I loved this book. So well written. I found this book unputdownable!!

This was another mesmerizing suspense by Joy Fielding. I have read several of her books and have never been disappointed. The same goes for this one.

There are so many suspects and I fell for all the traps.

A great read that kept me guessing until the end.

Thanks to Random House/Ballantine and Net Galley for providing me with a free e-galley in exchange for an honest, unbiased review.

3 stars rounded down for me.

First off, this was my first read by Joy Fielding. I have heard wonderful things about this author and overall, I wasn't disappointed but I wasn't overly impressed.

This was a very slow burning mystery that took me awhile to get into. I definitely wouldn't put this in the thriller category. I was bummed because I figured out who the killer was fairly early in but it still was a pretty entertaining read. I was a little annoyed because I felt like the author focuses so much on Robin and her sister Melanie who fight and argue over past issues. This is what I would call a dysfunctional family buried with lies and deception.

Would I recommend this one? Not something I would put high on my ladder but it was an ok read.

Thank you to Netgalley and Ballantine Books for granting my wish and giving me an early arc of this book.
Publication date: 2/27/18
Published to GR: 3/10/18

An enjoyable read as I love this author's writing style. The perpetrator was obvious for me right of the bat, which took away from the suspense of figuring out the whodunit.

Ballantine Books and NetGalley provided me with an electronic copy of The Bad Daughter. I was under no obligation to review this book and my opinion is freely given.

Robin gets a distressing call from her sister Melanie, who has news that their father, his stepdaughter, and his wife have been shot at their home. After her best friend Tara dumped Robin's brother to marry their father, Robin walked away from her town and never looked back. Coming home to help wherever needed, Robin soon realizes that there are many questions surrounding the apparent home invasion. Will her niece Cassidy be able to shed some light on what happened that awful evening?

Author Joy Fielding is a seasoned veteran of the mystery and suspense genre, crafting stories full of suspicious behavior, threats, and lies. The Bad Daughter is no different, although this novel did not grab my attention as much as some of her others. There were too many holes in the plot and too much of the book was focused on police guesswork instead of investigative clues. The mystery was overly complex, as the author put forth a great deal of suspicion on too many characters to make it a cohesive story. I was not a big fan of the main character, as her personal issues got in the way of the main premise behind the book. The Bad Daughter was a good mystery thriller, but was just not quite there for me.

I've read a few things by her, and like in those books I hated pretty much everyone in this book. I figured out what was going on early on, but still enjoyed the what is happening dance.

Free ARC from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review, book is out now

This was not my favorite book by Joy Fielding, in fact I usually like all her books very much but this one feel short for me. Still an ok read and I will most certainly continue to read her books.

If you think your family reunions are a hot mess, imagine the dynamics of the Davis clan: Daddy Davis married his son's (newly ex-) girlfriend, a single mother with a young daughter; oldest daughter Melanie, as irascible as they come, lives alone with her high-functioning autistic son Landon; younger daughter Robin is a therapist beset by nearly debilitating anxiety attacks and is engaged to a guy she thinks might be cheating on her; and only son Alec, whose girlfriend dumped him for his father, ran away to San Francisco to escape his father and stepmother.

WIth the recent violent murders of their father and stepmother, the Davis kids are reunited, albeit much against their will. If nothing else, they have to bury their dad, and someone needs to take care of Cassidy, their twelve-year-old stepsister, who miraculously survived getting shot during the murders.

Joy Fielding quickly challenges you to decide whom you're doing to believe. Will you side with early suspicions cast on Alec? Will you question Landon's innocence? Or is there another character behind all of this?

Some of the twists seem pretty obvious, but there may be a few that surprise you. Whether you like the Davis kids, though, is entirely up to you. Fielding presents them with affection but also occasional brutal honesty. As prickly as Melanie may be, she was an early favorite for me. I liked Alec, too, even though I occasionally wanted to shout at him. Robin, though, was a slower burn. She is so weak and ineffectual that I didn't care much for her. Fielding develops her slowly, letting her strength grow gradually.

