Book Review:
The Serial Killer's Daughter by Lesley Welsh
Published by Bookouture, 2017

Published just a couple of months after author Lesley Welsh passed away, The Serial Killer's Daughter tells the story of Suzanne, and how a visit from Rose, her now deceased father's partner changed her life forever.

Suzanne was estranged from her father, Don, and had reluctantly agreed to see Rose as the older woman wanted her to have her father's journals. With the journals are photos of 8 women, and Suzanne is surprised to see her old flatmate Sophie in one. As far as Suzanne knew, Sophie had just met Don once, the day she died in a fire in their flat, so she couldn't exactly ask her!

Although this book is rather a slow burn, as Suzanne becomes gripped by her quest to discover why her father had the photo of Sophie, the pace hots up. Told from Don's perspective via his journals as well as Suzanne's, the author certainly doesn't hold back. It is dark and disturbing, with violence, sex, and manipulation. The two points of view could not be more different, yet Lesley Welsh commands both with ease.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Thanks to Bookouture for providing an eARC via NetGalley; this is my unbiased review.

#TheSerialKillersDaughter #Bookouture #PsychologicalThriller #BookReview

I really wanted to enjoy this book because I love the genre, however I just couldn't get into the story. It was well written but not for me.

When Suzanne tries to hunt down information about her dad through photos and diaries she needs to find out the truth about him.
Why did her father have a photo of one of her friends who died years before?
This was a little slow for me but a good read anyway. Thank you to netgalley and the publishers for this book in exchange for my honest review.

A very good book that had me hooked from the beginning. Will definitely be reading more books from this author.

I did not enjoy this book. From the title I thought it would have some links to coming to terms with being the daughter of a serial killer but instead was faced with the graphic thoughts and actions of a disturbed killer. Might be enjoyable for some, but not my idea of an entertaining read. There was never even any feeling of tension.

Another brilliantly written killer read by Ms Welsh. Unfortunately I read now that she died in 2017, so after her last book (my next to be read!) there is no more enthralling and thrilling reads by this great author. Thanks for the opportunity to have read this great read!!

School teacher Suzanne has settled nicely into life, it’s not quite where she envisioned to be, but she’s comfortable and content until she receives a phone call from Rose Anderson, someone she doesn’t know but who claims to have been living with her estranged father for years. Suzanne reluctantly agrees to meet Rose to collect her father’s belongings (consisting of a pile of old photographs and a bunch of journals), thus starting the tumble-down the rabbit hole into the despicable mind of Don Tyler.

Manipulative, cruel and a classic narcissistic sociopathic, Don is just the kind of father you don’t want to have. He has no qualms about murdering anyone who gets in the way of him getting what he wants. Controlling and clever, as Suzanne reads more and more into Don’s account of his life and the atrocities he committed, the more relieved she is that he is dead and gone. The problem is, some very nasty people are also after the diaries and will go to any lengths to get their hands on them.

I’ve had The Serial Killer’s Daughter on my tbr list for what feels like forever. Being a little obsessed with the subject matter I had to get my hands on the book as soon as possible, however once I had it, it lay unread for a while, me thinking that the title and blurb of the book told me everything I needed to know. So, after her Dad dies she reads his diary and discovers he was a serial killer, end of. Well, how utterly WRONG was I?

This well crafted novel starts off innocuously enough, reeling the reader slowly into Suzanne’s life and the dysfunctional yet not entirely unusual relationship she had with her father. With every chapter that passes another layer of this twisted story is peeled back as the reader goes deeper and deeper into the dark mind of Don Tyler. His language is foul, his thoughts are abhorrent, and his actions are heinous, but the most bone chilling aspect of Don Tyler’s personality is his ability to switch to being charming and charismatic when it suits him, helping him slide seamlessly out of any unforseen sticky situations.

Alternating between the flashbacks in Don’s diary and Suzanne’s efforts in the present day to escape the characters so desperate to keep Don’s secrets buried, the story really picks up pace about halfway through when an unexpected twist turns the whole book on its head. From that point I couldn’t put the it down and flew through the intriguing prose effortlessly and desperately, eager to discover what Don had done next.

The author certainly doesn’t hold back in terms of disturbing events and the novel has such a dark and ominous vibe to it. For that alone it makes for pretty interesting reading, however it may not be to everybody’s taste and certainly not for the faint hearted or easily offended. Don Tyler draws strong similarities with Patrick Bateman from American Psycho, so much so that it is even mentioned in the novel (Don just doesn’t have as much class). And, like American Psycho, sex features heavily throughout The Serial Killer’s Daughter. I’m not a fan of sexual content myself, however it was in context, relevent to the storyline and key to Don’s character.

