DJ Palmer does not disappoint! I have enjoyed all of his books so far, but this one is my favorite!

The Perfect Daughter is about Penny, an adopted teen that is suspected to have dissociative identity disorder and is suspected to have murdered her birth mother. Penny’s adoptive mother works with both Penny’s psychologist and lawyer to build a case for their plea of not guilty, due to her mental illness. Things are complicated even more as Penny has no memory of what happened that night- it’s suspected that another one of her alters took over, which explains why Penny cannot access the memory. Does Penny really have dissociative identity disorder? Or is Penny a brilliant psychopath?

As I said, this is my favorite of DJ Palmer’s books thus far. I couldn’t put it down! I was fascinated by Penny’s various alters and the triggers that caused her to switch between them. The pacing of this kept me on the edge of my seat, and little clues were given throughout that kept me trying to put together the pieces, but I was still surprised by the final verdict! A must read for thriller fans!! The Perfect Daughter will be published on April 20 - preorder now!!

My mind is still reeling after reading this one! I knew as soon as I read the blurb that this was going to be a good one, but I had no idea just how good. So many questions with very few answers throughout the entire book, kept me needing to turn the page. The twists and turns made sure that there was never a dull moment. And I definitely didn't see that ending coming....had my jaw on the floor.

This book is dark. I'm just throwing out this warning. It took me awhile to get through, mostly because of how many different aspects there are to this novel. 

But the fact that I can't say that this book was unputdownable does NOT mean that it wasn't good. In fact, that book was really fantastic.

All the evidence points to Penny having murdered her birth mother, Rachel. She was found in Rachel's apartment with a knife in her hand and Rachel blood all over her. It should be an open and shut case, right?

Except Penny has DID, a disorder that causes her personality to be splintered. Could it have been one of Penny's alters that murdered Rachel? Or was there someone else in the apartment with Penny?

Or is Penny just really good at faking her disorder?

Penny's mother Grace is out to prove that Penny didn't do it. And she believes that none of her alters did either.

So who killed Rachel? Grace will stop at nothing to find out.

Thank you D.J. Palmer for another wonderful read.
Full of twists and turns, page turner at its best.
Story of a daughter mental illness and a mother who will go to no end to protect her daughter.
Love the characters.
Jaw dropping ending which I did not see coming.
Highly recommend
Thank you netgalley, the publisher and D.J. Palmer
4 stars

The Perfect Daughter by D.J. Palmer is a dramatic thriller with a complex storyline that keeps you guessing from page one. The book opens with a dramatic scene of a woman, Grace, opening the door to police officers and being notified her 16 year old daughter, Penny, was arrested for murder. She is told to bring a change of clothes as her daughter is covered in blood. This scene is interspersed with the knowledge that Penny murdered her birth mother and soon scandals are revealed that have you questioning if the faith Grace has in the innocence of her daughter is rational. You quickly are brought into the various identities that Penny has and found out more about Dissociative Identity Disorder.

The book is told from four points of view, Grace (the mother), Jack (the brother), Penny (the daughter) and Dr. Mitch (the doctor at the institution). You are given glimpses of flashbacks of their childhood and history via memories they share. You will also learn more about Penny’s alters (Eve, Chloe, and Ruby) and how how different identities help her cope with the trauma. All of the characters at times are painted as a sympathetic and you will wonder what is real and what has been manipulated.

The characters have flaws but are all seem to have redeeming characteristics.. You can not help but try to figure out who is the victim and who is at fault. Trust me though, you will be shocked when it is not at all what it seems. The excellent plotting and twists are masterful. The superb handling of mental illness and respect for those with differing abilities is handled with grace by Palmer. This is a book you will want to finish in a single day, so carve out some time. For those readers who loved Saving Meghan and The New Husband, you will be equally thrilled with this gripping and fully engrossing psychological thriller.

I was provided a complimentary advance reader copy from St. Martin’s Press in exchange for my honest review on Net Galley. The opinions shared in this review are my own.

