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    The Marsh King's Daughter
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    The Marsh King's Daughter
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    The Marsh King's Daughter
    Audiobook9 hours

    The Marsh King's Daughter

    Written by Karen Dionne

    Narrated by Emily Rankin

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    Praised by Lee Child and Karin Slaughter, and sure to thrill fans of The Girl on the Train and The Widow, The Marsh King's Daughter is mesmerizing psychological suspense, the story 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.

    "Brilliant....In its balance of emotional patience and chapter-by-chapter suspense, The Marsh King's Daughter is about as good as a thriller can be."—The New York Times Book Review

    "Spine-tingling." —People 

    "[A] nail-biter perfect for Room fans."—Cosmopolitan
     
    At last, Helena Pelletier has the life she deserves. A loving husband, two beautiful daughters, a business that fills her days. Then she catches an emergency news announcement and realizes she was a fool to think she could ever leave her worst days behind her.

    Helena 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. No electricity, no heat, no running water, not a single human beyond the three of them. Helena, born two years after the abduction, loved her home in nature—fishing, tracking, hunting. And despite her father's odd temperament and sometimes brutal behavior, she loved him, too...until she learned precisely how savage a person 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 marshland he knows better than anyone else in the world. The police commence 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.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateJun 13, 2017
    ISBN9781524775520
    Unavailable
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    Reviews for The Marsh King's Daughter

    4/5

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    • 5/5
      This fantastic novel takes place in a remote cabin the the marshlands of Michigan's Upper Peninsula. If it seems strange to the reader that anywhere can be as remote as this cabin was, let me assure you that there are still areas like this in Michigan's UP where a person could hide for years. This book grabbed me on the first page and kept me enthralled until the end. It was interesting to see how the attitudes of the main character towards her parents changed throughout the book as she grew up and became a mother too.The story is told by Helena as an adult with a lot of flashbacks to her younger years. She didn't realize it until she was 14 but her mother had been kidnapped by her father at age 14 and held captive in a remote area of northern Michigan. Helena worshiped her father when she was growing up - she hunted and fished with him and spent most of her waking hours with him. She had him on a high pedestal. She also mirrored her father's negative opinion of her mother and didn't have much regard for her mother when she was growing up. The hero worship of her father in her younger years could have been difficult to understand but Helena didn't know any better, she didn't realize that their lives were any different from other people because she never saw anyone but her parents as she was growing up. Twenty years after she and her mother escaped and her father went to prison, she has buried her past and kept it a secret even from her husband. When her father escapes from prison, she knows that she is the only person who can find him before he inflicts harm on other people. The way that the story is told with Helena's search for her father as an adult and flashbacks to her childhood in the marsh, helps to make this novel very suspenseful. Helena is a well down main character who changes throughout the novel. The setting is beautiful even though the circumstances are horrific. This is a beautifully written, suspenseful novel with a main character that I won't soon forget.
    • 5/5
      The book excels on a couple of counts. First, the author creates suspense by alternating chapters between the past and present. Sometimes that is a little confusing but in this case it works very well. Secondly, the characters are excellent...especially Helen. As she learns more about her parents her character grows and develops into someone that you can't help but like and admire. The story is chilling and psychological, but one of the most original...gripping... and beautifully told that I have read in some time.
    • 4/5
      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. The Marsh King’s Daughter is in development as a feature film.
    • 4/5
      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.

    • 4/5
      Two stories are going on in THE MARSH KING’S DAUGHTER. One story is Helena’s past when she grew up with her father, dubbed “The Marsh King,” after he kidnapped and raped her mother; the other is Helena’s present after she learns of her father’s escape from prison. At first, I thought I was not going to like THE MARSH KING’S DAUGHTER because the first quarter of the book contains too many details that do not advance the story. But I continued reading because of Karen Dionne’s skillful descriptions of life among Michigan’s Upper Peninsula’s marshes and navigation in the area. Throughout THE MARSH KING’S DAUGHTER I wondered how she was able to do this so well that I felt like I was there, even getting cold when Helena fell in the marsh and when she was forced to spend three days in a well.But, I promise, the two stories do become tense and unputdownable. Dionne’s ability to describe tracking someone in the marshy area does this in Helena’s present-day story of searching for her father (although I wasn’t convinced she couldn’t have left this to the police). And the story of Helena’s interactions with “The Hunter” and of bringing her mother and herself to safety is equally as tense and unputdownable, especially because Dionne tells both stories at the same time.So I was glad I finished reading THE MARSH KING’S DAUGHTER and upgrade my original rating of three stars to four.
    • 5/5
      THE MARSH KING’S DAUGHTER by KAREN DIONNE has been on TBR for a while now and when I saw that my library had it available in audiobook, I jumped at the chance to listen to this one. It is a fast-paced suspenseful psychological thriller that hooked me from the very beginning and didn't let go until the last page. I couldn't stop listening and found myself doing chores (baking, dishes, folding laundry) just so I could keep listening.