I love any type of book, TV programme or film with a strong female lead, and that’s exactly what we have here with Suzanne Tyler and also her Mum, Joan, who raised Suzanne on her own and had the ability to see off Don Tyler’s violence time and time again. I was unsure about Suzanne to begin with as she did seem like a bit of a wallflower, but as her character develops the reader sees how she holds the same tenacity as her mother and the same razor-sharp cunning her manipulative father held.

The Serial Killer’s Daughter is one thrilling, chilling, blood spilling ride I would recommend to anyone who takes pleasure from the darker things in life.

As a side note, I was very sorry to hear of the sad passing of Lesley Welsh in April of last year, just prior to publication. Although there will not be a sequel showing the aftermath of such an explosive novel, she has left us with this great story that will be enjoyed for years to come, and have readers like me lying awake after midnight, unable to sleep, shuddering at the thought of the monsters who walk among us.

I received a free review copy of The Serial Killer’s Daughter. Thanks to the author Lesley Welsh and publisher Bookouture.

It makes me worry that something that depraved came out of a sane author's head. I almost put the book down because it was too intense and too immoral to read Don's thoughts and words.

The Serial Killer's Daughter is a thriller about a woman who grew up with her father in and out of the picture due to divorce.
Now as an adult she hears/sees him whenever he decides to show up. He knocks on her door while she is attending college and is acting strange as usual. Her roommate comes home and takes him into her art room to show him her art. He comes out but she does not. The next thing his daughter knows her apartment is demolished by fire.
This tragic event makes her question everything she knows about the man who is her father. The more she gets into tracking down the truth of what happened to her friend the more she is shocked to learn the man she calls dad is not what he seems to be.
This book will take you on a roller coaster ride you will not forget.

A page-turner from start to finish... Highly recommended.

Imagine the shock when you realise your almost invisible father isn't the loveable rogue you thought he was, but someone quite evil who kills on the spur of the moment - just because. This is what Suzanne had to face when she is given her "loving" father's journals. This is a fantastic read with plenty of action and certainly kept me entertained the whole way through. I liked the way it was written, the cover and the characters, well maybe not all of them! I was eager to see what this selfish villain would do next and what nasty end he would bring to some poor unsuspecting person - maybe even a follow up!

Woah, what a novel! You know when you start reading a book but you ‘kind of’ know what to expect…? Maybe a variation on the theme of judging a book by it’s cover…? (Although I have to say that I love the cover of this one and if anything, it caught my attention and made me want to read it even more.) I was so totally, completely, absolutely wrong in my assumptions. This book packs one heck of a punch and I really enjoyed it, a lot more than I initially thought I would.

I liked Suzanne. I liked how normal she was despite being the daughter of a serial killer. But my favourite character was Joan, Suzanne’s mother. Ex-hippy now happily settled with a nice, normal, stable man but still able to control her ruthless, immoral, psychopathic beast of an ex. Now that’s girl power, lol!

Would I recommend this book? I would. It’s dark, edgy and unexpected. I love a book where the body count is high and it certainly is in this one thanks to Don’s ‘talents’. All in all, a great read which I heartily recommend to all serial killer thriller fans. In fact, I would go as far as saying that this is one fans of the serial killer thriller should not miss!

I received an ARC from NetGalley for an honest review.

The title of this book alone drew me in - I knew I had to read this book! I love true crime, and read tons of articles and books on other serial killers. Does that make me a weirdo?!

Either way, the story was as interesting as the title, and it definitely kept me guessing. Even towards the end of the story, I kept thinking there was going to be another secret hidden around the corner.

It was well paced, and enjoyable. I would suggest this book to friends.

This book drags you in page by page. It is quite disturbing to see into the serial killer's mind, but interesting to see how the people around him interact with him. His ex wife seems to be the only one that knows how to handle him. This was my first time reading this author, but it definitely won't be my last. A great read.

A good, modern thriller about a woman's search to find out the truth about her dead father. It's full of major twists and turns along the way.

The Serial Killer’s Daughter by Lesley Welsh
Publisher: Bookouture

Thanks to NetGalley and publisher Bookouture for the ebook ARC of The Serial Killer’s Daughter by author Lesley Welsh in exchange for an honest review.

