A special thank you to Edelweiss and William Morrow for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.How well do you know those closest to you? What if the person you thought you knew best was someone you actually didn't know at all?
Andrea Cooper thinks she knows her mother, Laura, a speech therapist who is a pillar of the community. While out for lunch at the mall for a birthday celebration, an act of violence sets a chain of events in motion and in the face of danger, Laura becomes a completely different person.
Only twenty-four hours later, Laura is shot by an intruder that has spent the better part of thirty years tracking her. Andrea must go out on her own and put together the pieces of Laura's past before time runs out for both of them.
Fans of Slaughter have made it apparent that this was a bit of a departure for her—there is a note from the author added to the synopsis on Goodreads, and it explains why. I enjoyed the development of Andy from a thirty-year-old girl into a strong and mature woman. We need more of these characters! Slaughter also capitalizes on the fragile, tense, and complex relationship between mothers and daughters. She also examines the shift from Laura's upbringing of limited choices for women to what many young people face, which is the overwhelming abundance of too many choices that as Slaughter puts it, can be completely paralyzing.
This was my first foray into Karin Slaughter's writing and I was impressed, although I was expecting more by way of mystery. Even though it was slow in parts, I found the writing sharp and clever and it did ultimately pick up about two thirds of the way through. I'll definitely be visiting her back catalogue, she had me hooked when she mentioned Depeche Mode!
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