Darling Rose Gold - Stephanie Wrobel

Mystery

Rating: 8/10

For the first eighteen years of her life, Rose Gold believed she was seriously ill. She was in a wheelchair with constant visits to doctors.  Fundraisers were held and a diagnosis never determined.  Turns out Mommy was doing some bad bad things.  Sound familiar?

With a plot this blatantly ripped from the headlines, there is a high level of peril that the book ends up being nothing more than a cheesy squandering of your reading time.  And for the first twenty pages I was cringing, believing this was the case.  And then between one page and the next, I was captivated by where the author might be going with this canny reimagining/reinvention.

As mother and daughter reunite post prison stint for mommy not so dearest, you will ask yourself with every chapter, who exactly is torturing who here? The twists gave me shivers!

A song that came into my head while I was reading, Wicked Game by Chris Issak, the last line of which is “nobody loves no one”

Thanks to Simon & Schuster Publishers, the Author and Net Galley for the advanced readers copy.

Footnote: A stellar testament to the following; characters do not have to be remotely likable to be readable.