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3.74 AVERAGE
3.74 AVERAGE
adventurous
emotional
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Helena is a grown woman with 2 daughters and a happy marriage. Then her father breaks out of jail and she has to tell her husband that she was raised in the marsh secluded from everything because her father had abducted her mother. He was a brutal man but she loved him. Then one day she helps her mother run away when a man on a snowmobile arrives. Her father tortured the man and then shot her mother. Helena then returned and was raised by her grandparents who were not nice. She is now trying to hunt down her father and she finds him. Only she gets shot and ends up killing him. A good story that ends the way you think it will but still very good.
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
N/A
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
N/A
A Penguin First to Read ARC e-book in exchange for an honest review.
It was a good life. Until it wasn’t.
Helena is the daughter of a notorious child abductor who is dubbed The Marsh King. Two years into her mother’s captivity Helena is born, her mother wasn’t even seventeen.
The Marsh King taught his daughter everything he knew about hunting and tracking. Now Helena needs to use those skills to hunt him down.
I liked the struggle that Helena relays on her emotions around her father. Yes, to us he was a horrible monster and there were no buts on what we should feel, hate and disgust. On Helena’s part though, her life was very much normal. For 12 years she did not know any better. Her mother never told her and her father was her idol in the world that only consisted of the three of them and a couple National Geographic’s. It does not matter what Helena learned later, she will always love her father that she remembers as kind, the one that taught her all her life skills. She knows what he did was horrible, the kidnapping and abuse to herself and her mother, and she does hate those things about him but that doesn’t mean she cannot be conflicted at times.
It was a quick read but with difficult subject matter (rape, domestic abuse, child abuse).
It was a good life. Until it wasn’t.
Helena is the daughter of a notorious child abductor who is dubbed The Marsh King. Two years into her mother’s captivity Helena is born, her mother wasn’t even seventeen.
The Marsh King taught his daughter everything he knew about hunting and tracking. Now Helena needs to use those skills to hunt him down.
I liked the struggle that Helena relays on her emotions around her father. Yes, to us he was a horrible monster and there were no buts on what we should feel, hate and disgust. On Helena’s part though, her life was very much normal. For 12 years she did not know any better. Her mother never told her and her father was her idol in the world that only consisted of the three of them and a couple National Geographic’s. It does not matter what Helena learned later, she will always love her father that she remembers as kind, the one that taught her all her life skills. She knows what he did was horrible, the kidnapping and abuse to herself and her mother, and she does hate those things about him but that doesn’t mean she cannot be conflicted at times.
It was a quick read but with difficult subject matter (rape, domestic abuse, child abuse).
dark
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This book is AWESOME! I will say it has been over a month since I read it, but my feelings might have warped a bit, but I still remember being so into this.
Thrillers tend to be hit or miss with me, so I always go into them with a little bit of hesitation. This one totally met my expectations.
The book is total in both the present as she hunts down her father and the past as she remembers her time growing up with him, not knowing he had kidnapped her mother. It is such a unique reading experience. We learn about how she learned to track as she does and why her personality is as it is. Just... it really brought me into the book and kept me locked in.
While the book is pretty straightforward there are other layers, other aspects to it, that slightly change how everything is viewed. I kept wanting to know what exactly she did to feel guilty that her father was caught. I wanted to know so much about her childhood and the book delivered on everything. This is definitely a book that proves that not everything is black & white.
If you're looking for a thriller, look no further. Check this one out today. I know I'll be trying something else by this author in the future.
Thrillers tend to be hit or miss with me, so I always go into them with a little bit of hesitation. This one totally met my expectations.
The book is total in both the present as she hunts down her father and the past as she remembers her time growing up with him, not knowing he had kidnapped her mother. It is such a unique reading experience. We learn about how she learned to track as she does and why her personality is as it is. Just... it really brought me into the book and kept me locked in.
While the book is pretty straightforward there are other layers, other aspects to it, that slightly change how everything is viewed. I kept wanting to know what exactly she did to feel guilty that her father was caught. I wanted to know so much about her childhood and the book delivered on everything. This is definitely a book that proves that not everything is black & white.
If you're looking for a thriller, look no further. Check this one out today. I know I'll be trying something else by this author in the future.
