What a completely twisty read! The format (alternating chapters from the point of views of Patty and Rose Gold) really add to the tension, for the reader follows both women from the past to the present, Patty focusing on repairing the tarnish on her name while Rose Gold delves into what transpired the five years her mother spent in prison. The challenge is knowing whose point of view you can trust (if any) in a completely astounding series of twists and turns.

As an avid fan of thrillers (I read quite a lot of them) I tend to pick up on things quickly, not very often shocked or surprised by what I read. Yet every time I turned the page, I gasped or was completely astounded by what was transpiring. I was completely captivated throughout the read, staying up far too late to finish.

One of the challenges of a twisty read is the conclusion. Do you leave it open ended? Or try to wrap it up neatly, everything “solved” in the last few pages? What Wrobel did (yes, I’m being completely vague here), left me turning the last pages, gasping, the only word I was able to utter was “Wow!”

Highly, highly recommended.

This twisty, turny psychological thriller is brilliant. Just don't attempt to read it while eating. Remember that little girl in "Sixth Sense?" Enough said. Wrobel alternates POVs between two unreliable narrators -- a mother and a daughter. Their shared history is filled with abuse and dysfunction. Will mother dearest prevail and re-establish her dominance after spending five years in prison; or has the once abused daughter learned a thing or two from mommy? Fascinating character studies that remind us that everyone is not all one thing or another -- and that's what keeps us guessing. . .

Thank you to Berkley and NetGalley for a digital ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Sometimes I just want to get lost in a totally engrossing and twisty read and Darling Rose Gold was the perfect fit. Told in dual point of view and alternating timelines, author Stephanie Wrobel takes on a dark and complicated mother and daughter relationship similar to that one of the real-life Gypsey Rose Blanchard case.

Munchausen syndrome by proxy plays a starring role in this novel that dives into the troubled duo whose lives continue to intertwine even after mother Patty has served time for the severe mistreatment of her daughter Rose Gold. While this has nods to Gypsey Rose Blanchard, even if you are familiar with that case, this story of revenge will keep you turning the pages and guessing what will happen next until the very end.

While each of these characters has villainous and unlikeable aspects, they are also humans who have gone through heartbreaking circumstances. I appreciated that while Wrobel presented a fascinating reading ride, she also was respectful of the emotional and psychological issues that are a deep part of these troubling situations. Who is lying and who is telling the truth (or is anyone??) Part of the appeal of this book for me was navigating the unreliable storytelling as both Patty and Rose Gold have so many shades of gray.

While I wouldn’t call this a total thriller, I did find it compelling and engaging until the very end. It had so many twists and turns and was full of dysfunction and if that is your thing, I think you will really enjoy this one!

Thank you to Berkley Publishing for an advanced copy and inviting me to be a part of this blog tour. As always, all opinions are my own.

This is going to be a hard review to write because I think it is best going into this book without much knowledge - like I did. I hadn't really read even the synopsis before picking it up, just saw the cover all over the place and was intrigued.

A book that has a focus on a mother daughter duo who don't have the best relationship due to their rocky past. Patty is the mother and at the beginning of this story she is getting released from prison where she was guilty of endangering her own child as she made her sick her whole life. Rose Gold is there to greet her mother as she leaves prison and is ready to start this new chapter with her life . . .

This is one of those books where you just can't trust any of the characters and for me that isn't something I completely love. I don't mind when you can't trust one, but when you can't trust any that makes for a hard story to read as you just can't believe anything that anyone as saying as complete fact.

I am intrigued with how a parent could want to have a sick child to get attention partly due to the tv show, The Politician. The look at Munchausen by proxy disease made me keep reading this book because I am so fascinated by a parent who could find comfort or joy or something from the attention that a sick child could get, I am not a parent, but this really fascinates me.

This book was interesting, but I wouldn't be quick to recommend it to just any reader.

Wow! Darling Rose Gold had me 100% engaged from page one. I know this is not the first time an author has tackled victims of Münchausen syndrome by proxy but Wrobel still manages to keep our interest to the very page. I loved seeing both sides of the story but most of all how our pasts play such a part in our future. Rosé Gold is a devastating character and I felt like I could picture her and her brittleness. Patty is the mother you love to hate and shows how mentally ill one is when poisoning their own child. Such a fantastic debut.

First I would like to thank Netgalley for the electronic copy of Darling Rose Gold for an honest review. I enjoyed this book for the quick read that it was and the interesting subject matter, however, the book as a whole fell flat.

I really enjoyed the alternating points of view. They added great perspective and were from different time periods allowing you to truly understand Rose Gold's upbringing, abuse, and the new world she has created for herself.

