The dysfunctional Bloom family takes center stage in Paula Daly’s latest release, The Trophy Child, a gripping investigation into the disappearance of ten year old Bronte.

Following Bronte’s disappearance on an outing with her sixteen year old stepsister, Verity, “tiger mom” Karen quickly alienates her family, the police and the public with her withering accusations and rude comments. Ignoring the woman as best as she can, Detective Sergeant Joanne Aspinall and her newly assigned partner Detective Sergeant Oliver Black continue their search for clues to Bronte’s whereabouts. Joanne has no doubt that Verity’s account of the day her little sister went missing is truthful but she cannot discount the teenager’s recent troubles with her stepmother.  Joanne is also keeping her personal connection to the girl’s father, Noel, a secret from her boss and her partner. When Bronte eventually returns home unharmed and with a somewhat vague account of her whereabouts, the investigation reaches a dead end.  However, Joanne and Oliver are soon back at the Bloom’s when another person from the house goes missing. This investigation has a very different outcome than the previous one and Joanne has to take a hard look at everyone in the Bloom household, including Noel, Verity, Karen’s son Ewan and Ewan’s friend Dale. Will Joanne and Oliver uncover the truth about who is responsible for this latest disappearance?

Based on their outward appearance, the Bloom family seem to have everything going for them. Patriarch Noel is a successful GP with a lucrative practice whose second marriage to Karen seems to be happy. But beneath the surface, there is a high degree of dysfunction and no shortage of misery within the family. Noel drinks a little too much and works long hours, rarely interacting with his wife or children. Verity has recently gotten herself into a situation that involves weekly drug tests and counseling. Ewan is a slacker with little ambition and a fairly impressive pot habit.  Bronte’s schedule is so full of activities and tutors that the poor girl has no time just to be a child. Karen is an overbearing, ambitious and pushy mother who makes everyone’s lives miserable. Everyone feels a great deal of sympathy for Bronte and they search tirelessly for her when she goes missing.

Following the second disappearance of someone from the Bloom home, Noel immediately contacts Joanne for assistance which raises a few eyebrows including Oliver’s. The two detective sergeants are soon searching for clues but they are soon at a dead end. With very little evidence to go on, their investigation raises more questions than answers, but neither of them are quite ready to give up.  While Joanne decides to take a second look at the circumstances of Bronte’s disappearance, Oliver broadens his search and uncovers a vital clue that takes the case in a very shocking direction.

The Trophy Child is a riveting police procedural that fans of the genre do not want to miss. Paula Daly has chosen a disturbing parenting trend to focus on and with Karen Bloom, she has created a detestable character whose ambitions for her child border on abuse. The rest of the characters are realistically drawn with both positive and negative traits that are easy to relate to. The disappearances and subsequent investigations are compelling with plenty of red herrings and plot twists that will keep readers guessing right up until the novel’s somewhat dramatic conclusion.  An absolutely spellbinding mystery that is fast-paced and quite interesting. Highly recommend.

Karen Bloom is not the coddling mother type. She believes in raising her children for success. Some in the neighborhood call her assertive, others say she’s driven, but in gossiping circles she’s known as: the tiger mother. Karen believes that tough discipline is the true art of parenting and that achievement leads to ultimate happiness. She expects her husband and her children to perform at 200 percent—no matter the cost. But in an unending quest for excellence, her seemingly flawless family start to rebel against her.

    Her husband Noel is a handsome doctor with a proclivity for alcohol and women. Their prodigy daughter, Bronte, is excelling at school, music lessons, dance classes, and yet she longs to run away. Verity, Noel’s teenage daughter from his first marriage, is starting to display aggressive behavior. And Karen’s son from a previous relationship falls deeper into drug use. When tragedy strikes the Blooms, Karen’s carefully constructed facade begins to fall apart—and once the deadly cracks appear, they are impossible to stop.

