concerned, all I want from his novel is for it to serve an entertainment purpose. So, being nobody important, just a prospective reader and erstwhile customer, what I say is "Fooey."I should have stuck by my resolve not to read any more novels with titles of the irritating form "The X's Y."I liked the premise and was willing to forgive the contrivance necessary to bring some disturbing personal history into a psychologist's consulting room. I was even fairly good at overlooking--well, let's say tolerating--the author's odd stylistic habit of implying impossible concurrencies by the use of present participles:"Relatching the French doors, she got into bed, crawled under the covers..." (p. 40)"Working out in the hotel gym, she showered in her room..." (p. 134)Those "-ing" verbal adjectives denote simultaneous actions (e.g., "Smiling coolly, she waited her turn to speak": those things are happening at the same time). You can't be in the hotel gym while you're also in your room showering. It's a false economy on the author's part. It doesn't speed the narrative. Rather, it causes an attentive reader to stumble. Every time he does it, it yanks me out of the story and into editor mode.Not that I wasn't repeatedly catapulted into editor mode anyway, or at least into vexed-reader mode. Why does he spend so very much time detailing his focal character's education and early professional life? It doesn't figure in the story. If he wants to examine aspects of the formation of a professional psychologist out of a wounded child, fine, but that would be a different novel. In the present context Grace's academic career is given disproportionate attention. I don't see that it contributes anything but word count; to me that's authorial self-indulgence at the reader's expense.We are given very close personal details of Grace's private life, whether we want them or not, and how she conducts her therapy sessions and even arranges her home decor; and yet when it comes to big questions in the plot, such as what really happens in the end--where is that? And why don't we get a come-uppance scene with the bad guy? And why isn't the dramatic discovery of the surviving sibling dramatic at all?Another "why" question: why does Kellerman pretend to know things he doesn't know? On page 275 he speaks of using a Boston phone number for a location in Cambridge. Nonsense. You use a Cambridge phone number for a location in Cambridge. And it's B.U., not Boston U. (page 281). And it's Legal Sea Foods, not Legal Seafood (page 292). And if he thinks jaywalking students create a "unique ethos" (jaywalking? an ethos??) in Berkeley (page 273), he can't be recalling pedestrian traffic in Harvard Square very clearly. Where, he says, there is a "libertine environment" (page 203). Isn't "libertine" ("free of moral, especially sexual, restraint; dissolute; licentious") pretty strong language to use as a generalization about Harvard? And while we're at it, with respect to local geography, when he says "Somerset" (page 333), doesn't he mean "Somerville"? It seems so to me.Once I started getting annoyed, everything annoyed me. Young prodigy Grace doesn't want to be talked down to and resents having someone think she doesn't know what "adjudicate" means; but in her voice we see such babyish language as "The back wall of the big room was a bunch of glass doors..." (page 196). If she thinks doors are arranged in bunches, vocabulary is not where her brilliance is going to shine.It also bugs me when an author isn't paying attention to his own stuff. When a character is Elaine on one page (75) and Eileen on another (94), the editor isn't even watching his back.Twice he speaks of "filth and lucre" when the expression is "filthy lucre." Twice he refers to people as "damaged goods," as if "goods" were a fit label for anyone. Twice he simulates legalese using phrasing that no lawyer or indeed any person with a logical command of English would use. And once a character says "Here, here" (page 263); although since the expression was spoken, the character probably knew enough to say "Hear, hear" and it was just Kellerman who didn't know how to write it.But all this pales beside the inconclusive, diffuse, and unsatisfying ending. A murder tale that invokes conventions of the mystery genre does not end with "guess what happens next." So I say again, "Fooey." For all the potential interest of the characters, the situations, the history, the revelations, and the unfolding of unusual developments, it didn't add up to anything.
    • 3/5
      It's been a while since I've read a Kellerman and was looking forward to this not being part of the Delaware series. While I don't find fault with the writing, I intensely disliked Grace. She was over the top narcissistic and I really was disappointed with her status at the end. The other result would have been much more fitting. Here's hoping this stays a stand alone and does not turn into a series
    • 3/5
      Not great. Not up to my expectations of Jonathan Kellerman. I did not care for the character. She had too many serious flaws. The novel had a too rushed ending that did not appear to be thought out.
