A Daughter’s Secret - Eleanor Moran

Author Eleanor Moran is a Bafta-nominated TV producer and it shows in her works like Mr Almost Right and A Daughter's Secret, her latest.
Moran writes as if she wants to paint you a most vivid picture, almost as if she has the scene ready for TV and only needs to translate it into words.
In A Daughter's Secret, we are introduced to Mia Cosgrove, a 36 year old psychologist. Gemma is a teenage girl with secrets. According to the police one of those secrets is where her crook of a father is hiding.
But wait, Mia also has some things hidden in a closet.

Psychologist Mia's latest client is a messed-up 13-year-old called Gemma, whose father Christopher has recently disappeared. The accountant had been called as a key witness in the fraud trial of a tycoon and Gemma was the last person to see him. Patrick, a lawyer involved in the case, believes Gemma knows where her father is and wants Mia to try to find out what she can. But of course this will seriously compromise the trust she is building with Gemma. The case also touches a raw nerve with Mia, who has her own troubled relationship with her father, Lorcan. I really enjoyed the twists and turns, as Mia's past and Gemma's motives are slowly revealed. An intriguing, tightly plotted read about complex relationships and control.

(I received a free copy of this book from Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.)

Mia is a highly successful child psychologist, hoping to be made a partner in the company she works for. But then she accepts a case that will change her life for ever. Gemma is a teenage girl whose father is on the run for embezzlement. The police think Gemma knows where he is and they want Mia to talk to her.
Both women are hiding devastating secrets, and both women need the other to survive. The question is, can they trust each other?

While this story is, on the surface, about a missing father and the daughter who last saw him alive. It is about the reasons for his disappearance. It is about the child psychologist who tries to unlock the puzzle...

But, truly, this is a deep, emotional story about the bonds between a father and a daughter - and it is played out between Mia and her father, as well as the flashbacks to Gemma and her father. This part of the story is what really grabbed me and made me really connect with the characters (I have just recently become the father of a daughter.)

The plot itself was worth reading and it was tight, taut and paced really well. I found myself flicking the pages pretty quickly and that is always a good sign.

The only thing I didn't really like was the character of Patrick - he seemed to be one character too many (in my opinion.) His storyline could have been left out and the story would have been just as good.

I am so pleased with the writing of this book, I will look for more of this author's work.


Paul
ARH