Well done story that kept me engaged. I enjoyed the style and characters. I will definitely be recommending this one.

This was really good! It was dark, gritty and hard to read at times. I really liked the way the story went. Jumping back and forth between timelines wasn’t always seamless so a few times I questioned where we were. And some of the scenes, especially towards the end got a little weird for me involving the main character and her imagination. But overall the story was good, very atmospheric and I really enjoyed it.

Helena only knows life in the marsh until she is twelve years old. She grew up wanting to be like her father, even after all the punishment he hands out as she grows up. Today her father has escaped prison and she knows she is the only one that can catch him.
Goodreads

First, I'd like to offer my apologies for not having provided you with feedback on this book sooner. I did read The Marsh King's daughter in a timely manner but decided, in the end, not to publish a review on my blog. Once in a while I find myself at a loss for words. In this case, so many of my fellow, trusted blogger friends absolutely loved this book and found it to be a no-brainer, 5 star read. I did enjoy the book but it was more of a 3.5-4 for me. I felt there were times that the forest hunting, tracking etc. scenes went on a bit too much for my taste. I find those kinds of things difficult to read in general. I didn't feel I could give an honest review that would not have a fair amount of negativity in this regard. I am normally fine with posting an honest, critical review but, in this case, I felt that the thoughts were just *too* me-specific. My goal is always to help my followers decide whether or not to read a particular book. I felt that I was unable to do that here. I didn't want my own biases to overshadow the good things about this book. I did like the writing in general and would be open to reading Karen Dionne's future titles.

I'm a huge fan of Karen Dionne's environmental thrillers, BOILING POINT and FREEZING point and I was intrigued by the concept of this book. . A unique plot that crackles with energy and suspense takes us by surprise and we're caught up in the dilemma facing Helena. The book skillfully balances the present day life of Helena (a wife and mother who has put her toxic past behind her) with the horrendous backstory, her years living with her mother and her mother's abductor deep in the woods of the Upper Peninsula. I loved the details of young Helena's life when she first tastes freedom. Unaware of social niceties, she slides an entire chocolate cake onto her plate at a celebratory party. A small detail, but there are dozens of similar details that round out the picture of young Helena. Only an exceptionally skilled writer could paint such a vivid picture. A gripping, amazing thriller that I highly recommend..

This is one of the most original psychological thrillers I have ever read! I was hooked from start to finish. I loved the character development, the rising action, and most of all the setting. I was awestruck at the concept for this novel from the get-go: A psychological thriller set in an isolated marsh, a father hunting his daughter, and the daughter hunting her father, what's not to love!? If you are an avid reader of psychological thrillers and want an original work that will have you gripping the edge of your seat, than the Marsh King's Daughter is the book for you!

A deeply evocative, beautifully written story, featuring a heroine who will take your breath away

This is a very different kind of thriller, with a very troubled yet strong main character. Helena is conflicted about her relationship with her father yet knows very clearly that when he escapes prison she andher family are in real danger. While I was frustrated with her inability to communicate with her husband about her past, I could certainly understand and empathize why. This was a white-knuckle ride that was beautifully written.

