Review: Pieces of Her by Karin Slaughter

Title: Pieces of Her

Author: Karin Slaughter

Published: August 2018, William Morrow

Format: ARC Paperback, 480 pages

Source: Publisher

Summary:

The #1 internationally bestselling author returns with a new novel in the vein of her New York Times bestsellers Pretty Girls and The Good Daughter—a story even more electrifying, provocative, and suspenseful than anything she’s written before. 

What if the person you thought you knew best turns out to be someone you never knew at all . . . ?

Andrea
Cooper knows everything about her mother, Laura. She knows she’s spent
her whole life in the small beachside town of Belle Isle; she knows
she’s never wanted anything more than to live a quiet life as a pillar
of the community; she knows she’s never kept a secret in her life.
Because we all know our mothers, don’t we?

But all that changes
when a trip to the mall explodes into violence and Andrea suddenly sees a
completely different side to Laura. Because it turns out that before
Laura was Laura, she was someone completely different. For nearly thirty
years she’s been hiding from her previous identity, lying low in the
hope that no one would ever find her. But now she’s been exposed, and
nothing will ever be the same again.

The police want answers and
Laura’s innocence is on the line, but she won’t speak to anyone,
including her own daughter. Andrea is on a desperate journey following
the breadcrumb trail of her mother’s past. And if she can’t uncover the
secrets hidden there, there may be no future for either one of them. . . 

My thoughts: While I have only read the last few books of Karin Slaughter – I have become an instant fan! Her books are so addicting and intense and filled with exciting, well-developed characters that you can’t help but get attached to.

At the heart of this story are two fundamental questions: Can you really escape your past? and How well do you really know those around you? These two questions come to play when Andrea and her mother Laura are caught in a shooting at a mall. Andrea sees a side of her mother she never saw before and suddenly her whole life shifts…who is this person in front of her? In the aftermath of the shooting, things take on a new light and send Andrea searching for answers that she never knew she needed to know.

I loved the way this story is told. It alternates between Andrea’s chapters in the present tense and Laura’s chapters in the past tense. But I have to say, this is a book you need to pay attention to and when I first picked it up, I totally was not in the right head-space for it. There wasn’t anything wrong with the book – I just could not concentrate on what I was reading, so I had to put it down. Once I was able to give my full attention to the book, I was able to totally immerse myself in it…and I’m so glad I did that. 

This book really kept me guessing all the way through. As the pieces of the puzzle slowly come together, we find out just who Laura is and why things are the way they are. I had some guesses but I never did put it all together. It’s a clever, complex, thrilling novel…and I highly recommend it!