    • 1/5
      This book was AWFUL. I was so very disappointed in Jonathon Kellerman. It was a miserable slog that I had to force myself through.
    • 4/5
      Nice to be introduced to a new character
    • 4/5
      Once in a while, Jonathan Kellerman decides to write a book outside of his Alex Delaware series. This time though Alex is mentioned, allowing the story to exist in the same universe and making me wonder if we will hear about what happened in this book in later books of the series. Not that we need to - the book is a standalone, it starts a story and completes it. It's the story of Grace Blades - an abandoned child (with living parents), the daughter of a murderer (which explains the title), the foster daughter of the only woman that ever cared about her (and who got killed), a successful psychologist that uses her own trauma to help people overcome their own. Or so it looks at the surface. Behind the mask of success is a broken woman - the past had left its traces and it makes her take insane risks. And one day, she meets again a shadow from her past; someone she had met only once - when her foster mother died. Unfortunately Grace meets him first under interesting circumstances - which makes it impossible for her to become his doctor and build up his thrust. And that is what she needs in order to escape her own mind and to glue together the pieces of her own life. Until someone dies. And things spiral out of control. The story switches between the past and the present, adding more and more pieces to the puzzle called Grace. She is a cold bitch and she is a warm and nice person; she loses herself in the old mystery. The new and the old mysteries converge and mix to form one while - and Grace stays with it until the bitter end. I did not like the end of the novel - it suited the tone and the characters but in some ways it was the easy way out. It is not sugarcoated and it is as far away as possible from a happy ending in the classical sense but still... something keeps nagging at me and makes me wonder how much better it could have been. Worth a read as long as you do not expect a Delaware novel or Kellerman's style.
    • 4/5
      This is a story about Dr. Grace Blades from her childhood to the present. It goes back and forth from the present to the past when Grace was a young child. Both stories are developed and fit together. Grace is well defined as are the other characters. Sometimes I wondered about Grace's stability, but it seems she had learned to act the way society expected. The book is interesting and kept me turning pages to see what would happen next. The ending surprised me, but it finished the book off nicely. I received this free arc book for an honest review.
    • 3/5
      The Murderer's Daughter by Jonathan Kellerman is a recommended stand-alone thriller.

      Grace Blades is an intelligent, very independent woman who works as a psychologist specializing in treating victims of trauma. She is highly recommended in referrals because of her devotion to and great empathy for her patients. Much of Grace's success is due to her horrific childhood. She was a neglected child living in an abusive environment. After witnessing her parents murder/suicide at age 5, she spent several years in the foster care system. She had a secure home, finally, at age 11. Her background helps her understand and treat her patients.

      Now Grace is a consummate professional and devoted to her patients by day, but engages in secretive, risky, dangerous behavior in her free time. She has it down to a science how to initiate a one-night-stand, or really just a quick hook-up to get what she wants from a man with no commitment.

      When Grace's latest patient turns out to be the man she gave a fake name during to the escapades of the night before, both are shocked. Her new patient gave her a fake name the previous night too. After an uncomfortable brief meeting, Grace learns that the man came to see her because of a paper she had written years ago on under the burden of being related to a murderer, or living with evil. He quickly leaves her office and later turns up dead.

      Grace tries to figure out who this man really was, since he seems to have given her yet another alias for his office visit. He said he was from San Antonio, TX and came just to see her, but that also seems to be untrue. And now someone might be following Grace, but she needs to figure out why by herself so her secret duplicitous activities aren't exposed.

      The Murderer's Daughter is very well written. I wouldn't expect anything less from Kellerman, who has successfully penned his Alex Delaware series for years. Here, however, there is a plethora of background information on Grace in chapters that alternate with the present day. I was heartbroken and very sympathetic with young Grace and her situation. I didn't so much care for adult Grace and her reckless, foolish behavior, so I had a difficult time sympathizing with her. If she is as intelligent as she is purported to be, she should be smart enough to figure out a safer way to engage in her reckless sexual behavior. Hooking-up with random strangers is stupid.

      What the novel felt like, in the end, was the first book for a new series in which all the character's background information was presented. The thriller felt like it was added in between the character development chapters.

      Disclosure: My Kindle edition was courtesy of Random House for review purposes.

