Pieces Of Her by Karin Slaughter

Val Penny ♦ May 1, 2019 ♦ Leave a comment

Every now and again, I go on a book buying spree. Recently I did an Amazon Search and found books by favourite authors and authors I feel I should have read that were being offered for bargain prices. One of the books I bought was the stand-alone by Karin Slaughter, Pieces of Her.

It had been too long since I had read a novel by Karin Slaughter. She is one of the world’s most popular and acclaimed storytellers. Published in 120 countries with more than 35 million copies sold across the globe, her nineteen novels include the Grant County and Will Trent books, as well as the Edgar-nominated COP TOWN and the instant NEW YORK TIMES bestselling novels PRETTY GIRLS, THE GOOD DAUGHTER, and PIECES OF HER. Slaughter is the founder of the Save the Libraries project—a nonprofit organization established to support libraries and library programming. A native of Georgia, Karin Slaughter lives in Atlanta. Her standalone novels PIECES OF HER, THE GOOD DAUGHTER, and COP TOWN are in development for film and television.

Pieces of Her tells the story of Laura and her daughter, Andrea. They live in the quiet seaside town of Belle Isle where Andrea is struggling with her return from New York and Laura works as a speech therapist, business owner. Andrea sees her mother as a pillar of the community and a friend to all around her. However, when Andrea is caught in a random violent attack at a shopping mall, Laura intervenes and acts in a way that is unrecognisable to her daughter. It’s like Laura is a completely different person – and that’s because she was.

Laura is hailed as a hero because of what happened at the mall but only a few hours later she is in hospital, shot by an intruder. An intruder t her home who has spent decades trying to track her down, because Laurs has a past that pre-dates Andrea and her life in Belle Isle. Laura sends Andrea away to try to protect her and Andrea is left to piece together her mother’s former identity and discover the truth about Laura whom she has always thought of just as her gentle, loving Mother.

I do not generally like books that flip between the past and the present. However, this is a book by Karin Slaughter and Karin Slaughter at her best, at that. I did work out Laura’s real identity fairly quickly. But that did not detract from the excitement inherent in Pieces of Her.

The story weaves between the present and thirty years ago when a family story is told. The novel is, perhaps just a little too long with perhaps, just one or two too many twists. Having said that, I thoroughly enjoyed Pieces of Her and hope your would too.

Val Penny