My Thoughts: In The Trophy Child, the Bloom family enjoyed a privileged life, with private schools, social connections, and a lovely home in the Lake District. Despite the world of privilege, Karen seemed driven. She was a character almost impossible to like. She wasn’t just questing for excellence for her children and her family. She lashed out on a regular basis, arousing fear, loathing, and anger in those she targeted. Sooner or later, someone would surely strike back.One could almost describe Karen as delusional, as she so firmly believed that her daughter Bronte was gifted, despite evidence to the contrary, and insisted on scheduling every imaginable activity, to her detriment. The child reacted with fatigue and displayed symptoms of stress.

Who would crack first under Karen’s tyrannical regime? What might bring about the toppling of the little kingdom of superiority she has envisioned? How will the family members express their resentments of the roles they are expected to play? Verity, the teenage stepdaughter, is literally overlooked to the point that she has to prepare her own meals and eats separately, while Karen is gallivanting around with Bronte to her activities. Karen’s son, a young adult, lives over the garage and does drugs and lays about with an equally troubled friend.

I was totally engaged in the author’s depiction of the characters, each of them realistic and three-dimensional, with all the emotions one would expect in a family as dysfunctional as this one. I especially enjoyed the character of DS Joanne Aspinall, on hand to help the family with their tragedies. She is diligent, down-to-earth…and she will get the perpetrator, even if she must put her own life in jeopardy. Discovering motives, connections, and the gradual unfolding of secrets led to a very satisfactory culmination. 5 stars.

***My e-ARC came to me from the publisher via NetGalley.

This author writes great books, with story lines that have you constantly turning pages and wanting to read one more chapter, and characters who you want to learn more about. This book, thanks to Net Galley, does not disappoint. It is another page turner, where you have to reserve judgement on every character until you can be sure you can trust them. Highly recommended

I really loved The Mistake I Made, the other book I read by this author although, at the time, I couldn't quite put my finger on why I loved it so much. This one is kinda the other way round. Although I did enjoy the book, I wasn't quite satisfied when I got to the end. 
Noel is married to Karen. They both have children from previous relationships, Karen has Ewan and Noel has Verity, and together they have daughter Bronte. Karen is the epitome of a pushy mother and drags Bronte hither and thither as she endeavours to make sure she excels at every extra curricular activity going. Bronte is powerless to do anything about it and the stress of it all is starting to show. Verity is doing her best to help her and, one day, takes her to the park for a bit of a break. Leaving her with some friends, Verity pops off to visit her mum who is in a nearby hospice. On returning to the park, there is no sign of Bronte and, after searching high and low, Verity has to return home to break the bad news. 
To say that Karen goes mad would be an understatement. She and Verity already have a strained relationship and, of course she gets the blame for this. Karen's ire then passes from her daughter to the police and finally to the press and the public. The way she talks about her family is not really doing herself any favours. 
But this isn't the worse that happens to this rather dysfunctional family. Not by a long chalk...

Well, I've never met a more eclectic cast of not very nice people... Noel is on his second marriage with the woman he left his wife for when he got her pregnant. He is also a bit of a womaniser and hides in the bottle a bit too much; definitely an avoider. Karen is, well opinionated, entitled and a force of nature. Ewan is a wastrel, Verity is "misunderstood" but basically OK and the rest of them, well, they just get caught up in everyone else's mess. 
The police are just as unlikable. DI Joanne Aspinall oozes unprofessionality although I guess the end of the book sort of justifies her actions throughout and likewise what happened before she was on the case was not really her fault but, really...? And her poor DS having to compromise his own integrity for her. No, just no.
It's hard to say much else about the characters without spoiling the story as the blurb doesn't give too much away itself but suffice to say that there was a list as long as my arm of suspects in the crime. Each for different reasons, most with strong motive but, at the end of the day, it did floor me when I found out what really happened. Not all of it mind, I did guess a few things. But when it was revealed, it did all make sense. 
So yeah, I felt strongly for the characters but not in a good way and I guess that did mar my enjoyment of what could have been a great story for me if it hadn't had as many things that annoyed me. That said, I know that some of this stuff is mine and not the author's, hence only dropping one star from my rating. I also do admit that I am probably being overly harsh on Joanne's behaviour because she is female - that definitely says more about me... 
Anyway, taking all my stuff out of the equation for a moment, this was a good solid crime read. One that did keep my attention more or less throughout so I would recommend this book, just with caveats, and it definitely wouldn't put me off reading more from this author in the future. 