    • 4/5
      This was my first Kellerman so I don't have anything to compare it to. I liked this book. The flashbacks were sometimes abrupt and jarring but, mostly, I liked the main character enough to let my irritation go. Grace Blades is brilliant and damaged and knows her mind so well that I immediately liked her. This book wasn't perfect but I truly enjoyed the quick-paced ride to the end.
    • 4/5
      This was my first book by Johnathan Kellerman. It's a stand-alone novel introducing the psychologically interesting character of Grace Blades. Switching effortlessly between past and present, Grace's upbringing going from abusive parents to years in the foster system and finally her miraculous journey to becoming an extremely successful therapist is described in a compelling way. I thoroughly enjoyed this side of the story. As for the present-day part of the story, while it was filled with action and mystery, I found myself skimming those passages that contained overly long driving directions and descriptions. That's my main reason for the 4 instead of 5 stars.
      I wouldn't really classify this as a thriller, but it's a remarkable character study with a nice mystery element. It gets better and better as it progresses and the conclusion, though not really believable, was totally satisfying.
      I received a complimentary copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an unbiased review.
    • 3/5
      Very, very different from his other books. Heroin is very hard to figure out. Sometimes you really like her, others you don't. A few interesting twists in the book. The first half is filled with detail, very captivating. The end is quick, leaves questions and many loose ends. Just finished the book and I honestly can't say whether I liked it or not. I'm going to have to think about it for awhile.
    • 4/5
      Dr. Grace Blades has had an interesting life, from extreme neglect to weathly psychologist, she is a woman driven to success and fueled by extremes. A chance encounter one night crosses over into her professional life, changing her destiny and putting her on the run to save her life, forcing her to face her past and create her own future.
    • 5/5
      I love Jonathan Kellerman's Alex Delaware series, so was a little apprehensive about this stand alone novel about a brilliant psychologist. No need to worry, this book was excellent! Grace Blades, after witnessing her parents' death in a murder-suicide when she was five, learns to rely on herself and her intellect. Lots of twists and turns, this will hold your interest until the last page.
    • 4/5
      a psychological thriller. Grace is a brilliant psychologist who has made a career out of dealing with trauma patients, bolstered no doubt by an early traumatic incident in her life. A new patient is found murdered and in trying to solve his murder Grace is forced to come face to face with her past. A compelling story, though not my favorite genre.
    • 4/5
      The Murderer's Daughter by Jonathan Kellerman is a very good mystery/thriller. The story is set in a set of flashbacks in the heroine's life leading to the current story. The flashbacks provide the background on the main characters in the story. Dr. Grace Blades is a psychologist dealing with patients who have had trauma in their lives. She was the daughter of a couple of losers who managed to kill each other in a fight in front of her. She was a ward of the state bouncing from foster home to foster home until a USC psychologist takes an interest in her. Her latest foster home is one where the host realizes that she has a child with great intellect and gets her brother-in-law interested in the child.After the death of a special needs kid in her care which caused the foster parent to die of a heart attack/drowning, Grace is taken in by the psychologist and his wife. This story is told through a series of flashbacks.The current story is of her as a psychologist who goes out on the town looking for an anonymous sexual encounter. She meets a guy in a bar and the encounter takes place in a parking garage. The next day she has a new patient show up. It turns out to be the same person. After an uncomfortable session, the patient leaves without telling her anything other than the initial information he had given her when setting up the appointment.The LAPD contacts her the next day regarding the murder of this guy. He had her card in his shoe. Without telling the detective about the encounter the previous evening, she starts trying find information on the guy. At this same time, she is followed by someone. She evades the person. Later when returning to her house on the beach, she is aware of someone staking out her house. When the guy attacks her, she manages to kill him. She hides the attack from the police and disposes of the body. She ramps up her search for the original patient.This is a far as I can go without revealing too much of the story line and ruining the book. I really enjoyed the book. It is a good entertaining book that is hard to put down.
