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Hoo boy, is there a lot to unpack in The Daughters, a chilling psych thriller from Julia Crouch.

I’m not even sure where to start.

I guess I should have had an inkling about the mental states of both Sara and Lucy from the very first chapter. But the author does a great job of not giving away too much. Just enough to make the reader question backstory.

And there is a lot of backstory.

As always, you can get the gist of it from the blurb but suffice to say that Sara and Lucy’s mom allegedly committed suicide years prior. And that is questionable for more than a few reasons.

Actually, as I am writing this, I realize that none of the characters are particularly trustworthy in their perspectives. Sara is bitter. Lucy is a broken toy. And Carys is too good to be true.

In fact, Carys got on my nerves from the beginning. I’m not sure if that is the author’s intent, but she truly was too much of a do-gooder to believe that she didn’t have ulterior motives about…well, anything.

I’m not telling you if my instinct was right, but let’s just say that it is a good psych thriller partially because of how her true character is revealed.

Additionally, however, she was difficult to root for because it just felt like she was more caricature than character. Like she was too good for anything. Again, I think that is by design. But I was totally with Sara not liking her.

I really felt for Sara and Lucy, especially the latter. She is obviously so damaged for some reason (that is revealed in the book) that it is easy to see how past traumas can affect present mental health. So, there is another “psych” angle to the psych thriller.

Given recent events in the real world, this is something that truly struck home with me.

But this isn’t about that.

I liked how the author made me question pretty much everyone’s perspectives and I liked being off-balance as to who was trustworthy. The reveals come about at just the right time in the book. The plot progresses at a good pace.

I actually stayed up late reading this one. And that rarely happens.

I enjoyed The New Mother by Julia Crouch, and The Daughters is another good psych thriller that should go on your list.

Author Bio:

Julia started off as a theatre director and playwright. While her children were growing up, she swerved into graphic design. After writing and illustrating two children’s books for an MA, she discovered that her great love was writing prose. The picture books were deemed too dark for publication, so, to save the children, she turned instead to writing for adults. Her first book, Cuckoo, was published in 2011, and she has been writing what she calls her Domestic Noir novels ever since. She also writes for TV and teaches on the Crime Writing MA at the University of East Anglia. She has three grown up children and lives in Brighton with her husband and two cats, Keith and Sandra.

If there is one lesson to learn from The Bridesmaids (a new psych thriller by Victoria Jenkins), it’s that women do not need men to screw up their lives. They are quite capable of being vicious to each other and causing all kinds of devastation.

That may sound a bit dramatic, but then again, so are the plot threads in this book.

What is supposed to be a fun hen weekend away for Holly and her bridesmaids, most of them lifelong friends, turns dark in many ways.

It is apparent almost immediately that everyone at this party has something to hide. Some secrets are ancient history, and some are more recent. But they all affect each of the other women in some way.

I imagine these connections were not easy to establish and keep straight, because it does become quite a web of lies and deceit. But the success of it is also what makes it a psych thriller. So, kudos to the author on that.

I liked how the action is told from alternating points of view. The reader gets a holistic sense of the events because each person has a different perspective and very different motivations for their actions.

While you would think that Holly is the main narrator (as it is her weekend) that isn’t necessarily the case. I would say that she isn’t even the one who is most impacted by it all.

I don’t want to give anything away, but let’s just say that nobody gets out of the weekend unscathed.

There are a few unfinished threads. For example, Zoe doesn’t seem to have much to do except be there as a catalyst for the others. It would have been nice to have her be a bit more balanced with the others.

But there is so much else going on, it kind of doesn’t matter. I guess that is a bit nitpicky on my part.

There is a point in the book where the secrets start to come to light and once that begins, the actions of the women and the ensuing event come fast and furious. The author holds nothing back – it is punch after punch of “holy crap, no way!” revelations.

I also think the author is bold in the choice of ending. Many books wrap everything up neatly and characters make amends of some kind. But real life isn’t like that. So, allowing everything to be more natural actually reflects the impact the weekend had on the women.

And even then, the author still has one last revelation in the last pages.

As I said at the beginning of this review, women are quite capable of sabotaging and being horrible to each other. Victoria Jenkins does an excellent job of illustrating this in The Bridesmaids.

Want to read another psych thriller? Check out The New Family, also by Victoria Jenkins (review contains links to others as well!)

Victoria Jenkins lives with her husband and daughters in South Wales, where her bestselling series of crime novels featuring Detectives King and Lane is based. The first in the series, The Girls in the Water is a top 5 US kindle bestseller. She has an MA in Creative and Media Writing from the University of Wales, Swansea.