      THE MARSH KING’S DAUGHTER is told from Helena’s point of view, alternating between the past and the present. In the present, Helena is happily married with two little girls living on her grandparent's property. She hears the news that "The Marsh King" has escaped from prison. What we learn is that he is her father, who has been in prison for kidnapping her mother at a young age, fathering a child with his captive and murder. She knows she has to keep her family safe and in her mind the best way to do that is to have a showdown with her father. In the past we learn all about her childhood of being raised in captivity where she is actually oblivious to the fact that she and her Mother are being held captive by her father. The way that Helena lived and survived while growing up in the marsh was actually quite amazing and I thoroughly enjoyed her story. Her story from the past and present were both equally compelling to me.

      This story is described as a mystery and thriller, but I found it to be an excellent drama that was very character driven. There is a rather brutal hunting scene described that many people my find upsetting, but it was used to describe how the native people hunted. Overall, this was a riveting, suspenseful, fast-paced read with a wonderful ending. There was some angst, dark situations, and suspense all rolled into this atmospheric story. The narration of this book was wonderful. Emily Rankin did a great job building tension and displaying the emotion that Helena was feeling. I definitely recommend this story to anyone who enjoys psychological thrillers that are very character driven.
    • 3/5
      The story of a girl born in captivity (her mother was kidnapped and forced to live an isolated existence as her father's "wife" for fourteen years in the Minnesota Upper Peninsula marsh) and dealing with the aftermath of her childhood reminded me just a little of Educated by Tara Westover, which I recently read. This is quite often suspenseful, but I found the writing to frequently be choppy and repetitive. I understand Helena's conflicted love for her father, but her continued lack of empathy for her mother even into adulthood disturbed me, and I don't think she ever really addressed the enormity of the trauma she suffered. I found the final "hunt" to be a bit of a letdown, as well, but overall this was a decent read.
    • 5/5
      The Marsh King’s Daughter is a gritty thriller about Helena, the daughter of young kidnap victim who was held for over 12 years in a remote cabin. Helena grew up with her frightened and abused mother and her psychotic father. At some point, Helena and her mother manage to get away and the father is captured and put in prison for kidnapping and murder. He escapes years later and this is where the story picks up.The Marsh King’s Daughter checked all the boxes for me. It captured my interest from the beginning, was difficult to put down and the ending was hair-raising. The story is told moving from past to present and using Hans Christian Anderson’s fairy tale by the same name as the opening to each chapter.Hunting is mentioned in great detail in a good bit of the book, as the main characters were living off the grid, with hunting being a big part of their survival. Helena learned to hunt and track at a young age, and these skills are pivotal to the story.Obviously the topics of mental and physical abuse are part of the story, but there is only the slightest mention of anything sexual. Readers are not privy to what Helena’s mother endured immediately after her kidnapping until near the end of the story and that information is not told in great detail. This is Helena’s story and we are privy to her point of view only. Her mother remains somewhat of a mystery, but for some reason that seems to add to the story. My curiosity would love to hear the mother’s version of the story as well, but this book was captivating with only Helena’s viewpoint.This is a great book for readers who love an engaging thriller and wilderness story all rolled up into a neat little package. I loved it--it’s my favorite thriller of year. Many thanks to Penguin Random House/ First to Read program for allowing me an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.
    • 5/5
      Wilderness man kidnaps a young teenager who births a daughter. Daddy Dearest trains the girl in survival techniques. He is abusive in all ways. Fast forward twenty years and this daughter has a family of her own. Daddy has been in prison but escapes by killing his guards. Problem: She has not told her family about him and now she knows he is coming for them. She sets out alone to track him, which is just what he wants. The end is a shocker. My thanks to the author and the Penguin First to Read program for a complimentary copy.
    • 5/5
      I have to admit that the name alone was part of the attraction, despite that idiocy, i loved this book......one of the best i've read in a while! Dionne has created a unique, breath-holding novel. Helena grew up in the marshy wilderness of the upper peninsula of Michigan, she knows no other life. Her mother was abducted as a young teenager by her Native American father. They lived for 12 years in an abandoned cabin, eating what they shot or grew and jams her mum taught her to make. She grew up simply, on her fathers stories, old National Geographics and violence. It was the norm for all her life.... till one day when a stranger arrives. Fast forward years later when she herself has children and she learns that her father has escaped prison. And she knows where he is headed.....
    • 4/5
      I was hesitant to read this for a couple of reasons, but ended up really glad I did, and even learned a few things, to boot, among which was how little I knew of the UP.
    • 4/5
      In The Marsh King's Daughter, Dionne deftly and deeply explores the bonds and breaking of families, through the unique lens of a narrator who is the daughter of a kidnapping victim and her kidnapper.Helena has formed a family of her own, with a new last name and a past she has hidden away. She is the daughter of a woman kidnapped and held captive for years, and the kidnapper. But when her father escapes from prison, Helena must confront her past and all her father taught her, because she is the only one who can track him down.Dionne does a really good job of alternating between past and present to build suspense. Readers learn of Helena's upbringing and all her father taught her about hunting and tracking, and then see her put those skills to use in a high-stakes chase of the self-same father.What is particularly compelling about this book is how much Dionne makes you think as she spins a highly suspenseful tale. Helena's father was not only a kidnapper and captor, but a brutal one, but he was also the only father Helena ever knew. Helena's mother seemed so passive and meek during Helena's childhood, but she was also a woman forced to live as wife to the man who had stolen her from her life. Helena must figure out what she feels about the people who created her, and what this means for her future with the family she has chosen.