    • 4/5
      A rare standalone from an author best known for his long running series featuring child psychologist Alex Delaware, Johnathon Kellerman doesn't stray far from the familiar in The Murderer's Daughter.Grace Blades is a respected psychotherapist who specialises in treating patients that have experienced extreme trauma. It isn't uncommon for new patients to abandon a session, but Grace is curious when the body of Andrew Toner is found the morning after their first meeting. Tracing his last movements, Grace unwittingly puts herself in the cross-hairs of a ruthless killer.Andrew Toner, Grace soon discovers, was born Typhon Dagon Roi, the orphaned son of a cult leader, who along with his siblings, Samael and Lilith, spent a brief period in the same foster home as Grace. Targeted by Andrew/Typhon's killer, Grace, intelligent and resourceful, conducts her own investigation, while evading the men targeting her, leading her into a harrowing confrontation with pitiless evil.The narrative alternates between the present, as Grace searches for for the killer, and the harrowing details of Grace's troubled past.Grace is an intriguing character. She was five when she witnessed her mother kill her father and then commit suicide, eleven when her foster mother, Ramona, collapsed and died in front of her. An incredibly bright child, she captured the interest of Ramona's brother-in-law, psychology professor Malcolm Bluestone, and his wife Sophia, who later adopted her. Now in her mid thirties, she is independently wealthy, and successful in her field, but she has a dark side that comes to the fore when threatened.The mystery runs a fairly predictable course, but Grace is a memorable character. Part fast paced thriller, part complex character study, The Murderer's Daughter is a great read for Kellerman fans, and new readers alike.
    • 4/5
      A typical Kellerman psychological thriller - compelling to the end! The story centers on a LA psychologist with as many issues as the patients she treats. She doesn't meet my idea of a heroine, but I was pulling for her as she hunted for a serial killer. This was a very good read.
    • 5/5
      I didn't care much for the suspense/murder part of the story that involves main character Dr Grace Blades as an adult (even though I like Jonathan Kellerman novels). It was not very interesting and convincing. However, I found the story of Grace growing up - that goes in parallel to the main narrative - to be absolutely brilliant. I was awed by author's psychological insights into child mind and by that whole parallel story in general.
    • 4/5
      I am a huge Jonathan Kellerman fan and I was very excited to receive this book through the Early Reviewers program.Grace is a psychologist who appears to have a nearly perfect life....great job, nice house, etc. She has some problems, though, and they are messing up her perfect life.I enjoyed the character of Grace and was hoping she would get her life together.she is an interesting and complex character....and I found her like able.
    • 4/5
      Dr. Grace Blades is a successful clinical psychologist, who likes the occasional one-night stand. She picks up a man in a hotel bar and gets jiggy with him, and then he shows up as her new patient the next day. Put of by the previous night's hookup, he asks if he can return the next day. Predictably, he fails to show. When a detective investigating his murder appears to question Grace, she realizes that having the truth come out will damage her professionally. So she sets out to solve the murder herself.The book is almost half backstory, which becomes understandable when Grace's history comes into the present-day story. Kellerman does a nice job of keeping the tension high; while I'm not particularly pleased with the ending, it is in character and perhaps inevitable. Grace is an interesting and mostly credible character, and the story is congruent with the characterization.
    • 4/5
      Jonathan Kellerman's "The Murderer's Daughter," ably recounts the story of psychologist Grace Burrows, who as a child witnessed the murder-suicide of her parents. Nevertheless, it's a poor title choice, since it's actually the story of a face from Grace's past that wrecks havoc on her well-organized life.In general, I don't especially admire Kellerman's offerings - I find them a bit bland and lazy. But "The Murderer's Daughter" did hold my attention. Grace is an interesting character. While successful on the surface, she has never been able to leave her childhood behind. She suffers from a self-destructive compulsion that serves as a release valve for life's tensions. But it is a chance enounter from her past that creates the conflict and threat in Grace's world. A monster from Grace's childhood has come prowling and Grace is the next target.
    • 5/5
      The only negative thing about this book is its title. I think the title may turn people off. As it is, it's a great book. I enjoyed the inner thoughts of the genius level, Grace Blades as she grew up under difficult at best circumstances. She emerges as a PhD Psychologist and her professional and private eye experiences are riveting. I could not put the book down. The incites into the feelings of foster children are most interesting. All in all this is the best stand alone book I've seen from the prolific J. Kellerman. I look forward to more.
