The Trophy Child

Paula Daly is acclaimed for her distinctive voice, masterful plotting, and terrifying depictions of ordinary people whose everyday lives are turned upside down through deception and murder. In her unsettling new domestic thriller, The Trophy Child, Daly digs beneath the serene surface of the idyllic suburban Lake District community where families strive for perfection, delivering a suspenseful, surprising story of motherhood and fallibility.

Karen Bloom is not the coddling mother type. She believes in raising her children for success. Some in the neighborhood call her assertive, others say she's driven, but in gossiping circles she's known as: the tiger mother. Karen believes that tough discipline is the true art of parenting and that achievement leads to ultimate happiness. She expects her husband and her children to perform at 200 percent--no matter the cost. But in an unending quest for excellence, her seemingly flawless family start to rebel against her.

Her husband Noel is a handsome doctor with a proclivity for alcohol and women. Their prodigy daughter, Bronte, is excelling at school, music lessons, dance classes, and yet she longs to run away. Verity, Noel's teenage daughter from his first marriage, is starting to display aggressive behavior. And Karen's son from a previous relationship falls deeper into drug use. When tragedy strikes the Blooms, Karen's carefully constructed facade begins to fall apart--and once the deadly cracks appear, they are impossible to stop.

A thrilling tale of ambition and murder, Daly's richly imagined world of suburban striving and motherly love is an absorbing page-turner about the illusions of perfection and the power games between husband and wife, parent and child.

Binding Type: Hardcover
Publisher: Grove Press
Published: 03/07/2017
ISBN: 9780802125941
Pages: 386
Weight: 1.00lbs
Size: 8.30h x 5.70w x 1.40d

Review Citations: Library Journal Prepub Alert 10/15/2016 pg. 59
Booklist 12/15/2016 pg. 27
Library Journal 01/01/2017 pg. 86
Publishers Weekly 01/16/2017
Kirkus Reviews 01/15/2017
Library Journal 10/15/2016