Overall, this is an enjoyable mystery, despite its occasional uneven pacing and somewhat implausible plot twists.

I like Joy Fielding's writing. It's clear and the reader always knows who is talking - a rarity in novels today. The characters in this book are well-defined and the descriptions of the surroundings are vivid. The story seems a bit like a Jerry Springer show at times but hey - I guess there are people out there like that!!

The suspense build-up is good and though I did guess 'whodunnit' a bit before the reveal, it wasn't so far in advance that it spoiled the shock factor.

An enjoyable mystery!

Joy Fielding never disappoints. She has written another winner!
“The Bad Daughter,” is a psychological thriller that will keep you on the edge of your seat. A real page turner.
Robin is a 33 year old psychologist that has been estranged from her family for years.
Suddenly, her life as she knows it is turned upside down... Her father, young daughter and second wife are in critical condition following a home invasion.
Robin returns home to check on her family with hopes of making amends. Is it possible? It’s going to be difficult, due to the fact that there is a complicated relationship between her sister and her father’s second wife.
Dysfunctional families have always sparked an interest amongst readers. This one will definitely satisfy that interest. There are many secrets and lies within the story to hold your interest.
A special thanks to NetGalley for a digital ARC to read & review, in return for an honest opinion.
Put this on your TBR list. You won’t be disappointed...

Just hearing her estranged sister Melanie's voice on the phone is enough to send Robin into a panic attack, but when she learns that their stepmother has been killed in a home invasion and their father and stepsister gravely wounded, returning to the scene of the crime forces her to confront her demons and try to hold what remains of her family together. Family ties were strained enough when their widowed father ran off with his son's fiancee Tara, who happened to be Robin's best friend. Only Cassidy, the child they had together, witnessed the crime, and her story doesn't make a lot of sense to anyone, especially Robin; neither of the intruders matches the description she gave of the men who broke into her home, although suspicion soon falls on the jilted fiancee - Robin's beloved brother Alec - and Melanie's autistic and perhaps violent teenage son., A convoluted story of family dysfunction, the characters in The Bad Sister aren't as complex as this prolific author is capable of creating; while the pacing is up to her usual standards, this particular mystery lacks the drama and conviction. that are the hallmarks of her other titles.

The Bad Daughter is both simple and difficult to review. Every component—from characters to prose to plot—settles comfortably in the realm of just-good-enough, without ever aspiring towards the exceptional. Fielding avoids overwrought metaphors or unnecessarily complicated sentences; she tells her story aptly, but you wouldn't miss a wealth of detail by skimming the pages either. Her characters are all distinct, if a little predisposed to the melodramatic. And while she plants several red herrings along the way I'll admit I correctly guessed whodunit around the novel's halfway point.

It is, quite plainly, a resoundingly average thriller.

Three daughters—two adult siblings and an adolescent step-sister—all contend for the "bad" moniker of the novel's title. Protagonist Robin foists the designation onto herself much more than she deserves; her flight from the increasingly strained relationships with her family causes her to miss much of her mother's final months combating a fatal illness. This compounds the hostility of older sister Melanie, whose barbed comments and pointed emotional distance have pained Robin since childhood. Cassidy, their twelve-year-old step-sister, awakens in the hospital displaying a curious combination of maturity and childlike dependence that may or may not stem from her recent trauma. Her wild oscillations in temperament and Melanie's unceasing defensiveness both strain credulity, although Robin's struggles with anxiety read much closer to reality.

The ancillary cast of male characters, including Robin's fiancee, the county sheriff, and Melanie's autistic son and his only friend, are adequate place-fillers in their respective roles. Fielding's depiction of the spectrum was respectful, if a little stereotypical, although readers with more personal experience should judge for themselves.

I found each false lead only mildly distracting, particularly once I had settled on my guess for the final reveal. It provides satisfactory closure to the "home invasion" mystery, although one revelation within the larger solution came across as jarring and unnecessary.