    • 4/5
      The story of a clinical psychologist, Dr Grace Blades, witnessed the murder/suicide of her parents at a young age. She bounced around at various foster homes till she went to a caring couple. Grace decided she wanted to be a clinical psychologist. After she became a psychologist, Grace came into contact with a nightmare from the past, from another foster home. But she is a survivor.The story moves along well, and gets hard to put down at times. I enjoyed it.
    • 4/5
      I loved this new book by Kellerman. It is not part of the Alex Delaware series, although Alex has a cameo appearance. Grace is orphaned as a child and goes from foster home to foster home. She tests off the charts as a genius, although she is a quiet child. She finally goes to a loving home where she lives with three other children, one that is a bit sinister. When Grace grows up, her path crosses this devil-child, which makes for a great read. Personally, I think I might like this book more than I like the Delaware books. It had a little less psycho-babble that Delaware likes to spout, so that it was a little easier for us "common" folks to read and understand.
    • 3/5
      Well. That one word sums up how I felt at the end of this book. Kind of like I'd been given a beautiful flower that immediately wilted in my hand.I want to start by saying that I've long been a fan of Kellerman and love his writing style. His phrasing and rhythm are perfection for me. I have much respect for his storytelling ability.Now for the not so good stuff.This book is really two stories in one. We meet Grace as an adult, and what should be the main plot centers on her quest to find a killer. We also meet Grace as a child, following her as she grows up. This is told through flashbacks, lots of them, to the point where the past feels like the majority of the story. Grace has a disturbing childhood, with abusive, murderous parents and time bouncing around foster homes. She is a precocious child, brilliant and perceptive. She is swallowed up by a system that offers little support to children in the best of circumstances, much less to children with traumatic backgrounds. I found these details compelling. In fact, I would have enjoyed the story far more had it been told in linear fashion, focusing mostly on Grace's early life.Because the flashbacks are so long and frequent, the story feels like a bumpy ride. The transitions can be jarring, and the current timeline lacks the immediacy needed to carry it along. Then we get into believability. I simply could not buy into the current, main plot. I don't want to give spoilers, which makes it difficult to explain why I feel this way. In general terms, the things Grace does, her extreme reactions, her pursuit, all of it felt way over the top. The cops inexplicably disappear after she gives them an all too convenient lead. They apparently either gave up their investigation or weren't as smart as she was. And, in the end, I still wondered why the killer she pursued behaved as he did. I was left muttering, "What was that all about?"The pace with the current timeline is slow, painfully so at times. We follow Grace as she does not much of anything. She drives, watches, eats, sleeps, searches the internet, and makes phone calls. Then she does it all again. I looked forward to more flashbacks to break up the boredom. We have one short chapter that is completely out of place, as we're shown how the adult Grace and Alex Delaware are linked. This is unnecessary at best, since at no time is Alex Delaware involved in this story. Nor is he even mentioned in the context of the plot by Grace or anyone else. This winds up feeling like a gratuitous promo for Kellerman's Alex Delaware novels. I liked Grace, and found her a unique and intriguing character. And, as I mentioned, I like Kellerman's style. Those things kept me reading and keep me from bashing this book. But, as a whole, the story didn't work for me.
    • 4/5
      What a great psychological thriller this is. There is only one mention of Dr. Delaware, Jonathan Kellerman's usual protagonist. Instead it follows the life of a brilliant female psychologist named Grace Blades. The story traces her life as a foster child into adulthood. She has a brief encounter with a family of three other foster children, who then reappear when she is a practicing psychologist. Grace has a wonderfully nourishing relationship with a practicing psychologist, which starts when she is eleven and continues throughout the years. As a doctor, she sees a new patient who was one of the family she met as a child. The story traces her continuing interest in and search for the oldest child of this family and concludes with their final encounter. Definitely one of Kellerman's best and a must read for mystery fans.
    • 2/5
      At the beginning, THE MURDERERS DAUGHTER was interesting and kept my attention without problem. However, as the story continued, it became drawn out and completely boring at times to me. I felt no sympathy for the main character as the story progressed.When describing Graces' childhood and family, I was locked in, especially with her parents descriptions. As the story progressed, I realised I felt nothing for the characters. In fact, by the end I found Grace to be nothing more than a psychopath herself. She was able to control herself a little better. Honestly, I think for me it is one of those just not liking the story itself, as I have several other books by this author. Technically the writing itself is perfect.