Helena lives in a desolate area of Michigan's Upper Peninsula in a decrepit cabin with her mother and father. She was born two years after her 14 year old mother was abducted by the Native American man who is her father. Her parents are the only people she has ever seen. Her father is a superb outdoorsman and teaches his skills to Helene, who has no idea she is a captive.
Now, 20 years later she has buried her past and is married with two little girls. Then her father escapes from prison...
This is a great thriller, different than any I have read before. Very atmospheric and original.
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Ripped from the headlines stories can be tricky. Too much detail, and it seems indulgent and grotesque. Too little and it can be, frankly, boring. Karen Dionne’s The Marsh King’s Daughter is no regular ripped from the headlines story, but she takes inspiration from a few and has twisted them into a wonderful suspenseful fairy tale of a book.
Helena Pelletier has an idyllic life in the UP (Michigan’s Upper Peninsula). A loving, supportive husband, two daughters, and a jam-making business that is flourishing. What no one, including her family, knows, is that her mother was a famously-abducted teenager, and her father, the abductor, has been in prison for 20 years. Helena’s childhood was spent in a cabin deep in the woods of the UP, unaware that a society existed outside of her small world. When she and her mother escape, she acclimates to the “new” world and sheds her past as soon as she is old enough to change her name and leave it all behind. Now her father has escaped, and Helena has to face both her fear and childhood love of him, all while trying to find him before he finds her family.
This is one the best, most well-written books I’ve read this year. I absolutely loved it, and Dionne’s storytelling abilities are out of this world. There is definitely suspense and mystery in this book, but I also found a lot of fairy tale elements woven in. A young girl kept captive, unaware of the outside world. An evil male figure and his cowed counterpart. There are some mystical aspects of Native American culture woven in, rather than real magic, but they serve as the magical element of this suspenseful fairy tale. What I really enjoyed most was the dichotomy between Helena’s hatred and love for her father (and her mother). As a child, she revered him. She knew he could be mean and harsh, but he was still her father, and he taught her how to hunt and fish, and she loved him fiercely. Once she discovered the truth about her mother’s kidnapping, she hated him for it, but that familial love never really goes away. Even after 20 years, she knew her father well enough to know exactly where he would go after escaping prison, and even though she is hunting him down like prey, it also feels like a game of hide and seek between father and daughter.
The book also mixes in excerpts from Hans Christian Andersen’s short story The Marsh King’s Daughter. Andersen’s story is about a girl named Helga who is born to the wicked Marsh King and a fairy princess. She takes on attributes of both parents, and is only able to be freed once she feels compassion for another person and rids herself of her father’s characteristics. The parallels between that story and Helena’s struggle with her feelings for her father are striking and very well done. I really liked the way Dionne mixed in an old fairy tale with Helena’s story, and used it to solidify the struggles Helena faced when it came to her feelings for her parents.
If you like suspense, mystery, or fairy tales, this is a truly compelling story that combines all three into an amazing book. I cannot recommend The Marsh King’s Daughter strongly enough!

I requested this copy based on the title of the book. I didn't learn until I began reading that it was basically Room in the woods. The author does a great job of writing compelling characters that are physically and mentally fractured and torn between doing what is right and what is known. This will definitely make a great book club selection. I plan on purchasing for several of my branches.

Beautiful and menacing with a terrific sense of place (Upper Peninsula of Michigan). Already have recommended to several people. Great read, beautiful writing

Haunting, yet enthralling. I couldn't put it down. The plot takes it's time, but its all worth it in the end.

I liked the no nonsense approach of the author in creating the character of Helena. I struggled along with her as she faced the demon her father was.. Her "normal" life would never be normal until she faced her true past.

Holy cow, my heart is still racing! This is easily one of the most suspenseful books I have read in a while. If you are a thrill seeker and love to be hanging on for dear life, look no further, you have found your next read. With that being said, I found the subject matter quite disturbing so I would not recommend this for the faint of heart. There is already a lot of buzz about this unique book and I predict it will be a favorite in the suspense genre.

At one point I was racing through the book so fast, I lost track of the story’s timeline. I had to go back and reread a couple of pages. I resented that. I didn’t want to waste an extra minute getting to the end. That’s the kind of book “The Marsh King’s Daughter” is.

Here is some basic information. Helen Pelletier is 28 years old in the main story. She was 12 years old when she and her mother ran away from her father, Jacob Holbrook. I can’t be certain — I made no note — but I don’t think Helena’s mother’s name is mentioned once. She was 16 years old when Jacob kidnapped her. She gave birth to Helena a couple of years into her captivity. Helena now has a husband and two daughters, Iris and Mari.

Let’s flesh that out a bit.

Jacob held Helena’s mother prisoner in a marshy area, a naturally isolating environment, for 14 years. Jacob added the finishing touches by psychologically intimidating and physically abusing her. Jacob raised Helena to be his “Little Shadow.” She learned to hunt, fish, trap, track, and survive in the brutish environment of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. She also learned to shoot and gut her prey. Jacob set severe challenges for Helena to meet, and the punishment for failure was a honking big serving of Jacob’s version of tough love.