I didn't enjoy getting to know the characters and not one of them was likable. While everyone has flaws and is not perfect, this book did a great job of only highlighting the flaws and issues of each character and did not provide any redeeming qualities. I found myself rooting for the demise of everyone and on the side of no one.

Overall, I would still recommend this book to read as it was a very interesting read and highlights an all to real mental health problem.

Fits well with the current trend for revenge stories, as well as the increasing awareness of domestic abuse.
The dual narrative grips you as you are not sure if both are unreliable narrators, or if we can at least trust Rose Gold.

Darling Rose Gold is filled to the brim with echoes of the Gypsy Rose Blanchard case, with lots of parallels in circumstances and even a main character whose name seems to have drawn inspiration from the case. If you're as familiar with that case as I am, this book may feel almost cathartic. In real life, Gypsy Rose is currently sitting in jail for the murder of the mother who medically abused her for years; this novel opens with the abuser having just served a substantial prison term for her actions.

The novel alternates perspectives between Rose Gold and her mother, Patty, and being in Patty's head can be genuinely unsettling and sometimes infuriating. She is filled with righteous indignation and truly doesn't seem to feel she's done anything wrong. The author seems to have done a lot of research on Munchausen syndrome by proxy (also known as factitious disorder, a form of abuse in which a caretaker, usually a parent, obtains unnecessary medical procedures for the person under their care by fabricating an illness).

Rose Gold, on the other hand, now has issues of her own, stemming from the years of abuse. Patty's release from prison sets off a captivating game of cat and mouse. I will say that I have some reservations about this premise. I talk a lot about mental health in fiction on this blog, and I'm always wary of plots that involve abuse victims stepping into anything resembling a villain role. However, I thought this book did justice to Rose Gold as a character. She often acts in erratic and irrational ways, but even at her very worst, I always felt for her. Her years growing up with a warped example of what it means to love someone would inevitably lead her down some dark paths.

The plot is super fast paced and the book can easily be read in a couple of sittings. Despite the heavy inspiration drawn from a real case, the basic aspects of the plot diverged enough from it that I could not predict each next step based on my knowledge of that case. This dark story of revenge comes out in one week and I definitely recommend picking up a copy!

3.5 stars. Fast paced and twisty novel. This is a revenge story between two characters with emotional and psychological issues due to abuse. Even though it is fiction, that may be a barrier to enjoying this book for some readers.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the digital advanced reader copy of this book.

Darling Rose Gold by Stephanie Wrobel first caught my attention because of the stunning cover, which is seriously gorgeous! Then I read the blurb, and since I'm absolutely fascinated by both Munchausen syndrome and Munchausen syndrome by proxy, I knew I had to read this book. For those who are unaware, Munchausen syndrome is a mental disorder in which a person repeatedly and deliberately acts as if he or she has a physical or mental illness when he or she is not really sick. Munchausen syndrome by proxy is a psychological disorder marked by attention-seeking behavior by a caregiver through those who are in their care.

Darling Rose Gold is a slow-burn psychological suspense novel told in dual POV and alternating timelines. It's quite an ambitious feat, but the author handled it spectacularly well. First, we have the mother, Patty, who is in the present. Recently released from prison, Patty is seeking refuge with her daughter, who is a new mom to son, Adam. Next, we have the daughter, Rose Gold, who is in the past--five years prior to the first chapter, when Rose Gold was just eighteen years old. Over the course of the novel, Rose Gold's chapters slowly move into the present time.

Right from the first chapter, I was hooked! What I appreciated most was the unreliable characters and narrators. There are several well-developed characters, and everyone seems a bit unhinged. It is established early on that both the mother and daughter have different recollections of Rose Gold's childhood and upbringing. Patty does not believe she abused her daughter, but Rose Gold is confident she did, even going as far as to testify against her mother at her trial. What makes this such a compelling read is that it is up to the reader to discover the truth as the pages turn. Keep in mind, there is an explosive finale, where the truth is revealed.

Overall, Darling Rose Gold is a quick, excellent read, and I highly recommend it. I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley. This is my honest, unbiased review.

Obviously this story was inspired by true events. And while I did enjoy it as a thriller, the fact that Rose Gold kidnapped a baby to use in her revenge plot was a big no for me. After learning that, my opinion of this book went way down.
I thought it had good potential, but the writing also seemed a bit immature. And I really didn't like the ending. Very disappointed.

Well, this was underwhelming. I’ve seen so many great reviews for Darling Rose Gold and I was so hyped to read it, but it ended up falling far short of my expectations.

