Penny Francone was anything but the perfect daughter. Penny is accused of murder and her mother is her fiercest supporter. Penny has Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) we know it as multiple personalities. I was expecting a non-stop thriller from DJ Palmer. The story dragged on way too long. I get that Penny's DID was a focal point of the story but all of the sessions with her doctor and the backstory and unnecessary backstory teasers were a bit much. Penny's mom, Grace believed in her daughter's innocence so strongly she alienated her other children and her family business to fight for her daughter.

DJ Palmer didn't disappoint with the fast-paced climax but by the end, it was sort of a letdown to me. There was something missing for me in this story. I give it a strong 3.5 for the ending. Thank you Netgalley and publisher for the opportunity to read this ARC.

I do not read a lot of thrillers, these days they have become a dime a dozen. I happened to choose this one and I am glad I did. It is so masterfully written, I was drawn right into it.

I'm not even sure if “thriller” is the right classification. It is also a murder mystery, a medical mystery and a family drama.

The premise of the book is very simple. The birth mother of a young girl is found brutally murdered. The young girl suffers from Dissociative Identity Disorder. (DID) (also known as Multiple Personality Disorder) This young girl is now in a psychiatric hospital awaiting trial. But, she might be not aware of committing the murder because it could have been one of her alternate personalities.

While the premise is simple, the execution of the story is complex. The author has done extensive research on the issue of DID. I trust the disorder has been accurately represented in the story.

The major characters are very well developed and believably portrayed. The mother will stop at nothing to see her daughter get justice. The doctor (who has his own demons) is putting a lot of effort to discover what may have happened because of the personality disorder.

While reading this book I had several prime suspects in my head. Those suspects changed back and forth with every page I turned.
But, I did not figure out the actual ending. It truly was a surprise! Well done!

The ending was good. I loved how everything was nicely wrapped up, all the loose ends were no longer loose.

I received a complimentary copy of this book. The opinions expressed in this review are completely my own

THE PERFECT DAUGHTER BOOK REVIEW

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Drink rec: Raspberry Mojito

As someone in the mental health field, books with a mental health focus (especially thrillers) can be very hit or miss for me. That being said, I really enjoyed THE PERFECT DAUGHTER!

The main character, Penny, has Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), formerly known as Multiple Personality Disorder. This story revolves around Penny’s adopted mother, Grace, trying to figure out if Penny murdered her birth mother, if it was one of her alters, or someone else all together.

I could tell that Palmer did his research on what DID is and his depictions of Penny seemed realistic and not over-sensationalized. I also appreciated how he noted that not all people with a mental illness are violent!!

I really enjoyed trying to put all of these puzzle pieces together and found the ending to be (mostly) a surprise! My only critique is that I felt like a few parts dragged on and some of the details could have been left out in the middle.

Overall, if you are into psychological thrillers with unreliable narrators, you should pick this one up! Thank you to @stmartinspress for my gifted copy! THE PERFECT DAUGHTER is out 4/20!

What an amazing beginning to The Perfect Daughter. Grace, mother of Penny, Jack, and Ryan returns home from a run and finds her recently deceased husband’s car missing. She sees two police cars arrive and finds out that her daughter was found covered in blood by the body of Rachel who we find out was her birth mother. My attention is immediately drawn to this story.

The story moves from present to past to find out how Grace and her husband, Arthur, come to adopt Penny Isabella Floyd. The story is also told from different points of view including her son, Jack, who is filming the story for a college class. We find out that Penny was diagnosed with DID (Dissociative Identity Disorder). The lawyer gets the judge to place Penny in a mental hospital until the trial. The majority of the book takes place here where a new doctor, Dr. Mitch McHugh, works with Penny and discovers other personalities of Eve, Ruby and Chloe.

I really liked the beginning, and I sure felt my heart drop to the floor for Grace as she tries to help her daughter. The plot moves back and forth in time as we find out how Grace and Arthur happened to adopt Penny and her early life with the family to the present time with Penny becoming a patient. For me, the book began to drag at the hospital. I think the plot could be tightened up during this huge section of the book. The trial did not start until the last twenty percent of the book. I am glad I made it that far as there are some twists I sure did not see coming. My thanks to St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for an ARC of this book. The opinions are my own in this review.

