By Tim Meyer

Dead Daughters will be released April 16th from Poltergeist Press.

Drew has a wonderful, perfect life with wife, Eve, and daughter, Dinah. He has an easy-going job at a nearby gym, and great neighbours and friends. The kind of life he never could have imagined before he met Eve. But on his birthday, Drew discovers a strange envelope in his mailbox. Assuming it is some sort of gift, he opens it, to find a picture of his daughter, dead.

But Dinah lies asleep upstairs, drawing Drew into the mystery – who is the girl in the photograph, why has it been sent to his family, and why does it look so much like Dinah?

Dead Daughters is horror bordering on thriller, with twists and turns to keep the reader guessing, as information is drip-fed to us throughout. Meyer sets things up really well, doing a fantastic job of increasing tension throughout the book and keeping the identity of the girl’s killer – and the family’s stalker – shrouded throughout.

This book kept me guessing, kept me wanting to turn the page and discover what exactly was happening. Even if you think you know what’s going on at certain points, the next page throws you into confusion.

Admittedly though, many of the chapter endings felt too forced. On a small scale, they’d end with lines leading the reader to believe the next chapter would contain some shocking revelation, only to have the information conveyed be relatively minor. It made some parts of the novel feel a bit anticlimactic. There was also a pretty significant aspect to the plot that was left unexplored, which overall would have been fine, if it wasn’t an element that felt clearly designed to mislead the reader. A bit more exploration of this, a touch of actual information, would have made it feel more like a natural part of the story.

I find it very easy, in stories like this, to suspend my disbelief. Usually. But it requires solid worldbuilding, even for a story set in our world, and although I could go along with most of what was laid out in Dead Daughters, there were some elements that just broke that suspension. It tilted too far, and didn’t quite work. Not for me, anyway.

Overall however, it was an enjoyable ride with a few minor, frustrating elements.

Purchase on Amazon

Grade: B

Review by Elle Turpitt
@elleturpitt
www.elleturpitt.com

I received this e-book from Poltergeist Press for review consideration.