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The Perfect Daughter by @djpalmerauthor
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫/5
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Thank you @netgalley for this ARC copy! Once I read the synopsis I wanted to read this.
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From the start this was an intense psychological thriller. I was so intrigued by the daughter Penny who has DID, Dissociative Identity Disorder. It is difficult confirm due to lack of evidence to support the disease. Many know it as multiple personality disorder. Throughout the story we are introduced to her alters; Ruby, Chloe and Eve. It seems like Penny really has DID or just a psychopath.
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Penny is charged with murder and cannot remember doing it. She has no memory and now is in Elmhurst Hospital being treated. Throughout the story both her mother Grace and Dr. Mitch are trying to prove her innocence. The story is told in mutuel POV from her mother Grace, Dr. Mitch and brother Jack.
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I am fascinated by this topic and could tell the story was researched and showing how this condition truly is. There were many things that happened which made me question if Penny does have DID and was she the murderer. This is one of those books where I couldn’t stop reading.
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I highly recommend this for a psychological thriller and insight to neurological disorders.
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#books #bookpost #bookreview #bookstagram #bookstagrammer #bookbooksbooks #bookblogger #book #bookstagrammer #bookcommunity #bibliophile #bookreview #bookreviews #review #arc #netgally #perfectdaughter #igbook #igbookstagram #read #reading #readingcommunity #readmorebooks #reviewer

A young teenage girl named Penny is found with a dead body covered in blood and holding the murder weapon. She, however insists that she is innocent. Oh, the victim just happens to be her biological mother who abandoned her when she was 4 years old! She also suffers from Dissociative Identity Disorder believed to be a result of her traumatic childhood. The tension and pace start to mount. I love unreliable narrators that keep you guessing and Penny and her alter ego did just that.

A psychiatrist will have to get to the bottom of it all and find out exactly what is going on with Penny and determine if she is in fact innocent. I enjoyed the psychological aspects of this book and reading about Dissociative Identity Disorder stemming from trauma and how it manifested over the years. I look forward to this author's next book!

A big thank you to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for allowing me the opportunity to read an advanced copy of this book.

The Perfect Daughter by DJ Palmer is a gripping family suspense novel. This one did not disappoint!

Grace has two sons. When she finds a young girl in the park alone she takes her home and ends up adopting her. She names the girl Penny and she and her husband feel as if their family is complete. But as Penny gets older, the family finds that she she suffers from Dissociative Identify Disorder and has four different identities. As a teenager, Penny is in contact with her biological mother. She is arrested for the murder of her mother and this isn't the first time that Penny has been in trouble with the law. Grace is convinced that Penny did not commit this crime. As her daughter spends time in a psychiatric ward and with the help of Dr. Mitch, will Penny disclose which of her identities may have committed the crime? Or, was it someone else entirely? If so, who?

This one keeps you on the edge of your seat the entire time. I actually thought I had this one figured out but oh how wrong I was! DJ Palmer has written a fantastic suspense novel! This one releases on April 20, 2021!

I was unable to download this book after numerous attempts and was disappointed I couldn’t read it. I had reached out to NetGalley support and still unable too.

4.5/5 stars!

To say that I didn’t see that coming would be an understatement.

Recommend for: lovers of psychological thrillers, suspense, mystery, fiction, books with mental health aspects.

<b>The Perfect Daughter</b> had me hooked from the beginning. It’s truly a page turner. It centers on the gruesome murder of
Rachel Boyd, by Penny, her biological daughter who has mental health issues, specifically Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID). I don’t know much about DID, but the author seems to have done a significant amount of research to make this novel, and specifically this character, to be as authentic as possible.

We see the story told from Grace’s (Penny’s adoptive mother) viewpoint, with some select chapters in Jack’s (Grace’s son) and Dr McHugh’s viewpoint. We watch as Grace tries to prove her daughter’s innocence by uncovering all that she can surrounding the murder and potential people involved, with Dr Mitch McHugh as a helping hand. However, the more secrets they uncover, both from Penny and from the case, leaves them with more questions than answers.

The writing of this novel is captivating from the get go. The big reveal was SPECTACULAR! I can’t say any different, my mind was going in one direction and the author brought me to another place, one I would never, EVER have guessed. That makes for a great book in my opinion.

The characters were all really well done. I thought the story told from Grace’s perspective was interesting and a good way to get to know Penny and her different alters, without the story becoming too unreliable. I found Penny to be fascinating and enjoyed finding the cues that indicated she was switching to a different alter. I find mental health to be a very interesting domain, and a topic I wish to know more about.

The only thing that was a slight let-down for me, was the wrap-up. Putting all the pieces together and understanding how they all fit and the why for things was good. I didn’t really vibe with the epilogue that was focused on Dr Mitch and his son, Adam. Yes we discussed their relationship from time to time, and how it was impacting Dr Mitch...but I never felt close to Adam, so I’m not sure where this was all coming from I guess.