My thanks go to the Publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this book.

THE TROPHY CHILD BY PAULA DALY

"The Trophy Child" by Paula Daly is the second book I have read by this author. Her first book "Just What Kind of Mother Are You" I read a few years ago and really loved it. I have not read Ms. Daly's second or third book. I remember starting to read her second book and had a hard time getting involved in it so I ended up quickly putting it aside. I plan on reading both books after just finishing with this one. I'm wondering now whether I placed impossible expectations on the second book, having loved the first one so much, that I didn't give that second one a fair chance. "The Trophy Child" is a haunting work that is unforgettable in the reminders it leaves us with. It raises questions with parenting issues.

Karen and Noel Bloom share a child together named Bronte. Karen has the oldest child named Ewan from a previous relationship that she keeps hidden from everybody except from DS Joanne Aspinall and the reader. Ewan is not his mother's main focus and because of this neglect could be the reason why Ewan dabbles with smoking marijuana as much as he does. Ewan is still a good son and brother to Bronte and Verity. Verity is sixteen years old and is a good sister and a likable character even though she attempted to strangle her stepmother Karen because Verity was concerned about Bronte. Verity is Noel's daughter from his first marriage to Jennifer who lives institutionalized in a Care Home with her deteriorating from Multiple Sclerosis.

It is obvious that Noel and Karen live in a marriage of convenience. Both Noel and Karen have cheated on each other and Karen trapped Noel into marriage by getting pregnant with Bronte. Karen is what is referred to in this novel as a "Tiger mom." Karen has Bronte involved in so many extra curricular activities that they often have to eat meals while travelling in the car from one activity to another. Bronte is so tired of being overinvolved that she wanders away and disappears of her own volition. Karen does come across as pushy and rude to everybody that she comes in contact with. Yet Karen is a much cherished daughter and is loved by her parents.

The pacing picks up when something happens to one of these character which is irreversible. What I loved about the book is that the author is able to breathe life into everybody in this book. She is able to replicate that not everybody is good or bad. Just as in life everything is not black and white, there is a lot of gray area. People may do things that we may disagree with, but that does not make them good or bad people. 

The ending of this book was not completely believable in my opinion. For ethical reason's I found it to be highly unrealistic. Still, I will read this author's other work because I do think she is talented and I am curious to read about what her other books are about. Paula Daley is clearly adept at her development of complex character's. I highly recommend her first book as a place to start. This one is good as well, but so far her first book was my favorite.

Thank you to Net Galley, Paula Daly and Grove Press Publishing for my digital copy for a fair and honest review.

Karen Bloom believes in raising her children for success. She expects them and her Husband to perform at 200%, no matter what the cost. Then her seemingly flawless family start to rebel against her. When tragedy strikes the Blooms, Karen's facade falls apart.

I liked the authors style in writing this book. Ther are more than enough twist and turns to keep your attention. The pace is far from fast set, but that just keeps your interest more. The ending definitely surprised me.

I would like to thank NetGalley, Grove Atlantic and the author Paula Daly for my ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I was so reluctant to finish this as I was enjoying it too much.

Karen is the second wife of Noel.
Noel has a daughter from his first marriage, the marriage broke up. His ex has MS and in a Care home.
Their daughter visits mum often.

Karen now has a daughter by Noel. 
She's very OTT and pushy where it comes to her daughter. No time for children's free time, oh no, she needs to be at one of her after school activities be it music lessons and so on. She has aspirations for HER daughter.

Noels daughter by his first wife 'had an incident' with his wife Karen which results in his daughter needing therapy.

All very interesting as Paula Daly delves more and more into this complicated family.


They're child they have together one day goes missing under the care of her step sister.

My jaw dropped when after time she just walked right into her home again.
Gasp.

Where had she been?
She didn't look hurt.

While a Police and family members are trying to come to terms with this, Karen vampnishes.

This is a fast paced book that will keep you spinning on your axis until you get right at the end....
Then another jaw dropping moment.