Suzanne Tyler barely knew her father. Her mother, Joan and step father, Harry raised Suzanne. She has very few memories of her father growing up.
And then when Suzanne was in her twenties, her father Donald decided to visit. At the time she was trying to become an artist; living with her friend Sophie.
One day a woman named Rose Anderson contacts Suzanne, thats the day her life changes forever. Rose tells Suzanne that her father is dead, and she wants her to have a series of his secret diaries, and other items that were in his possession.
Suzanne finds 8 mysterious photographs of women that were in his possession. She is shocked to find one of the photos is of her friend Sophie, who died ten years ago in an unexplained fire. She is wondering why Donald would have a photo of Sophie, he had only met her the one time.
Suzanne is unable to let Sophie’s memory alone, she begins digging into her father’s life despite her mother’s advice.What will Suzanne uncover in the secret diaries?

I give this book a rating of 4 stars. It was very well written and it was hard to put down. It was a page turning thriller. I highly recommend reading this book.

Serial killer books are a personal favourite of mine so when I saw the title I knew I had to ask for it!

There's action, violence, heartache, cruelty and hope. It's a well written, blended book that I read in one sitting, I had to know what happened, I had to get to the next chapter, the next diary entry and it doesn't let up until the very end.

Highly recommended for all who have a hankering for a mystery/thriller/serial killer read!

What it says about me im not sure but I love books about Serial Killers in both real life and fiction.
The character of Don is a grubby, dark, disturbing and possibly one of the most hideous of Killers.
I felt physically dirty reading him, I am no prude but found that the conversations Don had with his daughter about sex with her mother very hard to read. What makes this book even harder to read is knowing that there are real people like Don.

But what about the story?
Well its a well written steady paced story that will have your emotions in turmoil, not so much a rollercoaster of twists and turns but then with such well written characters it didnt need to be.

Reading about Don’s twisted point of view and convictions about himself, others and the world about him, was fairly interesting. This kind of characters always feels like a train wreck to me: you know it’s going to be horrible, yet you keep on reading nonetheless, to see if the monster is truly so abject or if there’s anything else. I definitely won’t empathise with the guy (no kidding), but... yes, I find that interesting.

My major problem with this story, though, was the style itself, of a definite ‘tell-doesn’t-show’ kind, which kept throwing me out of the narrative at almost every page. In turn, I couldn’t empathise with the characters (whether ‘victims’, ‘criminal’ or ‘investigators’); this would have gone much better if their actions, their feelings, and whatever went through their heads, had been shown dynamically. However, I constantly felt that I was being given a recap, a textbook, telling me about them (I guess the flashbacks, or rather, where they were placed, contributed to that).

This diminished the tension created by the horrors described in Don’s notebooks and the investigation Suzanne embarked on, and didn’t contribute in making me warm up to ambiguous characters either, like ‘he’ (the man who follows Rose and Suzanne), for instance. So in general, I didn’t really care about them. I suppose I also expected something a little different, regarding the notebooks and the way Suzanne discovered the truth about her father—possibly something more psychological, and less along the lines the story followed in its second half.

Conclusion: 1.5 stars. Good basic idea, but I didn’t care much about the execution.

I guess it is no secret that I read a lot of serial killer stories. I am interested in knowing how their minds work and how those around them deal with having a killer in their lives. Do they know that their loved one is a monster? I am also curious about the nature vs nurture debate when it comes to criminal psychology. Needless, to say, I knew I had to get a copy of this book immediately I saw the title.

The story is about Suzanne’s dad who has recently found out about her dad’s death. In his death, he left behind a notebook, some money and photographs. These items spark Suzanne’s interest to unravel the mystery about her father. A man she hardly knew but her childhood memories still remind her that he was an odd person.

The story is mainly narrated through Suzanne’s perspective. I liked her characterization and especially the complexity of her family’s background. She was strong and persistent in her search for answers. As readers, we get to know her mother, Joan briefly but she is another character who interested me. I liked her back-story. Another POV that we get is from Don. This is mainly through notebooks.

I thought that the pacing of the story was pretty good. It was non-stop action from the first to the last chapter. There were discoveries and twists along the way that helped moved the story along. The characters were also very well crafted. Don’s narrations were chilling and quite interesting. He was quite a twisted character.

Nevertheless, I think I was expecting something different when I picked the book. I wanted a psychological thriller but instead got more of an action-packed novel. I am in the minority in this regard though since most reviewers loved this book but for me, there was something that was missing. I feel like this is the kind of book that would make a great movie though. In the end, I liked the book but I didn’t love it.