THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER “Brilliant….About as good as a thriller can be.”—The New York Times Book Review “[A] nail-biter perfect for Room fans.”—Cosmopolitan “Sensationally good psychological suspense.”—Lee Child Praised by Karin Slaughter and Megan Abbott, The Marsh King’s Daughter is the mesmerizing tale of a woman who must risk everything to hunt down the dangerous man who shaped her … mesmerizing tale of a woman who must risk everything to hunt down the dangerous man who shaped her past and threatens to steal her future: her father.
Helena Pelletier has a loving husband, two beautiful daughters, and a business that fills her days. But she also has a secret: she is the product of an abduction. Her mother was kidnapped as a teenager by her father and kept in a remote cabin in the marshlands of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Helena, born two years after the abduction, loved her home in nature, and despite her father’s sometimes brutal behavior, she loved him, too…until she learned precisely how savage he could be.
More than twenty years later, she has buried her past so soundly that even her husband doesn’t know the truth. But now her father has killed two guards, escaped from prison, and disappeared into the marsh. The police begin a manhunt, but Helena knows they don’t stand a chance. Knows that only one person has the skills to find the survivalist the world calls the Marsh King—because only one person was ever trained by him: his daughter.
A Michigan Notable Book!
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After I read The Marsh King’s Daughter on First Look Book Club, and did not win a copy of the book, I requested the galley but did not get one. It has garnered rave reviews. It is set in the Upper Penninsula of Michigan and mentions places I have seen on vacation: Tahquamenon Falls, Seney, and Newberry. Karen Dionne is a Metro Detroit author.
Last spring, I put my name on the waiting list to borrow the ebook from the library through Libby. It finally came to me this week!
I read it in two evenings, staying up late to finish it.
Helena has kept her past a secret from her husband. She needed to escape the public eye so she changed her name and created another past. Her carefully constructed world come toppling down when the police come to her door because her father has escaped from prison. Helena’s husband learns she is the daughter of the infamous Marsh King who had kidnapped her teenaged mother. and held her, and their child, hostage for years.
Helena grew up in the marshes, admiring her father who taught her to hunt and survive on the land. He had a brutal side and dealt out harsh punishments. She did not know anything else until she saw a happy family at Tahquamenon Falls–the first outsiders she had ever seen. When Helena was fourteen her mother tells her the truth, and Helena orchestrates their escape.
Helena knows she is the only person who can find her father. While she tracks her father through the territory she explored at his side we learn of her childhood and understand her turmoil. Helena knows too well her father is a narcissistic psychopath, but she also recalls how she loved him and the wilderness survival skills he taught her.
The novel is informed by Hans Christian Anderson’s fairy tale The Marsh King’s Daughter.
Michigan is beautifully portrayed in Dionne’s descriptions. The wildness, the flora and fauna, the tourist traps, and the brutal deforestation are all encountered.
A deeply evocative, beautifully written story, featuring a heroine who will take your breath away
So Where to start with this review, The Marsh Kings Daughter by Karen Dionne is one of those books where not a lot happens in terms of plotline, this actually doesn’t seem to matter as we spend most of the book looking backwards as this is where the main action lies. This story Immerses you in a past that though horrific, is so deeply ingrained in tradition and culture that it sucks you into the pages fully as we experience through a child’s eyes life on the marsh.
So Basically, Helena is the daughter of the Marsh King Jacob and his abducted bride, who is hardly more than her child herself.
Unaware of her mother’s captivity she is raised on the marsh as her father’s shadow.
eagerly Learning all that he knows.
Despite her father’s sometimes cruel ways Helena adores him.
At the age of twelve upon realising the secret of her birth and her mother’s imprisonment at the hands of her sadistic father and yearning for change Helena manages to escape to civilisation.
But The outside world is a lot different to what she imagined and her grandparents can barely tolerate her presence.
So when she turns eighteen she sets off into the world to forge her own path, cutting herself off from her family and changing her name to escape the notoriety of being the marsh king’s daughter.
This is really where we come in Helena is married with two little girls. The secret of her birth is still hidden, that is until her father escapes from Prison engaging Helena in a deadly game of cat and mouse with her family the prize at stake.
This was such an easy and interesting read, I loved the vivid descriptions and also the ongoing Fairytale of the stories namesake.
The Marsh Kings daughter kept my attention till the end.
Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for providing me with a free advanced readers copy this is my own personal opinion of the marsh king’s daughter by Karen Dionne.
Reviewed By Beckie Bookworm
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This book is amazing and so unique! It is well written, flows nice and keeps you interested. I couldn’t put it down. I love the characters!
¼
It’s been a long while since I’ve so admired a heroine. Helena is a survivalist in more ways than one. She knows how to handle herself – she’s confident with weapons and in the wild. She knows how to hunt bear and kill a man. These are the surroundings of her childhood. You see, she was born and raised in a primitive setting to a mother who was being held captive. Though a narcissistic psychopath, her father is still her father – he taught her everything she knows. Sometimes her lessons resulted in mental and physical torment, but this was her norm. Present day, Helena is now an adult, she has left her old life behind, and she has a family of her own. She has what most would call a normal life, although her husband never quite understands why she needs time in the woods every now and again. He knows nothing about her past, but the news has just announced that the infamous “Marsh King” has escaped from prison. Her father…on the run…armed and dangerous…and only one place he would go…to her.