My thanks to Grove Atlantic via Net Galley for my copy

Paula Daly turns her perceptive and witty gaze to the pushy parent in The Trophy Child. She deserves top marks for Karen Bloom, the step-mother from hell!

The Trophy Child focuses on the Bloom family. They have it all. Noel is a busy GP, married to his second wife, Karen. Karen is the kind of woman, who is ambitious and a social climber. She wants everything for her biological child, Bronte. She is less concerned with her other children. Both Noel and Karen have a child each from a previous relationship, the slacker and the one in therapy. Karen takes pushy parenting to extremes. The poor ten year old girl has no time to herself, doing one activity after another. Karen’s dreadful behaviour sparks chaos. Soon there is a missing child, a brutal murder and a spot of adultery.

Wonderful! I can honestly say that I adore Karen. She is a snob. She is arrogant in her opinions. She is loathed by all. She is completely deluded, about the talents of her precious Bronte. She is on Planet Karen. Karen is a nightmare. She is the kind of woman, you would cross the street to avoid. What a marvellous character!

Paula Daly brings her unique brand of humour, with a delicious mystery to The Trophy Child. I think we have all met a real life Karen, haven’t we? At the very least, we know they exist. An excellent read, with a few twists to throw you off the scent.

Recommended!

Thank You to Grove Atlantic for providing me with an advanced copy of Paula Daly's novel, The Trophy Child, in exchange for an honest review.

PLOT- Ten-year-old Bronte Bloom, is overworked and stressed-out. Her mother, Karen, keeps Bronte on a tight schedule, shuttling her between various lessons and tutors, accepting nothing less than excellence. She insists that her daughter is gifted and exceptional, but even if that isn't quite true, Karen believes that it's nothing that can't be fixed by pushing her daughter to work harder, or by hiring more qualified teachers.

Bronte isn't an only child. She has an older teenage brother named Ewan, who is a slacker, and rather than finding a job or attending college, he spends his days playing video games and smoking pot. He is Karen's son from a previous relationship, although the name of his father is a mystery. Bronte's older half-sister, Verity, has moved into their home. Verity's mother has multiple sclerosis  and was moved to a nearby live-in care facility. Verity and Karen do not get along. Verity is fiercely protective of Bronte, whom she feels is being pushed too hard. The family patriarch, Noel Bloom, stays on the periphery of the madness going on in his own home. He is unhappy in his marriage, yet afraid to take on the force that is Karen.

When Bronte goes missing for a day, the Bloom family is in a panic. Bronte has been so sheltered, that they fear she cannot survive on her own. When she returns the following day, happy, unharmed, and unwilling to talk about her disappearance, the Bloom's are left feeling perplexed. Karen faces a public backlash for her parenting style and is even accused of giving Bronte a reason to run away. The backlash is so intense, that Karen gets harassing phone calls and written death threats. Karen vanishes a month later, her car found abandoned with splattered blood. Could Bronte and Karen's disappearances be linked? Was Karen attacked for being too much of a "Tiger Mom?"

LIKE- The Trophy Child has two separate elements going on: It's a family drama, but it is also a murder mystery. I preferred the family drama to the suspense/mystery elements of the story. As a drama, we have a blended family struggling to make it work, and that dynamic is compelling.

At the start of the story, we don't know if Verity is an unreliable character. When we meet her, she is in trouble for choking her step-mother in a blind rage, and her private school is threatening to expel her, if she doesn't attend therapy sessions. However, we quickly learn that Verity is incredibly protective of Bronte and through Karen's rigorous demands of her younger daughter, she was physically hurting her. Yes, Verity was enraged, but Karen was also acting in an extreme manner. Verity is actually incredibly mature for her age and compassionate of others. Not only does she try to help her younger sister, but she is kind to her half-brother, Ewan and his mentally handicap friend, who is a frequent visitor to the house. Verity visits her mother, sneaking her in marijuana, which calms her mother's tremors. She is even patient with Karen's bullying parents, who accuse her of potentially harming Bronte and Karen, when each goes missing. Verity takes this all in stride, even though her life has been nothing but upheaval with factors out of her control. This makes her even more sympathetic than Bronte, and it's hard to beat the sympathy factor of a abused child!