The story is told through alternate POVs from Patty in the present and Rose Gold in the past. I have to say I found Patty’s chapters much more interesting. I felt like Rose Gold’s were all backstory and really seemed to drag. It covers her life during the years her mother was in prison and I thought it could have been shortened. There were some important things that came back in to play later, but so much of it was just needless detail and I found myself pretty bored. In Patty’s chapters I felt like the story was at least moving forward.

Both characters were kind of crazy and unapologetically awful, which was kind of fun. I was actually hoping for them to act even more devious than they did, though. I felt that the story followed a very cliched path and anybody who has read this genre before will be able to see what’s going to happen from miles away.

Overall, Darling Rose Gold was not really for me. There was some fun characterization, but for the most part it was really predictable and seemed to drag a lot. I didn’t find out until after I was done reading that this story is apparently very heavily inspired by the real life case of Gypsy Rose Blanchard and her mother Dee Dee. I had never heard of the case before, but looked it up and there are a lot of similarities (like, a lot) with this book. While this book wasn’t for me, I have seen a lot of other really great reviews, so it may still be worth checking out.

Overall Rating (out of 5): 2.5 Stars

Wow, what a wild ride. I finished this last night & I’m still like, mindblown. Totally cuckoo characters but in the BEST WAY. MBP is so fascinating to me and I flew through this one. Dual POV & past/present chapters make this such a twisty story! I would definitely check it out.

Darling Rose Gold is a difficult book to read. There are a few things I have a hard time with reading about: animal or child abuse and mother/daughter relationships. Obviously, this book is a lot of both. I was fully aware what I was getting into – it’s all right there in the synopsis – so it wasn’t quite as bad as I would have expected. It also helped that the book is so compelling it was easy to get pulled into the story without it affecting me too much.

What I loved so much about this book is how human Wrobel made all the characters. It would have been easy to make one a victim or survivor and one an obvious villain, but both Patty and Rose Gold have so many shades of grey. It made for a much more interesting story. It also made the ending very hard to predict, which I’m a huge fan of, especially in thrillers. Wrobel clues the reader into the fact that not everything is as it seems, but, until the very end, it’s not clear just how much Patty and Rose Gold are playing each other, and who is the better actor. I did not see the ending coming, and I definitely liked it that way.

I usually pick up thrillers because they’re exciting, fun reads, and Darling Rose Gold totally fit the bill. This book is an absolutely wild ride, and I was sucked in from the first page. There were twists I didn’t see coming (though, admittedly, my knowledge of the Gypsy Rose Blanchard case might have caused me to anticipate that this book would follow the true story more closely than it did, which I’m not mad about). Overall, I found this Darling Rose Gold to be a really great thriller.

Rose Gold's mother, Patty, was just released from prison. Her crime? She abused Rose Gold throughout her childhood by poisoning her with ipecac. Rose Gold testified against her and made sure Patty went to prison. And now that Patty is out of prison, Rose Gold has seemed to have changed her tune. She allows Patty to stay at her house after her release. What is Rose Gold thinking? Rose Gold's motives might be different than what Patty and her neighbors suspect. Because Rose Gold wants revenge.

Ok, so this is another one of those books that I didn't love, but I think teens will really enjoy. It's definitely a captivating read. After I got about half way through, I raced to the end. That said, the end was exactly what I thought it would be - folks who have read these sorts of psychological thrillers will see the twists before they arrive. Both Rose Gold and Patty are terrible (and while most reviews treat this as a spoiler, it's pretty obvious from the start) and really just need help? There's definitely a part of me that really just wanted the book to end and for the characters to get help for their mental illnesses.

This book was basically a Gillian Flynn novel for teens. It wasn't necessarily my thing - I like watching psychological thrillers, but don't always enjoy reading them - it's a hit or miss genre for me. That said, I think teens or someone who loves the genre would really love it. 2.5 stars.

Thanks to Berkeley and Netgalley for the free eARC which I received in exchange for an unbiased review. Darling Rose Gold is avaialable now.

For 18 years, Rose Gold Watts believed that she was seriously ill, until an internet search told her that her mother was poisoning and starving her to gain attention. She testified against her mother in court, and “Poisonous Patty” Watts went to prison for five years. Patty is about to be released from prison and with nowhere to go, asks Rose Gold if she can stay with her. Rose Gold reluctantly agrees, since she now has a child of her own and fears what Patty may do go him. Patty always gets revenge on those who wronged her, but Rose Gold is no longer a helpless child and has her own brand of revenge in mind. As the saying goes, revenge is a dish best served cold.

