Only Daughter
- Anna Snoekstra
- Sep 26, 2016
- 2 min read
The premise of this book might not be completely original but I totally loved it. Written by an Australian and set in Australia, this book is a small masterpiece of a debut novel. It didn't go unnoticed the similarities, in a wacky oblique way, between this book and Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca – Rebecca Winter / Rebecca de Winter, Rebecca in both books goes missing, we don't know the name of the main female protagonists in either book. That's where the similarities end though, the stories are nothing like each other.
We never learn the name of the main female character because from the first few pages she is caught shoplifting and the police are called. She doesn't want to give her name because she would be sent back to her real life which she has run away from so her quick thinking has her tell the police she is an abducted teenage girl who went missing eleven years ago. From then on 'Rebecca' inveigles herself into a new life, sometimes with difficulty and a wing and a prayer, but she tries her hardest to pull it off because she knows that prison is probably her only option if she fails. Fairly quickly, 'Rebecca' realises that she is being followed and that something was wrong in the real Rebecca's life. Strange shapes loom in her bedroom at night, blood, lots of it, appears on her clothes and bed, and anonymous texts tell her to leave.
The story is told over two timelines – the run up to the time Rebecca disappeared eleven years earlier told by the real Rebecca, and the present time told mainly by the Rebecca imposter, friends and family. She has an uncomfortable relationship with the detective in charge of her abduction; he asks too many questions she doesn't want to answer but she's also very clever at manipulating him. Most of the characters are flawed, damaged or simply strange human beings so all makes for interesting reading.
Overall, I thought it was very cleverly written, at times dark, chilling and creepy and had a wonderful couple of twists at the end.
http://www.annasnoekstra.com/