The Trophy Child by Paula Daly

This was a family of three children, but there was nothing very normal about it. Verity and Ewan were children from previous marriages of both husband and wife respectively and Bronte was their only offspring. Fortunately, the three children got on very well together despite Karen the mother in the relationship doing everything possible to drive a wedge between Verity and Bronte.

Very early on in the story one did realise that Karen was going to either do something drastic or something drastic was going to happen due to her niggling interference. One did not think of her murder! Then there is the father in this whole story. You do want to shake him up - tell him not to be so lethargic, so laid back and so distant from the whole thing. He thought that by ignoring the situation, the situation would improve or the problems would go away. He was irritating as well. The fact that both Karen and Noel were having parallel secret lives of their own did not help the situation as well.


There were lots of different lines in this story - dysfunctional family, emotional highs and lows, sibling love no rivalry, a family pulling in different ways with no way forward. It certainly added to the interest and the way the story finally panned out.

Although Bronte's "abduction" was the initial highlight of the story, it was the factors which led to this that were the main features of this book.

Very interestingly told, with strong characterizations this was a good read.

Sent to me by Netgalley for an unbiased review, courtesy of Grove Atlantic.