    • 5/5
      Set in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, the story explores the life of Helena who was born to a mother who had been kidnapped and sequestered by her father. Helena is the primary narrator of the story which opens as she learns that her father has escaped from prison and has murdered a prison guard in the process. She knows that he is coming for her. She also knows that she is probably the only one who would be able to track him down.Her father raised and educated her to be strong and self reliant, sometimes through extremely abusive means. The story jumps back and forth from Helena's memories of growing up, to the present day where she is a wife and mother, living in a remote area. She knows how her father's mind works and she has every reason to fear him. The author has done an excellent job of creating a suspenseful story, where the main character is well drawn and held true through out the story. She also does a great job of capturing life in the Upper Peninsula.
    • 5/5
      Extracts from the Marsh King's Daughter, a fable by Hans Christian Anderson, appear at the beginning of some sections of the story. They appear to be directing the reader to the conclusion that girl in the fable had dual personality, or perhaps that every one of us is capable of ambivalence.I kept thinking of how things have changed culturally throughout history, that if Helena's father had committed this abduction, the choosing and taking of a wife, two hundred years earlier, in Indian culture this would have been an acceptable way of doing things.Helena grows up unaware that her father has done anything wrong although she recognises that he has an angry side to his personality, that he is capable of meting out swift and cruel punishments to her and her mother.Although Helena adores her father, and despises her mother, she eventually escapes and is responsible for his captures and imprisonment. Her narration in the book swaps between her experiences as child and the life she has built for herself since her escape. Now her father has escaped after 15 years of imprisonment and she knows he is looking for her.
    • 4/5
      This book brought together some of my favorite things: A thrilling suspense, living in nature, survival skills, and a creepy villain that you love to hate. And one thing I dislike: the ending of a story you hope never ends. This story will just grab you and not let go until the very end. The back and forth between Helena of yesterday, a child born and raised out of horrendous circumstances, to Helena to today, a woman/mother/wife brought back to face the duplicity of her upbringing from a cruel but worshiped father. The biggest hole in the story to me was her mother after they made their way back to civilization. I know the story wasn't about her, but I craved to know more about what she was going through as well. This book would throw me back into the William Kent Krueger/Cork O'Connor world of the Ojibwe Native Americans and Gitche Manitou, which was fun for me as I love those books as well.
    • 5/5
      I could not put this expertly written novel down. Helena, the daughter of the Marsh King, is the product of an abduction after her father had abducted her mother as a young teenager. Raised in the marshes of Michigan's Upper Peninsula, Helena and her mother eventually escape and her father sent to prison. Years later, Helena is married with too small girls. The Marsh King escapes from prison and Helena knows that she must hunt him before he can hunt her and her family. The novel weaves the past and the present chapter by chapter, revealing Helena's childhood story and eventually climaxing with the original escape from the marsh and the present day escape from her father.
    • 4/5
      Karen's Dionne's newest novel, The Marsh King's Daughter has been getting so much press - I was eager to listen to it.Helena was born to her sixteen year old mother and her mother's kidnapper, a survivalist known as The Marsh King. The three lived deep in the marsh, in a rustic cabin, hidden for twelve years. Helena did escape and is now a mother to two little girls. She has changed her name and hidden her history - not even her husband knows her background. But when she hears a news report about her father's escape from prison, she knows he is coming for her. He trained her in wilderness survival and she will now need all her skills to find him and......There seems to be more and more of these real life abduction stories in the news, with movies and books following. And somehow it is hard not to want to know more. Dionne takes a real life situation and puts her own (great) spin on things.The Marsh King's Daughter is told from Helena's viewpoint, both past and present. Because she has only her mother and father as references, her early views of the world and relationships are skewed. She adores her father, not realizing that their family unit is not normal. Her treatment of and attitude towards her mother is not pretty. We get to 'know' her father better through her adult memories. Those memories are triggered by the need for adult Helena to find and capture her father. Are her skills equal to his? Or better.....Dionne has written an addictive thriller - I ended up listening to 'just one more chapter' long into the night. And the final few chapters made it impossible to stop listening. Readers will be firmly in Helena's camp, holding their breath as a cat and mouse game plays out - in both the past and the present.Cut between chapters are excerpts from Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale - The Marsh King's Daughter. The excerpts used often mirror what is currently happening in the book.I was thinking as I was listening to The Marsh King's Daughter that it would make a great movie. Dionne just announced last week that screen rights have been sold.Emily Rankin was the narrator for this audiobook. Her voice suited both young and adult Helen - innocence and later determination. She communicates the tension, danger and suspense of thise novel well. Her voice is easily understood and pleasant to listen to.
    • 1/5
      A notorious child abductor, known as the Marsh King, has just escaped from a maximum security prison and Helena immediately knows that she and her two young daughters are in danger. Helena is the Marsh King's daughter. She was born into captivity and didn't leave the cabin or the surrounding area until she was twelve.