'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 wouldn't have adored my father.'
The Marsh King's Daughter is the first book I've read by this author and I must say it was a very compelling read. I love it when I get pulled into a book from the very first page like I was with this one. Based on the description and tag lines, I was expecting a bit more of a thriller here. It was more psychological than thriller, although it did have its moments, especially towards the end.
Helena is married with two daughters and she's been keeping a secret from everyone, including her husband. Helena was born into captivity. Her father was the infamous Marsh King, the man who abducted a 14 year old girl and kept her there as his 'wife' and after Helena was born kept her there too in a remote cabin away from civilization. Helena wasn't aware of any of this as she grew up, not until she and her mother escaped when she is 12 years old. One day on the way home from an outing Helena hears on the radio that her father has escaped from prison and immediately fears for her family's safety. The book alternates between past and present as Helena tells us her story.
"I won't tell you my mother's name. Because this isn't her story. It's mine"
I appreciated the fact that this wasn't Helena's mother's story and that I wasn't privy to the horrible things she went through any more than her daughter was. The details of rape and most of the beatings were left out of the story. I don't think that I could have read this had it been from the mother's perspective.
I think the author did an admirable job of showing what it would be like to be raised in captivity (even though Helena didn't know she was) and the psychological effect it has on her and on her mother. The way her father shaped who she became, the way he turned her against her mother, and the way her mother was almost invisible as a person to her was hard to read at times. There were times when I wanted to hate Helena because she idolized her father and felt next to nothing for her mother, but I could understand why so I couldn't hate her. Even as an adult though, sometimes her thoughts about her parents infuriated me, then I would have to remind myself that she was psychologically manipulated as a child and so her view was inaccurate to an extent even as an adult. In the end though it did seem like she finally understood everything the way it really was.
I liked the ending of the book and the showdown with her father was good and had its thrilling moments, but it felt a bit rushed considering how much time was spent on the backstory. I felt like the past, even though it was essential to the story, actually took over a little too much of the book. Overall this was very good though and I recommend it.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher G.P. Putnam's Sons for giving me a copy of this book.
Review also posted at Writings of a Reader
The Marsh King's Daughter is the first book I've read by this author and I must say it was a very compelling read. I love it when I get pulled into a book from the very first page like I was with this one. Based on the description and tag lines, I was expecting a bit more of a thriller here. It was more psychological than thriller, although it did have its moments, especially towards the end.
Helena is married with two daughters and she's been keeping a secret from everyone, including her husband. Helena was born into captivity. Her father was the infamous Marsh King, the man who abducted a 14 year old girl and kept her there as his 'wife' and after Helena was born kept her there too in a remote cabin away from civilization. Helena wasn't aware of any of this as she grew up, not until she and her mother escaped when she is 12 years old. One day on the way home from an outing Helena hears on the radio that her father has escaped from prison and immediately fears for her family's safety. The book alternates between past and present as Helena tells us her story.
"I won't tell you my mother's name. Because this isn't her story. It's mine"
I appreciated the fact that this wasn't Helena's mother's story and that I wasn't privy to the horrible things she went through any more than her daughter was. The details of rape and most of the beatings were left out of the story. I don't think that I could have read this had it been from the mother's perspective.
I think the author did an admirable job of showing what it would be like to be raised in captivity (even though Helena didn't know she was) and the psychological effect it has on her and on her mother. The way her father shaped who she became, the way he turned her against her mother, and the way her mother was almost invisible as a person to her was hard to read at times. There were times when I wanted to hate Helena because she idolized her father and felt next to nothing for her mother, but I could understand why so I couldn't hate her. Even as an adult though, sometimes her thoughts about her parents infuriated me, then I would have to remind myself that she was psychologically manipulated as a child and so her view was inaccurate to an extent even as an adult. In the end though it did seem like she finally understood everything the way it really was.
I liked the ending of the book and the showdown with her father was good and had its thrilling moments, but it felt a bit rushed considering how much time was spent on the backstory. I felt like the past, even though it was essential to the story, actually took over a little too much of the book. Overall this was very good though and I recommend it.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher G.P. Putnam's Sons for giving me a copy of this book.
Review also posted at Writings of a Reader