I love the setting of the Lake District in England. Having visited there ( it's magical), I could easily picture the village and the houses. I could see Lake Windermere, which is the setting of  a pivotal scene in The Trophy Child. I have such good memories of my visit there, that I was delighted to revisit it in this story world, even if murder and shady characters were involved!

I'm intrigued by the helicopter parenting/tiger mom thing. I have step-children, but they do not live with us, so I don't really have parenting experience, and my mom, although she pushed me, definitely didn't fall under this category. I liked how Daly played with the backlash that Karen receives. Clearly, Karen thought that she was doing the best thing for Bronte, but she could not see or admit to the negative ways it was affecting her daughter. Certainly, Karen was extreme and doing Bronte harm, but Daly adds another layer of the community members being judgmental regarding her parenting, and the idea that you never quite know what is going on in someone else life. 

DISLIKE- I'm on the fence about the murder mystery and the character of detective Joanna Aspinall. I didn't find the budding romance between Joanna and Noel to be compelling or necessary. I kept expecting that this would have a large repercussion on Joanna investigating the disappearance of Karen, but other than a slight internal conflict, i.e.- she knew she should mention it to her boss, nothing came of it. 

The very end of the story, in which the crime is finally resolved, felt like a very big coincidence. Too many pieces of the puzzle slid together neatly. Although the twist played out as far as me not realize the story would head to that conclusion, I didn't feel that the twist was satisfying. 

I think part of the problem with the crime aspect of the story, is it lost momentum when Bronte returned home and the mystery of her disappearance was quickly eclipsed by the disappearance of Karen. We do learn what happened to Bronte, but it doesn't come until the end of the story, and it doesn't have much of a link to Karen's disappearance, other than it put Karen into the spotlight. 

RECOMMEND- No. The Trophy Child was a quick read. Daly has a knack for writing family dynamics and conflict. I would be inclined to seek out other books that she has written, but The Trophy Child was an uneven read.

3.5* from me.  I've read quite a few Paula Daly books and was therefore looking forward to reading this too.  Everyday life, and everyday family & just what goes on behind closed doors. A very quick read, enjoyable but didn't quite hit the spot for me personally.
My thanks to the publisher & NetGalley for the advance reader copy in exchange for my honest review.

I really liked this book. Very readable and unexpected!

Karen is the mother no kid wants. Endlessly driving her youngest, Bronte, to exhaustion there is never time for the 10-year-old to be a kid. Noel, her dad, is a doctor and is oftentimes late getting home because of the tension that Karen brings to the house. Verity, his daughter from his first marriage, has a tumultuous relationship with her stepmom and the two barely speak. Karen’s son from an earlier relatinoship, Ewan, spends most of his time in his room getting high. The family is dysfunctional.

One day, Bronte goes missing. They are unable to figure out where she went even after involving the police and news media. Then she walked in completely fine but not saying anything about where she had been or who she’d been with.

A couple weeks later, Karen, turns up missing and when they find her, she is dead. This story has great characters and when they finally find Karen is gone, you can almost feel the stress lifting fomr the family. Unexpected. I had no idea the story would turn out this way. I give this book 5 stars. It was easy to read and I never put it down once I started it!

Meet. Noel Bloom, a GP, his second wife, Karen, Karen's son from a previous relationship, Ewan, Noel's daughter, Verity and their daughter, Brontë. It soon becomes apparent that they are not a happy family! Noel avoids going home and drinks too much, Verity has attacked Karen in a fit of rage and has been forced to seek professional help and Karen is quite simply, a pushy parent, forcing Brontë to follow a punishing regime of activities. One afternoon, Verity takes Brontë to the local recreation ground and Brontë goes missing.... I can't say much more without giving away spoilers but I found Karen particularly objectionable and Noel, rather weak - great characters though. This is an enjoyable read although it doesn't reach the high standard of Paula Daly's previous novel, The Mistake I Made (one of my favourite books of 2015) - still worth reading.