      I won this through a Goodreads giveaway and was so looking forward to reading it once I got my hands on it. But after reading about SO MANY dead animals and every excruciating detail about every little thing, especially the chapters about when she was a kid growing up in the wilderness, I had to set it aside. I would pick it up every now and then but it wasn't holding my attention and at a third of the way through I didn't care anymore. It was too tedious so I skimmed. While skimming I came across more dead animals and decided to just skip to the end, which came as no surprise to me.
    • 4/5
      Helena's mother was abducted and gave birth to her in captivity. Until she was a teenager, Helena lived with her parents in the middle of the swamp without electricity, running water, or modern conveniences. As an adult, Helena has put her past behind her and now has a devoted husband and two beautiful daughters. When her father escapes from prison, her life is turned upside down.This is one of those books that you stay up all night reading. I couldn't put it down. It was well written, the characters were dynamic and the story moved quickly. I can't wait for the author's next book. Highly recommended.
    • 5/5
      Engrossing. Stunning. One of the best books I've read this year.
    • 3/5
      I know I didn't appreciate all aspects of this wonderfully written book. I was more interested in how the "family" ended up in the woods and how the women escaped, and the ending. I felt bogged down by all the hunting and foraging that was going on and so tended to skim over a lot of it. The emotions of Helena, the main character, were moving and spoke of the anguish and dependence and love of family. That was the most provocative for me.
    • 5/5
      Warning: Be prepared to lose all track of time immersing yourself in this exceptional read! Author, Karen Dionne took me on a journey. Instantly, I shared a connection with Helena and her father aka "The Marsh King". This book was equally balanced between the past and the present. The flow from the different time lines was seamless. What drew me towards Helena is that she showcased both love and hate for her father. Yet, as a reader, I slowly got to experience each emotion and how it affected Helena as she grew up. She is a fighter. She has her father's spirit. So, it only made sense that she would be the one to face off in a battle of the hunter and the hunted with her father. As the story progressed, I came to see Helena's father as a person and not just a monster. Thus, I came to appreciate their story more then just the game. I loved everything about this book from the beginning, middle, and ending.
    • 4/5
      'The Marsh King's Daughter' introduces you to Helena, the daughter of a 14-year old kidnapped girl and her father, the kidnapper. This is the story of the kidnaper's daughter and what her life was like. What I found interesting was the realism of Helena's story - she was just another kid who loved her father and had issues with her mother. She didn't realize her life was different or what her origin story really was. All she knew is that her father taught her to track, hunt and live off the land - because that is what good parents did and her father was a good parent. When her father's temper almost killed and her mother, she knew action was needed. It was because of Helena that her father was captured and sentenced to prison where he stayed for over 15 years.The story is told from Helena's point of view as tracks her father when he escapes from prison. The author brings forth Helena's memories and how her love for father turned to hate and how her father's prison escape could ruin her current family (a husband and 2 daughters.) Helena never told her husband her true story - he doesn't know who she is, what she endured or why some of things she does seems a bit off,I consumed this book in a few hours; it was readable and in a strange way, relatable. You can understand why Helena loved a man most people considered a monster and how her 'rescue' became more of a nightmare than her 'incarceration.' The author took an Elizabeth Smart type story and turned it around by focusing on the offspring of these kidnapped women. We heard from the women and the psychiatrists' theories on the men who kidnap these defenseless young women. We never heard from the children who's lives were up ended and who did everything to maintain their privacy - they are just as much the victims as their mothers.'The Marsh King's Daughter' is their story and I highly recommend it!
    • 5/5
