Daughter of Mine

March 1, 2024
The loss of her police officer father and the discovery of an abandoned car in a local lake raise chilling questions regarding a young woman's family history. When Hazel Sharp returns to her hometown of Mirror Lake, North Carolina, for her father's memorial, she and the other townspeople are confronted by a challenging double whammy: As they're grieving the loss of beloved longtime police officer Detective Perry Holt, a disturbing sight appears in the lake, whose waterline is receding because of an ongoing drought--an old, unidentifiable car, which has likely been lurking there for years. Hazel temporarily leaves her Charlotte-based building-renovation business in the capable hands of her partners and reconnects with her brothers, Caden and Gage; her Uncle Roy; her old fling and neighbor, Nico; and her schoolfriend, Jamie, now a mother and married to Caden. Tiny, relentless suspicions rise to the metaphorical surface along with that waterlogged vehicle: There have been a slew of minor break-ins; two people go missing; and then, a second abandoned car is discovered. The novel digs deeper into Hazel's family history--her father was a widow when he married Hazel's mother, who later left the family, absconding with money and jewels--and Miranda, a consummate professional when it comes to exposing the small community tensions that naturally arise when people live in close proximity for generations, exposes revelation after twisty revelation: "Everything mattered disproportionately in a small town. Your success, but also your failure. Everyone knows might as well have been our town motto." Small-town claustrophobia and intimacies alike propel this twist-filled psychological thriller.

COPYRIGHT(2024) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

March 1, 2024

Reese Witherspoon Book Club choice and LibraryReads Hall of Famer Miranda (All the Missing Girls; The Last House Guest) pings on a popular trend, the "return home" novel. When Hazel Sharp moves back to Mirror Lake, she finds the water levels dropping--revealing evidence of what happened when her mother disappeared years ago. Prepub Alert.

Copyright 2023 Library Journal

Copyright 2023 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 15, 2024
Wills have a way of bringing out the worst in surviving relatives. Miranda, known for thrillers such as The Last to Vanish (2022) and The Only Survivors (2023), wrings maximum suspense out of the postmortem punch of wills in this mystery, which centers on a disputed inheritance and unfinished business from the past. Hazel Sharp, a professional house renovator, returns to Mirror Lake, North Carolina, after her stepfather, a longtime police detective, dies. Even though her stepbrothers, also cops, still live in the town, the will leaves the family home to Hazel, setting off some family tensions. More disturbing still are the two cars that surface from the lake because of a long drought--one of them belonging to Hazel's mother, a grifter who cleaned out the family finances and then disappeared when Hazel was fourteen, leaving just a note to her "Daughter of Mine." Miranda brings the suspense to a nice boil by centering suspense on the falling-apart family house Hazel is temporarily living in, using Hazel's knowledge that the things that are wrong and unseen in homes can be the most dangerous.

COPYRIGHT(2024) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.