Great psychological fiction! Both Patty and Rose Gold have had years to think about revenge, and the pacing of the story really ratchets up the tension as the reader watches Patty and Rose Gold circle around each other like a pair of jungle cats. They have a lot more in common than they think: neither one is likable; both are highly manipulative; both women are unreliable narrators telling their own version of the truth. Fascinating yet disturbing and twisted, this is definitely like a train wreck: you just can’t look away. Once you start this book, it’s really hard to put it down.

I love the cover art! The plot for Darling Rose Gold sounds a lot like the story of Dee Dee Blanchard and her daughter Gypsy Rose. Hulu recently did an original series called The Act which was based on Dee Dee and Gypsy Rose.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an e-ARC in return for a review.

Yes!
This was quite the page turner. Wrobel spun a story that kept me wondering how it was going to all come together. This was quite the ride. Highly recommend.

When I read the synopsis for this book, I was intrigued. I assumed it was a retelling of the famous case that deals with the same issues as in the book and I thought it would be pretty cool to see the ins and outs of a story such as this. 

Rose Gold Watts has been abused at the hands of her mother, Patty. She grew up thinking she was deathly ill and was told she had a multitude of issues wrong with her. Of course, like the real story, her mother had been poisoning her for most of her life and Rose really wasn't ill at all. The characters of Rose and Patty were okay. I didn't connect well with either of them because both weren't that likable, to be honest. 

"You deserve every rotten thing you got." 

The story itself was suspenseful and I could see reasoning for Rose's actions. At its basic level, this book deals with mental illness and how it links to child abuse. Rose's actions were just as bad as Patty's but I don't think she ever saw it that way. At times, I felt Rose was justified due to the horrific abuse she suffered at the hands of Patty, but other times I was conflicted. I wanted it all to be over and I wanted to keep reading to see what would happen. 

“Most people font like holding on to anger. They feel it crushing and consuming them, so they let it go. They try to forget the ways they’ve been wronged.
But some of us cannot forget and will never forgive. We keep our axes sharp, ready to grind. We hold pleas for mercy between our teeth like jawbreakers.
They say a grudge is a heavy thing to carry.
Good thing we’re extra strong.”

Overall, I enjoyed this book but warn people to remind themselves that it's fiction. At times I felt sorry for Patty because I knew she was just as messed up as she made her daughter, but other times I wanted to hate her and felt just as angry as Rose. Rose, sadly was just as crazy as her mother at it really put light on just how messed up a mentally incapable parent can make you. The book was good and very thought provoking so I give it 4-stars 

Thank you so very much to Berkley via Netgalley for the free advanced reader's copy. The views and opinions expressed here are solely my own and are in no way a representation of the views and opinions of the author, publisher, and/or distributor.

“It was easier to manipulate someone if they didn’t perceive you as a threat.”
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Thank you so much to Berkley and NetGalley for an advanced gifted copy for review!
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Wow! What a dang thrilling ride! This book is messed up and disturbing on so many levels; Wrobel does a fantastic job in creeping the reader out and also totally going into the minds of these insane characters - which in itself brings a profound creep factor. Wrobel kept me at the edge of my seat trying to figure out what was going to happen in the end. I don't know a ton about Munchausen by Proxy - just from what I've seen on Grey's or read about in the news/other books, but I feel like this book did an excellent job at giving an in-depth look at how Munchausen looks in the brain of someone who has it.
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The evils in the characters were subtle and well-developed. The evolution of Rose Gold was done masterfully by highlighting her inner thoughts and how her perspective of the world changed over time. Anyone would be messed up after being continually poisoned for years and years by their own mother, but Rose Gold's response to what happened to her was pure evil. As a reader, I liked this thought-provoking premise that the author included. Do I feel bad for Rose Gold for the abuse she endured? Of course! But she's just as evil as her mother - so how far does the sympathy extend?
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This is a really quick read and I would recommend for fans of Gillian Flynn or people who like psychological, well-written thrillers!

Thanks to the publishers and Netgalley for my copy to review.


When I read the synopsis of this book I immediately thought of Gypsy Rose and Dee Dee and yeah that's basically what you get with some major things changed around. I kinda had some high expectations for this book but I was kinda let down I guess. It starts out with Patty getting out of prison wanting to reconnect with Rose Gold but Rose Gold has other plans in store. The book started out strong for me then about the halfway mark I just started losing interest. I felt like it was just dragging on and on. I honestly would skip over some stuff and still knew what was going on. I had most figured out before I even got to it. This story at times made me feel so weird and uncomfortable. Stephanie Wrobels writing is great it's just this book didnt do it for me. The writing is why I gave it 2 stars.