Trophy children are quite en vogue these days, judging by the recent publications so many publishing houses have put out. I, myself, have read and reviewed a large handful of novels about this “perfect child” phenomenon, often featuring plots wrapped around the mystery of the death or fall of that child. The backstories here are often the same, stemming from parental pressures inflicted by those living vicariously through their offspring, rather than asserting those pressures upon their own lives, so it really ends up coming down to two things: intended audience and execution. Paula Daly’s latest novel, The Trophy Child, is definitely for a certain audience and the execution was fine. But that’s about all that it was: fine. If the above blurb made you think you’d encounter some spin on this “perfect child” motif, adding poignancy, startlingly well-drawn characters, or anything resembling originality, you may be disappointed by this one.

Here you will find the quintessential “thriller” for housewives. I say that more so honestly than sarcastically, but, to answer your next question, “No, this one did not work for me.” I was bored to skimming (if not tears) for the majority of the first half of this novel, and could find nothing of value or originality to take from this one. It was formulaic in most ways imaginable; the twists were enough to keep me reading, while not enough to provide any sense of shock or admiration from me. Not a single character in this novel interested me or made me yearn for more, likely because I never saw anything within any one of these characters that made me care about the outcome of the lives in the slightest. How’s that for honest?

Starting with the “Tiger Mom” herself, Karen Bloom is painted as an overly ambitious sort of mother, one who pushes herself, her children and her husband to exude perfection in all shapes and forms. We have them here in the U.S., too, of course, usually identifiable by their hectic schedules filled to the brim with carting their minivan full of children to this practice or that, passing the days away in Whole Foods in their Lululemon getups. We know these women, and whether we identify with them or not, they have become a notorious stereotype in our culture. Thus, suffice it to say, the brilliantly written blurb for this novel will be more than enough to get readers to pick this novel up, but I suspect there will be polarizing opinions on this one. Here’s why:

Paula Daly has a fan base; there are plenty of people out there who are looking for a comfy pseudo-thriller, some book that you can curl up on the couch with and take in with a cup of Earl Grey and a bit of skim milk. If you’re one of those readers, then you may absolutely love this one! Daly will have lived up to her reputation and really entertained. However, if you’re looking for any sort of depth, action, major thrill, or narrative creativity, you’ve come to the wrong place and should step no further.

The trouble with Paula Daly’s The Trophy Child is that the 350+ pages that it took to tell this tale were not particularly well used. The characterizations were in a lot of ways lackluster and uninteresting, namely because the characters failed to live up to anything more than the stereotypes they’d been written as. Karen Bloom is, seriously, just a disagreeable and annoying person, to the point that she actually contemplates fairly early on in the novel whether not she should throw a huge tantrum, because its ‘been a while since she’s thrown one.’ (Goodness, I just wanted to slap her in the face and tell her to get off the page.) Her husband is mealy mouthed and spineless and also happens to be a drinker and womanizer. Add in the pothead son, the duo of the order-barking military grandfather + the spacy wife and you’ve got yourself a rather interesting novel, right? Wrong. Just think The Nest meets cozy pseudo-thriller, and you’ll have a pretty good idea of what to expect here, because none of these stereotypes were particularly turned on their head, no new and entertaining characterization of these typecasts ever happened across the page. I quickly lost interest and had to fight the urge to skim ahead. Often, I lost this fight with myself and went ahead and did it.

I would characterize Paula Daly’s The Trophy Child as an okay read for a quick little jaunt, something to read when you’re off of work on a random Tuesday or something. A nice airport read as you suffer through a layover. But it’s unlikely that I’ll remember anything in particular about this novel by the time I finish my next on, and, for me, that warrants a ‘Meh’ and a half. That’s about it. 2.5 stars, which, on a good day, could be rounded up to 3, per my rating scale of "Average." ***

Wow, I wish Karen was my mother, not. This woman, Karen, expected 200% out of all the children. The family was made up of Ewan, her son from another marriage, Verity, her new husband's son from another marriage and Bronte, the daughter from her current marriage. Since she couldn't rule Ewan and Verity as much as she would like, Bronte got the biggest brunt of her tiger mother attitude.

Bronte had so many activities going it was crazy. Not only did she have to excel at one musical instrument, she had to play horn and piano. She also had to take dance lessons as well several other extra curricular activities. She also has her regular school activities as well. Bronte is 10 years old.