Perhaps its obvious from the previous paragraphs, but books as thoroughly average as The Bad Daughter present the unique problem of having neither particularly good nor bad qualities to single out in a review. None of the faults I found in it were egregious enough to warrant a DNF and none of the positives were compelling enough that I would seek out another of Ms. Fielding's novels.

Perhaps this all amounts to damning The Bad Daughter with faint praise. I don't feel as though I wasted the two days of reading time devoted to it, but I suspect that soon after writing this review many of the book's details will irretrievably fade from memory. Genre junkies will probably find this a quick and satisfying read, but I would caution them to forgo the hardback in favor of less costly options.

I came away from this one with mixed feelings. While the story did hold my interest, it is far from the gripping, edge of your seat thriller that is promised in the blurb. The pacing throughout most of the story is very slow until we get to the last handful of chapters, then it picks up considerably. Even with the slow pace, there were a couple of things that did keep me turning the pages. The first thing was the family dynamic. If you looked up dysfunctional, you'd find this family's picture. It was a bit like a train wreck - you don't really want to see, but you just can't look away. The second thing was the identity of the killer, which is glaringly obvious from very early on, but I've been wrong before so I kept going to see if I'd guessed correctly and what this person's motive could possibly be. Honestly, the cliche of a motive was the biggest disappointment for me, but as much as it's been done, it still manages to send chills down a person's spine. Our main character, Robin was likable enough, but her play by play of dreams became a little tedious and she's not very perceptive for a therapist. With the exception of Blake, there's not a single character in this one that isn't flawed in some way - some worse than others, and some of those flaws made the character more likable and for others, not so much. I do have to comment on the sheer amount of dialogue in this one as it was considerable. But as I read, I began to realize that the dialogue could have been cut almost in half if the author had left out the annoying repetition of statements in question form. Once it caught my attention, I couldn't help but notice how often it was happening and it started becoming a distraction. In the end, I did finish the book and the story did hold my interest, but this one was a middle of the road read for me. It wasn't horrible, but it wasn't great either and I can't say that it would lead me to search out other books from this author.

Robin has been estranged from her dysfunctional family for several years, she has a nagging suspicion that her charming and handsome fiancé is having an affair with his pretty blonde assistant, and she suffers debilitating panic attacks—having one at the mere sound of her sister’s voice in the message she left—which hardly makes her an ideal therapist, capable of dispensing sound advice to others, but that’s what she does for a living. After deciding never to return to her hometown, she headed to LA when her mother died and her womanizing father eloped with her best friend, Tara, who happened to be engaged to her younger brother, Alec. But when her caustic sister, Melanie, calls to tell her that their father, Tara, and Tara’s 12-year old daughter, Cassidy, have been shot in an apparent home invasion, Robin reluctantly returns home.

When Tara dies from her injuries, revenge is thought to be the motive, and Alec becomes the main suspect. Melanie’s autistic son, Landon, with his imposing physique and violent outbursts also cannot be ignored by the authorities. Although there was plenty of family drama to keep things entertaining, each character’s attributes seemed a bit too extreme to be believable. And while there was also no shortage of potential suspects, it was still pretty easy to figure out who the real killer was. Having said that, this book remained compellingly readable throughout. 3.5 stars

NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group – Ballantine kindly provided me an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to netgalley and the author/publisher for a copy of THE BAD DAUGHTER in exchange for an honest review.

Oh my, this book was amazing! This is a thriller that will keep you turning the pages late into the night.. This was a single sitting read for me. Who needs to eat anyway? I could not walk away from this well plotted, suspenseful thriller. The twists and turns were non stop and the characters were just right. I loved some, hated others and felt like I was along for the ride on this crazy trip of lies, secrets, deceit and danger. What you think you know, you don't and when you think you have figured it out, you haven't.

If you are a fan of the twisty psychological thrillers like The Wife Between Us and Gone Girl, then this is a must read for your 2018 tbr list!