Penny has a dissociative disorder, a case of multiple personalities, one of whom is a murderer and she is currently in an really awful institution which doesn’t help the the anguish for her adoptive mother Grace. Over the years leading up to a murder, Grace has sought help for her daughter and one doctor feels Penny is fabricating her disease for attention, another believes a Penny is dangerous. But is she capable of murder? Fascinating story. Often difficult to read but impossible to put down.

I love how this book is constructed - with different points of view in each chapter, but all telling the same story. It's interesting to see how Penny - the perfect daughter - ends up accused of a crime she doesn't remember committing (thanks to her dissociative identity disorder), and how her family, especially her mother, will work hard to prove her innocence - or at least prove that she couldn't understand what was happening due to her mental illness. But the story is not necessarily linear with just one narrator, and that's what makes it more compelling. There's Penny point of view, there's the mother's point of view, there's the psychiatrist point of view, and also there's the brother's point of view. From each one of them, we learn a bit more about that happened and especially about how it happened.

About:

The book opens with Grace Francone, mother to Ryan, Jack, and sixteen-year-old Penny—the youngest—who’s arrested for murder.

Penny’s fate is most assuredly sealed, found in the victim's apartment, holding the murder weapon and covered in the victim’s blood—her guilt is beyond doubt.

The only question is, where will she serve her sentence:

Will the jury find her not guilty by reason of insanity?

Or will she get a life sentence in a maximum-security prison?

‘As Penny awaits trial in a state mental hospital, she is treated by Dr. Mitchell McHugh, a psychiatrist battling demons of his own. Grace’s determination to understand the why behind her daughter’s terrible crime fuels Mitch’s resolve to help the Francone family.’

My Thoughts:

As a mother, it’s easy to empathize with Grace as she struggles to keep her family together, keep the family business from going under, all while trying to prove her daughter’s innocence.

Palmer did an excellent job keeping this reader guessing throughout. I honestly thought I knew how it would end, but nope!

THE PERFECT DAUGHTER—Recommend!

Thank you, NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press, for loaning me an eGalley of THE PERFECT DAUGHTER in the request for an honest review.

Scheduled To Release – April 20, 2021 (Subject To Change)

I will leave a review on Amazon or B&N on April 20th

Wow the outcome of this book was certainly a shocker, one that I didn't figure out ahead of time. I have several of this authors books in the past and enjoyed each one of them, but this one certainly took it too another level. I really enjoyed the book, and it kept me turning the pages. I most definitely would recommend this book to everyone.

I received a ARC from NetGalley and the publisher, and this is my fair and honest review.

Thank you to netgalley for giving me an arc for reviewing.
I was a bit nervous starting this book with our suspect having a mental health issues, but from my pov not having DID i thought it was handled well. There was a lot of time spent explaining things.

I love that there enough wild cards that you don't put things fully together till the end. I was just obsessively reading at the end to find out everything.

I didn't enjoy the brothers. I did like some of Jack's stories of their relationship and could have used more, but his pov took me out of the rhythm. I also found the other brother's role unesssecrary.

4.5 Stars
.
A riveting exploration of dissociative identity disorder (DID, or multiple personalities)
Grace has a great family, a husband and two boys. What she's always wanted though was a daughter. When she finds a young girl abandoned in a park she knows it's fate and the chance to make her dream come true. The girl is non-communicative though and because they were lucky to find her they call her Penny. Things seem to be perfect until the cops show up to tell Grace her daughter, Penny was arrested after she was found over the body of a mutilated woman, covered in blood and holding the knife, she also calls herself Eve. Grace wants to believe her little girl couldn't do such a thing so it must have been one of her alters, but which one?
I found this to be a well researched, taught psychological thriller/courtroom drama with fleshed out characters that I wanted to root for. Told from the perspectives of Grace, Penny's attending psychiatrist, Dr Mitch McHugh and her son, Jack, a film student documenting the story. With plenty of red herrings thrown in along the way to muddy the waters, the final reveal came as a shock as I didn't see it coming. I've loved the author's previous books and this one didn't disappoint.