When Karen ends up missing, her car found half burnt on the side of the road with the keys and her purse inside the car, her body missing. Eventually they find her body in the lake. The list of suspects is long. The atmosphere in the house is one of relief, like one big breath, a huge boulder has been lifted from their chests. 

I would like to say that this book was entertaining and enjoyable. However, there was a lot of sympathy on my part for these poor children, especially Bronte. However, I was mesmerized and shocked, it was like a trainwreck, instead of looking, I couldn't stop reading. So, I guess since the author was writing a thriller, then because I couldn't put it down, the author did a great job!

Huge thanks to Grove Atlantic for approving my request and to Net Galley for providing me with a free e-galley in exchange for an honest review.

This book was different than I expected it to be after reading the synopsis. I really enjoyed it though, loved some of the characters and felt like screaming at others. That's the sign of a good book to me. Very good story, from the first page to the last and I loved the twisty ending.

The Trophy Child
By
Paula Daly



What it's all about...

The Blooms are a disjointed and dysfunctional blended family.  Karen Bloom is only concerned with the education of her 10 year old daughter Bronte.  She is under the misguided belief that Bronte is gifted in all areas and because of this belief Bronte has no time to herself.  Karen is always shuttling her to coaches and lessons and tutors.   Karen is a consummate "tiger mom"...one who is mean and uncaring and irritating.  There are two other children in the Bloom household but they hold no real interest for Karen Bloom. 

Why I wanted to read it...

This book was seriously addictive.  Karen Bloom was the woman everyone loved to hate.  She had enemies everywhere!  This family's personality was sad and pathetic but so interesting to read about.  When a crime is committed and Detective Joanne gets involved...this family begins to seriously fall apart.  

What made me truly enjoy this book...

I think the dynamics among all of the family members made this book incredibly good.  Pot smokers, drinkers and adulterers, anger issues...this family had it all!  

Why you should read it, too...

Readers who enjoy intense family dramas should really love this book.

The epitome of a pushy parent

This is the first book that I have read by Paula Daly but I hope it will not be the last. Another author to add to my ever increasing list of ‘look out for any books by this person in the future’

This really resounded with me, I worked in a school for quite a long time and although the students I dealt with on the whole were amazing my pet hate was what we called ’PP’S’! This was our name for pushy parents and Karen is the epitome of this genre.

Karen and Noel are, to all extends and purposes, a happily married couple living in the Lake District. They each have a child by other partners, Karen has Ewan by a youthful encounter and no one but Karen knows who the father was. Ewan is a teenager who spends most of his time stoned in his room. Noel also has a teenage daughter, Verity, by his first wife, Jennifer, whom he left for Karen when she got pregnant. Verity, not surprisingly does not like her stepmother and at the start of the book is having counselling for an attack on Karen and is also struggling at school.

Bronte is the daughter of Noel and Karen and although she does not seem particularly good at anything her mother is determined that she will be and this 10 year old little girl spends her life attending music lessons, dance lessons, being the best at everything at school  and never having the chance to be a child enjoying life or indeed having time to eat proper meals. 

The final character in the family, Noel, is a GP who spends his life working and avoiding any conflict, never making any decisions and trying his best to ignore his family unit by going off to remote pubs to be by himself. It is at one of these pubs that he encounters Detective Sergeant Joanne Aspinall, a 40 year old single woman, she has arranged a blind date which turns into a disaster, encounters Noel and eventually spends the night with him. He tells her he is single and they exchange telephone numbers and Joanne is really hopeful that they can meet again.

Imagine her surprise when she is called to investigate the disappearance of Bronte only to discover that the child’s father is Noel. Bronte’s disappearance sets in motion the tragic circumstances that ensue. Karen cannot believe that her beloved child would just disappear and is convinced that she has been abducted but when Bronte re-appears after a couple of days saying she has slept in a shed, Karen begins to realise that maybe all her carefully constructed plans and dreams for her beloved child are not what Bronte really wants.

This is an amazing book, I think any mother can recognise traits in Karen’s personality, we all want the best for our children and often we think they are better than they really are. Karen however takes it to the extreme completely forgetting about Bronte, the person and only considering her own wishes.