      A teenager is abducted when she is 14 and has a child when she is 16. This story is told by that child after about 12 years of fleeing the abductor, she only knew as her father. It dealt a lot with her feelings and emotions of growing up with only her mother and her abductor (father) and no one else around. Helena knew of no other life and was relatively happy until the fateful day they escaped. Then she realized what her father had done and why her mother acted the way that she did.I really liked this book and lot and felt for Helena. She was a different kind of girl due to her upbringing, but one that you can't help but root for and feel empathy towards. I can definitely say all the buzz around this book is worth it.Thanks to Penguin Group Putnam and Net Galley for providing me with a free e-galley in exchange for an honest, unbiased review.
    • 5/5
      5 "Born & Raised in Captivity by a Kidnapper Killer" Stars for the story and the narration!If you love psychological thrillers, boy have I got a summer listen for you! The blurb of The Marsh King's Daughter hooked me and the story grabbed a hold of me from the first minute and entranced me throughout! I listened to this little gem in just one day--it is that addictive. If you've ever wondered about the psychological influence of a narcissist, kidnapper, and killer over the tender and malleable frame of mind of a young child--his child--then look no further. Moreover, the narration by Emily Rankin is simply divine making this title a must-listen! The story is told in the first person from both the past and the present. As we open up the book, we meet Helena, the protagonist. Today she is married with two children and lives a relatively normal life. No one, not even her husband, know just how different her life began. But that is all about to change as her father has just escaped from prison. Helena, was born and raised in captivity in a cabin with no electricity or any modern conveniences to a child abductor and his teenage captive. Helena only knows her parents for many years. Her sole connection to the outside world are copies of 1950s National Geographics. Needless to say everything she knows is shaped by her psychopath father and her broken mother. Interestingly, in her early years she bonds with her father and identifies more with him then her mother who she can't seem to make a connection with. Thus she learns how to hunt and plays endless games with her father. But as she gets older these games turn into competitions, and the more skilled she becomes, the more dangerous these games get culminating in the game to end all games when her father finds her again following his prison escape. Emily Rankin delivers a spellbinding narration. Ms. Rankin's facility with multiple, completely distinguishable and character appropriate voices makes her a natural audiobook narrator. I loved the voice that she gave Helena which was both appealing and calculating as you would expect her character to have. Moreover, Ms. Rankin is able to create such disparate voices as that of a young child's to sound completely age appropriate and which is the perfect complement to Helena's earlier years. Additionally, you can feel the story from just the feeling that Ms. Rankin imparts in her rendition. I loved that you truly get the sense that you are experiencing the world through the eyes of a child and later a person who has been raised in isolation. The curiosity and lack of comprehension with respect to things that many of us would consider routine, vibrated from Ms. Rankin's voice. This attention to detail gave the narration a genuine and magical feel. So many existential questions raised: nature vs. nurture, what makes psychopaths different, how do psychopaths endear themselves to the people who ultimately become their victims, and can you ever completely transform yourself and defeat your genetics? This book had me contemplating questions for hours after finishing it. I truly enjoyed its creative and well-thought out plot. It's not really high on suspense or mystery--it's really more of a compelling psychological dissection of the drivers that make us the people who we are--giving this book a unique feel that is sure to thrill the curious mind. Moreover, the narration was spot-on, making a perfect title to enjoy in audio format.Source: Review copy provided for review purposes.
    • 4/5
