-
Your next favorite book
is waiting.
by Karen Dionne
Praised by Lee Child and Karin Slaughter, and sure to thrill fans of The Girl on the Train and The Widow, The Marsh King's Daughter is mesmerizing psychological suspense, the story of a woman who must risk everything to hunt down the dangerous man who shaped her past and threatens to steal her future: her father.
At last, Helena Pelletier has the life she deserves. A loving husband, two beautiful daughters, a business that fills her days. Then she catches an emergency news announcement and realizes she was a fool to think she could ever leave her worst days behind her.
Helena has a secret: she is the product of an abduction. Her mother was kidnapped as a teenager by her father and kept in a remote cabin in the marshlands of Michigan's Upper Peninsula. No electricity, no heat, no running water, not a single human beyond the three of them. Helena, born two years after the abduction, loved her home in nature - fishing, tracking, hunting. And despite her father's odd temperament and sometimes brutal behavior, she loved him, too ... until she learned precisely how savage a person he could be.
More than twenty years later, she has buried her past so soundly that even her husband doesn't know the truth. But now her father has killed two guards, escaped from prison, and disappeared into the marshland he knows better than anyone else in the world. The police commence a manhunt, but Helena knows they don't stand a chance. Knows that only one person has the skills to find the survivalist the world calls the Marsh King - because only one person was ever trained by him: his daughter.
"Starred Review. Exceptional ... Helena's conflicting emotions about her father and her own identity elevate this powerful story." - Publishers Weekly
"For fans of Emma Donoghue's Room and of novels with strong female leads." - Booklist
"Echoing Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale of the same title, Dionne's (The Killing; Uncommon Denominator) latest is a well-crafted, eerie, and unnerving psychological thriller. With a strong setting and swift pacing, this novel is recommended for readers who enjoyed Emma Donoghue's Room and Travis Mulhauser's Sweetgirl." - Library Journal
"Dionne tries to strike a balance between psychological thriller and coming-of-age tale, but the end result feels more like an unsettling walk down Memory Lane." - Kirkus
"Sensationally good psychological suspense- I loved this book." - Lee Child, #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Jack Reacher series
"Expertly written, gripping, compulsively readable- The Marsh King's Daughter is a stunner of a tale that will keep you on the edge of your seat until the very last page. Karen Dionne has created a world, a mood and a heroine that you won't forget anytime soon." - Melanie Benjamin, New York Times bestselling author of The Swans of Fifth Avenue
"Eerie and breathtaking, terrific and terrifying in the best possible way. Karen Dionne holds you under her spell from the first word to the last - and then some." - Tea Obreht, New York Times bestselling author of The Tiger's Wife
"If you only read one thriller this year, make it The Marsh King's Daughter. It's sensational." - Clare Mackintosh, New York Times bestselling author of I Let You Go
"The Marsh King's Daughter is a masterpiece of crisp prose and fine storytelling. Sinister and complex, this book's twists and turns lead to a final confrontation so intense it will leave your heart pounding. The Marsh King's Daughter is bound to become a classic. Read it."- Sara Gruen, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Water for Elephants and At the Water's Edge
"I was drawn into Karen Dionne's The Marsh King's Daughter from its first captivating sentences. Troubling, sinuous and powerfully told, you won't be able to stop turning the pages." - Megan Abbott, author of You Will Know Me
"This gorgeously written eerie suspense novel gave me chills as it raced toward an unexpected climax. I loved it!" - Karin Slaughter, author of Pretty Girls
This information about The Marsh King's Daughter was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Karen Dionne is the cofounder of the online writers community Backspace, the organizer of the Salt Cay Writers Retreat, and a member of the International Thriller Writers, where she served on the board of directors. She has been honored by the Michigan Humanities Council as a Humanities Scholar, and lives with her husband in Detroit's northern suburbs.
If you liked The Marsh King's Daughter, try these:
by Susan Choi
Published 2026
A novel tracing a father's disappearance across time, nations, and memory, from the author of Trust Exercise.
by Allegra Goodman
Published 2025
A young woman and her lover are marooned on an island in this breathtaking saga, an epic story of love, faith, and defiance from the bestselling author of Sam.
by Jessica Knoll
Published 2024
From the megabestselling author of Luckiest Girl Alive comes another shocking thriller inspired by the real-life sorority and target of America's first celebrity serial killer.
Theo of Golden by Allen Levi
One spring morning, a stranger arrives in the small southern city of Golden. No one knows where he has come from…or why…
Your guide toexceptional books
BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