What Dionne does so well, besides present a refreshingly novel view of victimhood, is describe her protagonist from two different angles: Helena in one storyline is the child and in the current storyline the mostly socialized young mother of two young girls. Dionne reveals early on that Jacob was eventually captured and imprisoned for many things, not least of which is the mother’s kidnapping and rape. As the story begins, Jacob has somehow escaped from a maximum security prison. No one knows him as well as Helena, so she becomes his most effective and vigilant tracker.

The intensity level is high. Descriptions of survival in the U.P. seem authentic. But what do I know? I have electricity, a lot of salt, and neighborhood stores.

I appreciate that Dionne answers all questions. What happened to Helena’s mother? How did Helena get from the “jungle girl” mentality of someone who lived in isolation from other people to a functioning wife and mother in a town setting? How does Helena feel about her father? (Hint: She has never visited him in prison.) (Actually, that may be less of a hint and more of a red herring. Sorry.) What does the name Rambo mean? Was Jacob just making stuff up? What is the Grimm fairytale of the Marsh King’s Daughter, anyway?

3.5 stars. This was a compelling read. It wasn't fast-paced, but did keep the story going. I found the story of Helena's past and the environment in which she lived engaging.

The Marsh King’s Daughter by Karen Dionne is an exciting thriller with an unusual heroine, filled with the survivalist detail that I love.

Helena Pelletier’s father kills two guards and escapes from prison near her home. That’s enough to fear, especially since her father abducted her mother as a teenager and held her captive in the wilderness of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan for the first twelve years of Helena’s life.

No one can track this master survivalist as well as the daughter he trained to be just like him. Currently a married mother of two, Helena must protect her family from her father and her secretive past. How will her nature photographer husband react when he learns his wife is the product of a child abductor and killer?

The Marsh King’s Daughter is everything I crave in a thriller. I immediately connected to Helena because of her love of the outdoors. She’s a likable and unusual narrator with a warped sense of right and wrong due to her upbringing. Tough and wilderness savvy, Helena’s tracking and survival skills are fascinating. Her love and hate of her father are equal to her struggle to live in a society with rules and technology.

This is the type of book I want to read over and over. I already skimmed the entire book again after devouring it once prior to my review. I kept getting sucked right back into the story the second time, even though I knew what would happen. It’s hard to write a review that does this book justice, which is why it took me a month to do it.

The only part of this book I didn’t enjoy were the excerpts inserted from The Marsh King’s Daughter by Hans Christian Andersen. Although it’s clever to use a classic that parallels what’s happening in this story, I wasn’t fond of the technique used so repetitively. It stalled the book for me and eventually I started skipping those parts.

Helena as the narrator is riveting. She tells her past as she experiences her present so the reader gets snippets of her world, never quite sure when the hammer will drop. The tension builds and at about 75% through the novel, the gruesome expectations are exceeded. This villain creeped me out as much as Helena’s reaction to him.

Moody like the mist of a fog, this novel captivates with every inner thought, sight and sound from Helena’s experiences. I couldn’t read it fast enough. Even though I’m not fond of the violence and gruesome bits, they had to be there to amplify the story. I am beyond mesmerized by this author’s talent. The flow of this novel is perfect and I was rightly shocked when I should be, not able to let the story leave my head after the last page was turned.

Atmospheric, chilling, heartrending and shocking, The Marsh King’s Daughter has me anticipating whatever is next by Karen Dionne. Highly recommend to thriller fans.

Review by Dorine, courtesy of The Zest Quest.

Warning: Be prepared to lose all track of time immersing yourself in this exceptional read! Author, Karen Dionne took me on a journey. Instantly, I shared a connection with Helena and her father aka "The Marsh King". This book was equally balanced between the past and the present. The flow from the different time lines was seamless.

What drew me towards Helena is that she showcased both love and hate for her father. Yet, as a reader, I slowly got to experience each emotion and how it affected Helena as she grew up. She is a fighter. She has her father's spirit. So, it only made sense that she would be the one to face off in a battle of the hunter and the hunted with her father. As the story progressed, I came to see Helena's father as a person and not just a monster. Thus, I came to appreciate their story more then just the game. I loved everything about this book from the beginning, middle, and ending.