      A fourteen-year-old girl is kidnapped and held against her will in the harsh, desolate marshlands of Michigan's Upper Peninsula. The abductor, Jacob, impregnates her and Helena is born. Helena grows up in the marshlands with little knowledge of social relationships and of the world beyond the marsh. Jacob, Is at times a doting father, but he is often a brutal abuser to both Helena and her mother. Regardless, Helena is close to her father and learns well the skills needed to survive. Finally, Helena recognizes the truth about her father, and she and her mother escape. Jacob is incarcerated, but upon his escape Helena decides that she must use the skills he taught her to track him down and protect her family. The story alternates between the present, where Helena has married and made a family, and her life in the marsh where the reader learns of her many revelations leading to the recognition of her father's cruelty. The Hans Chistian Andersen fairy tale, "The Marsh King's Daughter", is woven in at the beginning of chapters paralleling the terror Helena endured in the marsh and the eventual finding of her morals. I usually enjoy psychological thrillers but, while good, this book just somehow didn't do it for me. (This book was received as an arc from Penguin in return for my honest review.)
    • 4/5
      I really enjoyed this book. I decided to pick this book up simply because the story sounded interesting. I had never read anything by the author so I really didn't know what to expect. I was immediately hooked. I actually ended up reading the whole book in a little more than a day because I wanted to read it during every free second I had. If I wasn't reading, I was thinking about this captivating story. I am very happy that I decided to give this book a try.This was a really exciting story told from a very unique point of view. I really liked how the story was told through present day events and memories. Helena was a wonderful character. She has lived a life very different than other people. She spent the first portion of her life with her mother and father in their home in the wilderness. She never saw anyone else and they were her entire life and that was her normal. In reality, her situation was anything but normal because her father had kidnapped her mother and was holding her captive.Helena learns that her father, known as the Marsh King, has escaped from prison. She knows him better than anyone in law enforcement so she sets out to try to catch him herself. Helena's father taught her how to navigate in the wilderness. She knows how to track and hunt because her father made sure that she had those skills. She needs those skills to find him before it is too late.I really enjoyed the way this book was written. I think that having the entire book come from Helena's point of view really worked well. Helena has a very unique point of view with memories from her childhood told through an adult's filter. The were times that we see things as she saw them as a child but other times that her adult views play a role. The book is set in the wilderness of northern Michigan and the descriptions were vivid in detail. The parts set in the present day were nicely balanced with the memories from the past.I would highly recommend this book to others. It is an exciting story told from a very unique point of view. I couldn't turn the pages fast enough because I was eager to learn how everything would end. This is the first book by Karen Dionne that I have read but I look forward to reading more in the future.I received an advanced reader edition of this book from G.P. Putnam's Sons via First to Read.
    • 5/5
      This psychological thriller was certainly a page-turner. The Marsh King's Daughter, while containing excerpts from the same-named "fairy-tale", is an interwoven story of past and present. As an adult, Helena has a loving husband, two little girls, and makes jam that the tourists literally eat up. However, Helena is hiding a secret from all who know and care about her. When her father escapes from prison, Helena must confront her past and solve the mystery of his disappearance before time runs out. This becomes a novel of retribution as Helena races the clock to right the wrongs of her past. Full of twists, turns, and suspense, I really enjoyed as Helena continued to development throughout the story. The geographical and historical references to Michigan's Upper Peninsula helped bring this story alive as well. Would recommend.
    • 5/5
      The Marsh King's Daughter is a wilderness "Room," but uniquely its own. This book kept me riveted to its story, terrified and intrigued. Helena, particularly as a child, is a well-drawn character, and an unforgettable one. I really loved this book and won't hesitate to recommend it.
    • 5/5
      Takes place in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Story about a man who kidnapped a young girl and kept her in the Marsh. Told by the daughter of the two.