The Marsh Kings Daughter - Karen Dionne

Drama/Thriller

Rating: 7/10

Helena has buried her past so deep that even her husband isn’t aware of the truth. She has been living a good life with a loving marriage and children when a news report reveals that her father has escaped from prison. The father that abducted and impregnated her teenage mother, holding both mother and child captive in a remote wilderness for many years. The story is told mainly through flashbacks, with the author writing of the father’s monstrous acts so offhandedly that you can almost miss them. What lingers are degrees of evil, if it’s all you know are you to be blamed for accepting it as the norm? For embracing it as a kind of love?

Footnote: The careful reader may recognize the quasi retelling of a classic fairytale, well woven into a modern suspense.