Anywho, all in all, I highly recommend getting your hands on a copy of this book! I’ll definitely be on the look-out for more of Palmer’s work!

<i>I would like to thank Netgalley and the publisher of this advanced digital copy for the opportunity to read this novel in exchange for an honest review! All opinions expressed are my own. Upon publishing of this novel, I will also be posting my review to Amazon Canada.</i>

D.J. Palmer has done it again! This is the third time that I have been lucky enough to be able to read an ARC of one of his books, and the third time that I absolutely loved it. The style in which he writes these masterfully suspenseful thrillers is brilliant! The Perfect Daughter, like his other novels, are told from multiple character POV, which I love. As soon as I started reading I was hooked and couldn’t wait to see how it all played out. Who killed Rachel? Will Mitch be able to reach the truth with Penny? And then there are the twists and reveal!! And they are good!! Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for the ARC!!

Talk about a edge of your seat, nail biting thriller. This book captivated me from the start and I couldn’t rest until I knew the truth. The main storyline kept me engaged, while some of the supporting characters and their storyline were a bit disconnected and didn’t fully develop for me. In the end I wasn’t left loving any of the characters or necessarily shocked at the end. It ended up being vanilla for me. Thank you to netgalley and the publisher for giving me the opportunity to read this book and give my honest review in return.

This novel worked in that I wanted to read to the end and find out how it was resolved.

Grace is trying to figure out what to do to help her teenage daughter who is waiting to go on trial for murder. Penny, who has a darker alter named Eve, a British alter named Ruby, and a perfectionist alter Chloe, was found covered in blood, holding the knife above her deceased birth mother’s body. Grace discovered Penny when she was abandoned in a park at the age of four. The birth mother readily gave up custody, enabling Penny to raise her. When the alters show up, the family wonders what darkness and trauma she experienced before they found her that would cause her to need to compartmentalize personalities.

Grace wants to her lawyer to plea that Penny is mentally ill and thus not responsible for murder. With the help of a new doctor, will Penny get expert testimony to confirm that she has Dissociative Identity Disorder, what most of us think of as multiple personality disorder? Many doctors and members of Penny’s family think she’s just a great actress—who is a psychopath who deserves punishment, not treatment.

While the pacing is good, there was just something missing for me—it falls flat—but as a mystery it works.

Thanks to NetGalley for the opportunity to review this novel, which RELEASES APRIL 20TH, 2021.

OMG! “The Perfect Daughter”, by D.J. Palmer, is a fast paced, cerebral, mind-bending, unique suspense thriller, that completely blew me away!!

Author’s note: “Dissociative identify disorder, which features prominently in this novel, is a very complex and multifaceted condition that is often incorrectly dramatized in books, TV, and the movies. I did a substantial amount of research on the disorder and prioritized portraying the character with DID as true to life as possible.“

Yes, he did! In my line of work, I’ve had the privilege to be personally acquainted with 3 different individuals who all have the official diagnosis of DID. I found this book fascinatingly real and accurate to what I have personally witnessed in observation about alters and know to be true about the disorder, and how this mental disorder manifests itself.

The story is well paced - there is not a lot of filler and drag down material. The characters (all of them) are solid and well developed for what is needed to give the story life, mystery, and suspense. Although a murder has taken place (the fiction part of the book), the characters portrayed did NOT Reek of FICTION; I could find these characters totally believable as a real event in life. And so starts the story.... a young teenage girl named Penny with known mental problems (in addition to an arrest in the past, an unsavory friend, not to mention all kinds of other damning evidence), who is found all alone with blood all over her, knife in hand, with a victim who is brutally murdered in the most savage of ways. Said victim just happens to be her biological mother who abandoned her when she was 4 yrs old.

I found myself verbally saying holy ****, and OMG several times while reading this!

And then..... THE ENDING TOTALLY BLEW ME AWAY! I DID NOT EVEN SEE THAT COMING! 5 Stars in my book when that happens (it seldom does), and a well deserved 5 stars for the superb writing and plot.

My only criticism, was a very small and brief unnecessary reference to Jehovah’s Witnesses about 83% into the book. It was offensive on 2 levels, and could have been easily left out entirely, or at least substituted with some kind of generic salesman.

This book would appeal to those interested in the field of mental disorders, and to those who enjoy good psychological mystery thrillers.
Does not contain sex scenes.
Very rare profanity.

My thanks to NetGalley, and the publisher, for an ARC in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own.

