This is my first Staub book and I am impressed how prolific a writer she is! I had difficulty with this one though and it could be that it was the finale of a trilogy and I wasn't familiar with the characters and setting. I even had a tough time keeping the characters straight. I was intrigued by the description of Barrow Island and the Gullah culture.

*ARC provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.*

The Butcher's Daughter is the finale of a series but reads well as a standalone. Amelia is searching for her birth parents, helping NYPD officer Stockton Barnes find his daughter, and also pulled into a murder investigation tying back to religious fanatics, the Butcher and his daughter Gypsy.

Taking place in both present day and 1968, Staub draws parallels between the powder keg that was the United States during the Civil Rights and Vietnam Era with current day. While there were a lot of characters to keep track of, and some that seemed less important than others in this storyline, overall character development was good. I enjoyed the pieces with Melody, Cyril, and Honeybee in the South during 1968 equally as much as Amelia and Stockton's search for answers in the present. There is enough question of identity and who is trustworthy to create tension, and the ultimate resolution that comes in the final chapters when Gypsy's final plan begins to unravel is satisfying and well paced.

I enjoyed watching these storylines develop and converge throughout the novel and will definitely be revisiting this series to read from the beginning.

This is a tale of life coming full circle. Amelia and Gpysy's life is more entwine than they expected. It was hard to get into the story as in the beginning it's confusing. The time line does help with untangling some of the webs. It's an interesting read as I'm not used to the way the author wrote. The author's tone takes you to a different time and especially the way each characters speaks. It's the twang of the South. A little harder to read like Shakespeare, but very enjoyable and authentic.

Thank you to HarperCollins Publishing and Netgalley for this amazing ARC in exchange an honest review.

I normally love every book the Wendy Corsi Staub writes but I had a hard time with this book. There were way too many characters and I kept getting confused with all the names and the story line

I am sorry I could not finish this book. I did not like what I read, too many names, I had to keep going back to figure out who was who.

I haven't read the other 2 books in this series but it didn't ruin this book for me at all. This book caught me up on all the major parts of the other books. I enjoyed the mystery of this book and I enjoyed the characters. I received an advanced readers copy and all opinions are my own.

I have read all of Wendy Corsi Staub's books and they are all good. I couldn't put this one down. I read it in one sitting. The mystery was intriguing and I like how it wrapped up all the loose ends from the other two books. One of my favorite mystery series.

The Butcher's Daughter starts off slowly but escalates into a thrilling mystery. The story interweaves a tale of murder along with the mystery of finding Amelia's parents and Stockton's daughter. The mixing of the two seems a little weird at first but it all comes together about midway in the book.
The story is original and well written. I liked Amelia's storyline more than I did the storyline about the murder and would be interested in reading more stories about Amelia searching for ancestral connections.
Thanks to Netgalley, William Morrow, and the Scene of the Crime Early Reads for the advanced copy of this book. The opinions are my own.