Well darn, I so wanted to really like this book but I think this wasn't the right book for me at this point in time. There were parts that engaged me - how a mother would go to any lengths to keep her daughter out of prison and the various opinions regarding DID (dissociative identity disorder) and how it might keep Penny out of prison. The various personalities of Penny also challenged me to stay focused. The issues I had with the story came with the multiple points of view - I had a hard time staying focused on each one (that's just me) and the story was too long making parts of it drag.
I enjoyed his previous book, The New Husband and I will give his next book a chance. Maybe I needed a more light weight read during these trying times. My thanks to the publisher St. Martin's and NetGalley for giving me an advance copy in exchange for my honest review.

Wow, ever read a book that you swear would make an amazing movie? This is it!!!! This book is totally it. We meet Grace, a mother who will do anything to try to prove that her daughter Penny is innocent from a cry that she didn't commit, or did she? We find out in the SAME chapter that Penny has Multiple Personality Disorder, and she is in deep trouble yet again. Each chapter had me on edge it was a page turner. Each and every single character were great, and I loved Grace and her persistence, this woman did not give up!

And what's a thriller without some secrets!!! There were secrets in every corner, all the way until the end, this book kept me guessing. Penny and her "alters" is what made this book what it is, it was informative, it was a rollercoaster of emotions, and I had to stop reading some parts and yell "NOOOOOOO WAYYYYYYYYYY."

Totally worth the read cant wait until it launches so I can brag about it some more. Thanks Netgalley, the publishers and the author for giving me the opportunity to read this book.

What a great book! D J Palmer never disappoints. He tackles mental illness full speed ahead. Penny has multiple personally disorder and has been arrested for murder.
I really cared about Grace, Penny's mom, the emotions she decided for her daughter were so realistic. The best part of the story though was the ending. What a SHOCK!! I love it when I am wrong about who done.It and boy was.I wrong this time! This is a great thriller and I highly recommend it for anyone who enjoys this genre. Another great job Mr. palmer!

Thank you Net Galley for allowing me to read this incredible ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

Penny is a young woman locked away in a psychiatric hospital on suspicion of murder. She claims to have no memory of it. The hospital psychiatrist is working to figure out if Penny is a psychopath or if she has Disassociate Dissociative Identity Disorder (also known as Multiple Personality Disorder).

The story centers around Grace, a mom who finds an abandoned child on a playground, and then adopts her later. They name the girl Penny, and she becomes part of the family, completing it according to Grace. Now Grace is in a fight to keep Penny out of jail while keeping her family pizza restaurant open.

The story progresses giving us glimpses into Penny’s head as the trial date looms closer. Grace is working closely with an attorney to help Penny. This one kept me on my toes and the ultimate reveal came as a complete shock to me! The psychology portion was fascinating, and I thought the author did a great job researching and writing about that. I have to deduct a bit for the final court scene which was a bit over the top for this reader!

Thank you to Netgalley, St. Martin's Press and D.J.Palmer for a digital arc of this book.

This book has the best parts of a good thriller in my opinion. It starts out with a mother answering the door to find out that her daughter has been arrested for murder. Okay... let's go!
We take off on a journey with a young girl who has Dissociative Identity Disorder, DID. So we have an unreliable narrative and mental illness at the core of this book. This always makes for a fun read. I was intrigued and captivated and of course, looking at every person in the story line as a possible suspect.

Penny was left in a park when she was four years old. Grace and her son Jack find her and bring her home, eventually the family adopts her. Penny develops some strange behavior over the course of time by developing alternative personalities, or as we come to learn DID. This is her bodies way of coping with severe drama that she suffered as a young child.

Penny has two older brothers in her adoptive family, Ryan, who has always been jealous of all the attention his sister gets and Jack, who is portrayed as her protective older brother. Jack is one of my favorite side characters as we get to see his POV at times as he is a film student using his sisters case for a school project. This is a fun way to break up some of the intensity and add to the story in a great way.