I LOVED this book. I couldn't put it down. Read it in a day. Thank god there was a snowstorm! I read DJ Palmers Saving Meghan. Loved it too,. He is such a good writer. His attention to detail is amazing. I loved the character development of all the characters. I found myself liking them and then not liking them. It was constantly evolving. I even wondered if Penny was faking her personality disorder. Ending shocked me. Did not see that coming. Totally thought it was Vince till the bitter end. I can not wait for your next book. Read this book. You will not be disappointed!

THE PERFECT DAUGHTER by D. J. Palmer is a riveting psychological thriller that I couldn’t put down once I started it. I had read and enjoyed the author’s previous two thrillers, but I have to say this one is his best yet! This story has everything I enjoy in a thriller – fast pace, gripping suspense, unreliable narrators and lots of twists. Grace Francone is stunned when police arrest her sixteen-year-old daughter, Penny for the brutal murder of Penny’s birth mother. Grace and her husband, Arthur adopted Penny when she was just a child left abandoned in a park. They have always loved and protected her as they did their own sons, Jack and Ryan. Why would Penny commit such a heinous crime? Over the years, the family has witnessed in Penny what appears to be Dissociative Identity Disorder, thought to have stemmed from possible traumatic events in her childhood. But not everyone believes that her mental illness is real. Could Penny be faking the other identities to excuse her behavior? Now locked inside the Edgewater State Psychiatric Hospital until her trial, Penny’s only chance appears to lie in the hands of a caring psychiatrist that will do whatever it takes to discover the truth about Penny’s condition. His careful probing reveals dark secrets that could endanger everyone involved. The tension builds as the trial begins, soon to come to an explosive and shocking conclusion. I enjoyed this edgy and twisty thriller and highly recommend it. Thank you to the author, publisher and NetGalley for the chance to read an early copy.

I have been a fan of DJ Palmer since absolutely loving The New Husband, which I picked up after reading great reviews.

Now he's done it again! In The Perfect Daughter, 16-year-old Penny had been accused of murdering her birth mother. Found and adopted as a toddler by Grace Francone and her husband, Grace immediately felt a connection to this child and refuses to believe she is capable of such a thing. With the help of Dr. Mitchell McHugh, a psychiatrist at the facility Penny is being held at, she is determined to prove her daughter is innocent even though all the evidence points to otherwise. Found covered in blood, with the weapon...

Once again I was hooked from the start. I've always been intrigued by multiple personality disorders, or disassociative identity disorder (aka DID), so I was interested in this one immediately. Once again I left on the edge of my seat and as one would hope, never saw that ending coming!? Will absolutely be back for more!

I will probably always want to read whatever D.J. Palmer writes. What an author! The Perfect Daughter was a compelling read about a girl with Multiple Personality Disorder also known as Diassaociative Identity Order. This was a very interesting look at DIO which I don’t know much about and cannot even conceive of what it would be like to have a child with it. Or to have it myself.

Synopsis:

Penny Francone, age sixteen, is a murderer. Her guilt is beyond doubt: she was found alone in the victim’s apartment, covered in blood, holding the murder weapon. The victim’s identity and her secret relationship to Penny give her the perfect motive, sealing the deal. All the jury needs to decide now is where Penny will serve out her sentence. Will she be found not guilty by reason of insanity, as her lawyer intends to argue? Or will she get a life sentence in a maximum-security prison?
Already reeling from tragedy after the sudden passing of her beloved husband a few years before, now Grace is on her knees, grateful that Massachusetts doesn’t allow the death penalty.

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. Together, they set out in search of the truth about Penny, but discover instead a shocking hidden history of secrets, lies, and betrayals that threatens to consume them all.

The perfect daughter. Is she fooling them all?

WOW, you do not want to miss this book. When you get it, clear your schedule because you will want to spend the day reading! If you gravitate towards murder, personality disorders, thrillers, and mental hospitals, this is the book for you!

Coming out on April 20.

Wow! I read a lot of thrillers and I did not see the twists coming in this one.

I loved that this focused on Penny and having DID or multiple personalities. This is definitely a trope that I love and wish there were more books with.

This book was so fast paced and I loved that it was written from different perspectives. I could not put it down because I was so invested in finding out all of Pennys alters.

I definitely recommend this to people who love a fast paced, who done it, kind of story.

Wow! What a ride! I was completely not expecting that ending! A great thriller that slowly builds. One you’ll definitely enjoy!