Robin has good reason to have walked away from her family 5 years ago. She always knew her father was a cheater and a verbal abuser of her brother Alec. She had a horrible relationship with her sister and the icing on the cake after her mother died an awful death from cancer... her best friend married her father!
Yuck! I would have left too! But one day at work, Robin received a phone call from the sister she hasn't spoken to in years! Dreading the call to her... she finds out that she HAS to go back to Red Bluff to deal with an unbelievable family matter!
Family secrets will reveal their ugly heads, the small town of Red Bluff thinks it's the most news worthy thing that's ever happened in their small town, AND SOMEONE is to blame for death and deceit! But who?
Joy Fielding has written a suspenseful novel that will definitely keep you second guessing! A solid crime/murder mystery! We look forward to more titles from Joy Fielding.

Thank you to NetGalley, Random House, and Joy Fielding for an ARC in exchange for an honest review. I have read and enjoyed a lot of Joy Fielding books so I was very excited to read this one. However, it sort of fell flat for me - not bad, not great, just meh... It tells the story of a dysfunctional family and what happens when the father, his second wife (who is one of the sister's best friends), and their stepdaughter are shot and how the family learns what really happened. I had predicted the outcome, though I found it not believable. It was an entertaining read but not one of my favorites.

Thanks to NetGalley, Ballantine Books, and Joy Fielding for the opportunity to read and review her latest book. I've been a huge fan of Joy Fielding's for decades and her latest kept me glued to the pages.

Robin is a therapist who is estranged from most of her family. She tends to suffer from panic attacks and worries that her boyfriend is cheating on her like her father did her mother. When she receives a call from her sister that her father, his wife and her daughter were shot in their home and clinging to life, she heads off to her small hometown. Her sister, Melanie, has years of grudges against Robin and the two have issues trying to exist together while waiting for news on their family. Lots of family secrets come out in this one and I enjoyed the fast-paced writing and characters.

As with all her books - highly recommended!

The Bad Daughter by Joy Fielding is a bit of a slow burn mystery/thriller read that was full of secrets and lies surrounding the family involved. When first introduced to the main character, Robin, readers know her past holds a lot to uncover as she begins suffering from a panic attack from merely hearing her sister’s voice after a couple of years.

When Robin gets in touch with her sister, Melanie, she gets the horrific news that her father, his wife and daughter have been shot in what looks like a home invasion. All are clinging onto life at the hospital pushing Robin to return home to Red Bluff, California where she confronts her past to unravel the events of the present.

Now for anyone who follows my reviews one would think that my mid range rating for this one probably came from the slow pace/lack of action but for this one that wasn’t the case. I struggled with deciding how exactly to rate this book as it actually did a great job of holding my attention as I learned all about the family and what had happened that night.

However, as easy as this one was to become engrossed in while reading it also contained something that really for lack of a better way to put it just completely ticked me off. Possibly a mild spoiler but the author had included an autistic character within the story which had me thinking yay for the reality of today’s society where autism is prevalent. But then this was basically used as an excuse to throw suspicion of the character. Of course pretty much every character in a read like this is suspicious but it couldn’t help but grate at my nerves that nothing other than being withdrawn made that character questionable in the characters eyes.

In the end I also thought that the mystery of who had shot the family wasn’t really one that was too terribly hard to solve either but it may come as a shock to some. So while this held my attention rather well to keep the pages turning the things I came across lowered my rating of course.

I received an advance copy from the publisher via NetGalley.

Overall, I enjoyed this book. It moved quickly, and finding out "whodunnit" kept me reading, though I will admit to having guessed who it was about halfway through the book. On the other hand, the main character was rather annoying and weak, to no apparent purpose. Her relationship with her boyfriend didn't seem very relevant, and his part in the story seemed contrived. Her brother was also not very well-drawn, nor was his behavior particularly believable. That said, it really is a book worth reading if you like a quick-paced tale and a mystery.