Penny story takes on many twists and turns as we try to unravel what really happened the night of her birth mother's murder. I enjoyed it fully!! The author did a lot of research and was able to keep the reader guessing. I liked the way it ended. Were there some parts that were questionable? Maybe, but I am reading for the enjoyment of it and there wasn't anything that made me think this was absolutely unbelievable. I am looking forward to reading more from this author.

What can I say about The Perfect Daughter by D.J. Palmer, other than this book is absolutely perfect! After having previously read The New Husband by D.J. Palmer, I could not wait to get my hands on this latest release. The Perfect Daughter was everything that I look for in a thriller. The suspense kept me on the edge of my seat, every character was suspect, and I didn’t want to do anything else until I finished this book!
In addition to being a great thriller, I also learned quite a bit about dissociative identity disorder (DID). I feel that DID isn’t something that’s spoken about often, and I definitely have not read anything about it in any of the other fiction/thriller novels that I have read. I always love when I can learn something while I am enjoying a favorite read.
I am currently adding D.J. Palmer to my list of must read authors, because I do not want to miss anything else that he writes (and you probably won’t either)! I highly recommend reading The Perfect Daughter, as you will not be disappointed!

Many thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for my early digital copy in exchange for an honest review :) Release date April 20, 2021.

The Perfect Daughter is more than a thriller. It is a mystery that I found myself going back and forth trying to piece together. One more clue and my mind would be reeling and re-analyzing everything I thought I already knew. I felt like I was there with them, trying to draw out the alters to get yet another piece of the puzzle. Once it all came together, I was astounded at how well put together the mystery was. I can't say that I had it figured out from the beginning...or even the middle. Until nearly the very end, I didn't see it all coming together the way it did. Having the story told from several different POV's was a bit jarring at first but in the end, I was glad for it. To see different perspectives on what had been unearthed fed the story to me in the pieces I was able to consume. I totally enjoyed this story and a big part of that enjoyment was delving into mental health issues such as DID and depression.

Penny is rescued by her adoptive mother, Grace, who finds her abandoned at a local park. Fast forward to Penny’s senior year and Grace is shocked when the police show up at her door in the night and inform her that Penny’s been charged with the murder of her biological mother. Grace speeds to the police station to find that it isn’t Penny waiting for her arrival, but Eve. Penny has Dissociative Identity Disorder (formerly known as Multiple Personality Disorder) and often relies on her several personalities to help her cope with her life. Eve is tough, witty and vindictive. Grace knows they have a long road ahead of them after Penny is admitted to a hospital for the criminally insane with no end in sight until her trial.

The beginning of this one had me hooked! The concept of DID is always so fascinating to me and I actually wrote a couple of papers on it in university. As soon as I saw the premise, I knew I had to read this one. There were some great twists near the end that I didn’t see coming and I thought Grace was a total badass. There were lots of supporting characters to pump up the story and I enjoyed how their personalities meshed with the plot. I did want a little more from Ryan and Penny’s character arcs. I wanted more concrete info about Penny’s upbringing and more about Ryan’s motives. I thought the focus on Dr. Mitch was kind of unnecessary and I thought the epilogue should have been about Penny and not him. I could totally see this being an engrossing and riveting movie, hoping it gets picked up for one soon!

It is very hard to write about Dissociative Identity Disorder. It is so overly-dramatic and hard to write about without sounding cheesy or over the top. As someone with a background in mental health, I am also weary reading such books, but I try my best to keep an open mind. I went in with an open mind but the book just felt like a Lifetime movie. I had a hard time suspending my disbelief and keep my eyes from rolling. I really don't think the author did anything wrong here. I loved her previous books. I just think this topic is too hard to write about without sounding overly exaggerated.

This was an interesting one! I had never read anything with a character with dissociative identity disorder before. I wish I had listened to an audio version of it, I’m betting the different personalities voices would have made it even better! I loved all the twists and turns and can’t wait to read more from this author!