Customer Reviews

The Other Daughter

5 star:		(86)
4 star:		(40)
3 star:		(16)
2 star:		(13)
1 star:		(20)

 

 

Well, it's not a horror story written in the Stephen King or Dean Koontz genre, but it's horrorifying enough to keep you up at night!

Melanie Stokes was adopted by the Stokes family at the age of nine, when she was discovered in the emergency room abandoned by her parents and suffering amnesia. She grows up in the family loved by her parents and brother ~~ till a Texan reporter contacts her to share with her the mystery of her past. And that's when Lisa Gardner grabs you by the hand and takes you down a lane filled with secrets that will explode when Melanie stumbles on secrets her family has been keeping from her for 20 years.

Lisa writes such a riveting suspenseful book!! Just when you think you got the murderer figured out, she takes you out for another spin on the theory idea and you're lost again. Then she takes you down other possibilities and you're on the run again. She writes with such twists and turns that you cannot put the book down.

If you're in the mood for mind games, this book is it. It is much more of a psychological thriller with a couple of murders thrown in it to keep the suspense alive. And the ending is totally unpredictable. It's such a fun book to read!!

I must say that Lisa Gardner is definetly one of those authors who fall into the category of either very hot or very cold. The first book I read, The Perfect Husband, was nothing short of never ending suspense with a believable plot. On the contrary,The Other Daughter fell way short. This book went on for way longer than it should have, and the ending was not only disappointing, but completely unbelievable. I understand it is a fiction novel, but still...she could've done better. On the bright side, the book did have some interesting and exciting areas, but they were too few and far between,except for the last few chapters of the book where everything seemed to be happening at once. I would not say this book was a total loss, but after seeing what Ms Gardner is capable of with her previous writings, I found this one to be a little disappointing.

The author of The Perfect Husband has outdone herself! Lisa Gardner has supplied for us avid readers a spine chilling book of murder and lies.

In 1977 Russell Lee Holmes was put to death for murdering six young children. It was always speculated, but never proven that that he also had a wife and child. On the date of his death, he admits to a local reporter that he also killed 4 year old Meagan Stokes five years earlier. Also on the night he is put to death, a 9 year old child found drugged and abandoned at a Boston hospital by none other than Harper Stokes, Meagan's father. The Stokes adopt Melanie and for 20 years life is perfect.

Now 20 years later Melanie receives a call from a sleazy tabloid reporter claming she is really Russell Lee Holmes child. A coverup and conspiracy is uncovered and Melanie must turn to FBI agent David Riggs for help. Did Russell Lee Holmes kill little Meagan Stokes 25 years ago? If not, who? What happened to little Meagan and who is Melanie's brith parents?

Lisa Gardner has written a page turner that will keep you up until the end. My only question is why wasn't this published in hardback? Surely Lisa Gardner has enough readers.

Having read “Alone” quite recently, I backed up a bit and picked up some other novels by the prolific Ms. Gardner, who also writes under the name “Alicia Scott”

Although similar to “Alone” in that the main female character has a hidden and troubled past, this one is not as polished as her more recent novel, with quite a few plot holes, impossible situations, and gaps that are hastily brushed over with a sentence or two. For example, we learn that one character conveniently “had the knack for bypassing various security systems” which, coming where it did in the novel, appears to be a hastily added after-thought to explain a hole.

Some clumsy dialogue, unnecessary repetition of plot points, laughable love scenes and under-developed characters detract from what could have been an above-average thriller, full of twists and surprises. An okay read, but not one you’d want to remember as your first Gardner novel.

Rated: 3.5 stars


Amanda Richards, May 13, 2006

Lisa Gardner is a talented, dependable author. Her stories are riveting and a sheer pleasure to read. The Other Daughter is no exception. This is a hard story to try and give a synopsis for. There are so many turns and twists, you think you have it figured out, then it abruptly makes a sharp turn on you and goes off in a different direction. The one thing I can say about the story, is that it's worth the price of the book.

Melanie has grown up knowing that she was adopted by Dr. Stokes and his wife. She was found abandoned in the ER department when she was 9, with no knowledge of who she was or where she came from. The Stokes already have an older son, Brian, and they had a daughter once, but she was murdered by a serial killer. That serial killer would be none other than Melanie's biological father.....or was it? There is so much that can't be expounded upon in this review or I will give away all the fun. Just know that this book takes off after the first couple of pages and never looks back.