 The plot of this book is also a brilliant crime novel and there are so many twists and turns that I defy anyone to guess the outcome. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and would recommend it to anyone, I now want to read all her previous books!

Dexter

Breakaway Reviewers received a copy of the book to review

Both Karen and Noel are on their second marriage.  They both have a child each from their previous marriages as well as Bronte, the trophy child.  Bronte has a gruelling regime, when she is not at school she is having music lessons, dance lessons, extra-curricular tutoring, whatever it takes to make sure Bronte excels in everything she does.  Karen is what’s known as a “Tiger Mum” or to put it more simply, a “Pushy Parent”.  Bronte is pushed way further than any other 10-year-old should be as Karen lives out her ambitions through her daughter.  Despite Karen’s dedication to preserving a carefully constructed illusion of a perfect family, things are beginning to fall apart.  When Bronte goes missing Karen’s levels of controlling behaviour reach stratospheric heights and their perfectly poised family crumbles down around her.

This is Paula Daly’s fourth novel, and despite the fact I have two other books of hers sitting on my kindle, this is the first I’ve actually read.  The story starts slowly and stays at that pace.  This is more of a slow burner than a fast paced thriller.   The characterisation was the books strongest point, even more so than the plot.  I hated Karen within her introductory lines.  Even the way she dressed managed to get my back up, so immaculately groomed, more like a prize show horse than a woman.  Husband Noel the GP was such a weak-willed character, at points I found it hard to understand why he simply sat in the sidelines and let domineering Karen away with her behaviour.  I suspect that after 10 years of Karen, Noel had been simply worn down to a shadow of his former self.  My favourite character was Verity, Noel’s daughter from his first marriage, she had an older head on her young shoulders, and at times seemed like the only one with any sense.

I find the title and blurb a little bit misleading, as the mother / daughter dynamic is only one of the features.  This novel is a family drama with a darker undercurrent running through it; abuse, betrayal, rivalry, secrets and lies.  Paula Daly has thrown in a few red herrings along the way making the ending a surprise albeit a bit on the unbelievable side.   The dark setting of the Lake District really added a creepy feel to the novel as you didn’t know who was out there, hiding in the woods.

If you enjoy mysteries surrounding dysfunctional families then I think you will find this an enjoyable read.  Overall rating three stars.  Thanks to the author, Grove Press and NetGalley for the advanced reader copy.

There are parents among us that have unrealistic exon our child-so much so that that they push the children so hard to excel that it causes them to rebel each in their own way. This is what happens to Karen and her Dr. Husband Noel-each bringing children into this 2nd marriage. Karen is found murdered with plenty of suspects to go around and you almost feel that she got what she deserved after driving her family to the brink of their sanity. Another great story of what this level of dysfunctionality can cause. Good psychological drama of what not to do-nobody's perfect!

Another brilliantly insightful psychological thriller here from Paula Daly –  a one sitting read for me, with more of her trademark divisive characters and a genuinely enjoyable and thought provoking storyline.

Karen is a tiger mother – her daughter Bronte is dragged around from one activity to another, pushed to her limits and despite many people trying to tone down Karen’s incredibly forceful nature things are reaching breaking point as the rest of the family crumbles…

Of course things could not keep up that level without something giving and that is what the author explores here, this is utterly character driven and yes we have a murder and a mystery but also a sharp and intelligent look at family dynamics and loyalties. Many layers are at play here and it all makes for terribly addictive reading.

I couldn’t feel even vaguely sorry for Karen, she was just horrible, but I loved that her nature was fully explored, through meeting her parents and seeing how she treats the rest of her family, you just wanted to yell FOR GODS SAKE STOP WOMAN at her for the most part, as a reader I was totally engaged with this first page to last.

Also I want to move to the Lake District now which happens every time I read a Paula Daly novel – as yet I have not but maybe in the future. The sense of place she brings to the setting is gorgeous and despite horrible things happening to people in her tales of ordinary people caught up in ordinary lives that shatter, you still see the beauty of it.

Overall fantastic yet again. Brilliantly written with a cutting edge and a dark heart.

Highly Recommended.