Pieces of Her – Karin Slaughter

Genre: Thriller, Mystery
Publisher: William Morrow
Pages: 480
Release Date: August 21, 2018

What if the person you thought you knew best turns out to be someone you never knew at all?

Andrea Cooper knows everything about her mother Laura. She knows she’s spent her whole life in the small town of Gullaway Island; she knows she’s never had any more ambition than to live a quiet life as a pillar of the community; she knows she’s never kept a secret in her life.

But one day, a trip to the mall explodes into violence and Andrea suddenly sees a completely different side to Laura.

Twenty-four hours later, Laura is in hospital, shot by an intruder who’s spent thirty years trying to track her down. Now, Andrea must go on a desperate journey to follow the breadcrumbs of her mother’s past. If she can’t uncover the secrets hidden there, there may be no future for either of them.

If you’re looking for a dark and twisted story like Pretty Girls or The Good Daughter, you won’t find that with Pieces of Her. Instead, you’ll find an intricately crafted mystery about what we really know about the people we love most.

Despite Pieces of Her not being as dark as some of her previous novels, Slaughter still knows how to deliver a punch with her more violent scenes, character arcs, and intricate storytelling. Pieces of Her follows Andy as she discovers that her soft spoken, loving mother isn’t who she thought she was. Andy is thrown to the wolves and forced to discover who her mother really is as she searches for answers and fights for her life.

What I enjoyed most about his novel was the alternating chapters from the past and present. This allows the reader to slowly piece together the story and its eventual outcome. I absolutely loved being able to connect the dots to see what was in store for Andy. What Slaughter accomplishes in Pieces of Her is an intricate mystery seeped in the complex relationship that is between a mother and daughter. Some of Slaughter’s best writing in this novel is her character work between Andy and her mother. This character work then extends to family in general as the story progresses.

Pieces of Her is a slow paced novel, but never feels like a chore to read. Slaughter takes her time setting up the scene and characters before delivering an absolute gut punch at the end of each chapter. Just when you think the chapter might be dragging on too long, Slaughter rips the rug from underneath you changing the direction of the story and the characters involved.

Overall, Pieces of Her is an absolute bomb of a story whether you’re a seasoned Slaughter fan or new to her writing. Pieces of Her will wow you with its mystery and keep you reading because of the character work.

** I was provided an ARC from Edelweiss for an honest review.

 

Have you read Pieces of Her? What did you think? Have you read any of Slaughter’s other novels?