This is a thriller. It doesn’t have the twist and turns you would expect in psychological suspense, but it does have great thriller components. It’s multidimensional, palpable, cultural, fast paced, and absolutely engaging. Much of this book reflects on Helena’s childhood from her perspective. Wild, dysfunctional, and disturbing, but her childhood nonetheless. The reader has to have a clear picture of this father/daughter dynamic (and mother/daughter dynamic to a lesser extent) to appreciate the present-day emotions and events, and the author Karen Dionne lays it all out for you. An interesting element I didn’t expect was the incorporation of Hans Christian Andersen’s fairytale by the same name. If you know anything about the 1858 The Marsh King’s Daughter, then you’ll have a lot of fun watching this story evolve…and if you know nothing about it, the author has pieces of the tale interspersed in appropriate places for your convenience and entertainment. A great thriller with a fun re-telling component of sorts. Check it out!
My favorite quote:
“If I had known all of this before it happened, would I have done things differently? Of course. But you have to accept responsibility for your decisions even when they don’t work out the way you wanted. Bad things happen. Planes crash. Trains derail. People die in floods and earthquakes and tornados. Snowmobilers get lost. Dogs get shot. And young girls get kidnapped.”
As a child, Helena was unaware of the circumstances surrounding her upbringing. Her mother was kidnapped as a teen by Jacob Holbrook, and held captive in a cabin in the marsh. Helena spends the first 12 years of her life living on the marsh with her mother and father, and never interacting with other humans. For her, life is normal. Until an event occurs when she is 12 that allows Helena and her mom to escape. As an adult, Helena has changed her name and made a new life for herself. She is married with 2 children and a husband who knows nothing of her past. That is until her father, the so-called “Marsh King” escapes from prison.
The book alternates between Helena’s present and her past. In the present, she is tracking her father, trying to find him before he can hurt her or her family. In the past, we learn the story of her childhood, with a father who is abusive and controlling, but also teaches her how to survive in the wilderness. I really enjoyed the parts about her childhood. They were fascinating. It felt like a whole different book. The storyline set in the present was interesting, but read more like a thriller.
I feel like the abuse of her childhood was downplayed a little. As a child, Helena loves her father and idolizes him. It is only as she grows older that she begins to see his flaws. Helena’s mother is very under-formed. It would have been nice to see more of her story, but since this is Helena’s story, we see the mother through her eyes.
I recommend this books to fans of thrillers, and look forward to reading more from this author.
I received a free ARC from Penguin’s First to Read program in exchange for my honest review.
The Marsh King’s Daughter
A novel by Karen Dionne
The news is an instant and total shock to Helena. Blind, deaf and with blood thundering in her ears, for seconds she is paralyzed. A convict has escaped from prison, killing two correctional officers in the process. The same man who taught her the legends of the Ojibwa, who taught her how to fish, trap, track, and hunt has freed himself. The man who abducted her mother, raping and beating her repeatedly; who severely punished Helena for any failure, or infraction of his rules. The man Helena idolized, imitated and feared; her father, Jacob Holbrook. The man she put in prison, is on the run in the midst of Michigan‘s vast wilderness, an area he that he knows better than anyone alive. It takes but a short time for her to realize that she is the only person who has the insight and tracking skills to find him. Find him and put him back behind bars.
“The Marsh King’s Daughter” is an exceptional piece of storytelling. The psychology, the violence, the wilderness and the people all fit together seamlessly. That is a kind of miracle in and of itself, because the author shifts from Hans Christian Anderson’s fairy tale, to Helena’s “Now” and then back to “The Cabin” where she and her mother lived with Jacob.
I expect this novel will make quite a splash when it hits the booksellers. The topic is chilling, the characters are unique, and the story is dazzling. I cannot recommend it more strongly.
Many thanks to G.P. Putnam’s Sons and Random House’s First To Read program for providing me with an advance galley in return for this review.
First of all, I need to that First to Read for letting me read this book in exchange for an honest review.
Helena was probably one of the most intriguing characters I have ever read. Her story of her past completely fascinated me. And the way it was written was in such detail that it really created vivid imagery in my mind of how she grew up. The way she describes the both the love and the hate for her father and the relationship with her mother gave her such great depth. I do wish however that we got more of the hunting of her father. I felt like that was lacking a bit in the book, which dissapointed me a little. I would still definitely recommend this book for it’s haunting story and wonderfully written characters.
This novel takes place in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and, because I grew up in what some of us call the “Mitten State,” I was hooked from the start. It’s a fascinating tale told by the daughter of a man who kidnapped his wife and held her captive in a remote marsh. When Helena’s father escapes from prison, she tries to track him down, putting her own life at risk as well as those of her husband and their two children. A well-told tale that moves along at just the right pace, expertly weaving in back story. I enjoyed the fact that the protagonist was an expert outdoors woman and tracker. Think “Where the Crawdads Sing” (young girl grows up in an isolated marsh) crossed with a suspenseful tale (she must hunt down her father to stop him from hurting her family).
Not a formulaic whodunit. Kept me hooked all the way through it.
As a reader, you will want to stay up late to read on. Although some parts are barely believable, so is human behavior. It could all be true.
I enjoyed the tight plot and excellent suspense, but the incredible character development really made this book shine. A great read.
This book is not just another novel. This book is a fantastic read!
This book is surprisingly a good read even though most of the characters are not very likable, even the main character. The author’s description of the Upper Peninsula is vivid and in great detail. I’m only a little over half way through it but I can’t wait to see what happens next.
A really good thriller.
Way too much violence and cruelty to animals. Definitely not for me!
Loved it. I couldn’t stop reading until I came to the last word.
This thriller came out before Where the Crawdads Sing and has some of the same vibe–a swamp, a dastardly father, and not knowing whom you can trust. Delia Owens’ fans will love this page-turner too!
While I have forgotten many of the books I‘ve read over time, this one just continues to stay with me.
This book had me hooked from the beginning. I found this gem, after having it on my TBR list for a year, at the dollar store of all places!! I loved the wonder and died to know what would happen. The excerpts from the actual fairy tale had me so interested in the true fairy tale that I had to buy that book too! I hope she has more books for me to binge soon!