The cast of characters are interesting, real, and easy to love and/or hate. Ms. Gardner takes the time to develop her heroes and villians into people cheer for and loath. I gave the book a 4 star rating because I felt that the quickness in which our heroine fell in love with our G-man was silly and unrealistic. Take that out of the equation and you have mystery/suspense masterpiece. Give it a try, I think you'll love it.

A vicious, pedophile serial killer is executed in Texas' "Old Sparky." He goes to his death defiantly, never revealing the identities of his wife and only child to the reporter who hounds him for the story of a lifetime. Across the country in Boston, on the same night of the execution, an abandoned nine year-old girl is found drugged and unconscious in a room at City General Hospital. When she recovers she has no memory of her identity or her past. She is adopted by the hospital's most successful heart surgeon and his family - the same family whose only daughter, Meagan, was murdered by the Texas serial killer five years before.

Fast forward twenty years - the adopted girl, named Melanie by her new parents, is now a successful event organizer for Boston's rich and famous. A graduate of Wellesley, she has what appears to be a wonderful life with a perfect family. Then she is contacted by a sleazy reporter from Texas who has been investigating her past. Recurring nightmares that she has not had for years begin again. She discovers a macabre shrine set-up in her bedroom along with a note, "You Get What You Deserve." Melanie's life begins to unravel as she discovers things about her parents, her brother and her godfather that turn the truths of her past twenty years into terrible lies. She begins a desperate search for her real identity with the help of love interest, FBI agent David Riggs, and slowly begins to discover that the family members she loves and trusts may be the people she should fear the most.

Lisa Gardner has written another gripping mystery that will keep you turning pages long into the night. This is a dark, scary thriller - so be prepared!
JANA

The author of The Perfect Husband has outdone herself! Lisa Gardner has supplied for us avid readers a spine chilling book of murder and lies.

In 1977 Russell Lee Holmes was put to death for murdering six young children. It was always speculated, but never proven that that he also had a wife and child. On the date of his death, he admits to a local reporter that he also killed 4 year old Meagan Stokes five years earlier. Also on the night he is put to death, a 9 year old child found drugged and abandoned at a Boston hospital by none other than Harper Stokes, Meagan's father. The Stokes adopt Melanie and for 20 years life is perfect.

Now 20 years later Melanie receives a call from a sleazy tabloid reporter claming she is really Russell Lee Holmes child. A coverup and conspiracy is uncovered and Melanie must turn to FBI agent David Riggs for help. Did Russell Lee Holmes kill little Meagan Stokes 25 years ago? If not, who? What happened to little Meagan and who is Melanie's brith parents?

Lisa Gardner has written a pageturner that will keep you up until the end. My only question is why wasn't this published in hardback? Surely Lisa Gardner has enough readers.

Was one of the best books I have read in a long time. The last 1/4 of the book turned around everything I thought I had figured out. It kept me quessing till the very end and shocked. I have shared this book with friends and they had the same feeling as I did. It was an excellent, fast-paced read. Don't miss this one!

i love lisa gardner's book and this one is no exception..
in the beginning when the reporter told melanie that she might be the daughter of a killer that killed her adopted parent's late daughter and also the parents knew about it, i just couldn't be apart from this book more than 5 minutes, well, make it 3...
you just know that it's impossible for any human being to do that yet the evidence shows that it is more possible than impossible..
behind all the perfection surrounding melanie, there was a darkness..
gardner has a gift about writing the darkest and nastiest thing a human being can ever do.. her books are just extraordinary

From the first page, it is evident that Gardner is a very poor writer. I read lots of mysteries, and most are passable. This was among the worst, or possibly the very worst, I've read in a long time. For one thing, she whines endlessly about how much she "looooves her family" again and again and again and again. It's like non-beef filler. Was Gardener getting paid by the word? And, there were things that didn't make sense at all. Why did she lose her memory? That was never explained or even questioned. When Ann Margaret finds out William is dead, she doesn't care at all. Then you find out later that he was her son, whom she'd moved to the east coast to be near. But no, she didn't give a crap that he died. Yeah. And Jamie was the one who was asked to identify Megan's body. Yet, late in the book, it says that the girl (who was passed off as Megan) was decapitated so that dental records couldn't be matched. So, if I have this right, Jamie was supposed to identify the headless body of a five year old. Really? If he could do that with accuracy, he would be arrested! This was just a terrible, terrible book. I got it for free, and I feel ripped off!