Pat's Reviews > The Stepchild

3.5 rounded up.

This was another very good domestic thriller from Nicole Trope. Twelve year old Shelby is the stepchild. Her father Randall is now married to second wife Leslie and they have a three year old girl, Mille. Shelby shares her time between her father’s household and her mother, Bianca’s. Bianca has also remarried. A very common blended family situation - right? One weekend things come to a head though and the keeping of secrets makes it very hard to work out what is going on.

One Saturday Leslie needs some groceries and leaves Millie in the care of Shelby, telling her she’ll only be gone an hour. In fact she is gone for close to two hours. She did not just go shopping. When she does return Shelby is in a panic as Millie has disappeared. According to Shelby she just popped upstairs to the bathroom and by the she returned Millie had the door open and had disappeared. But that is not what happened either.

Meanwhile Leslie is getting anonymous messages telling her that her husband is not who she thinks he is. And there then there is Ruth who suffers from agoraphobia and OCD but who has seen something on one of her rare outing that prompts her into taking action to prevent what happened to her from happening to another innocent.

It is easy to think you know what is going on her but don’t be so sure. There are more secrets to come out and some breathtaking betrayals. The story is told through the POV of Leslie, Shelby and Ruth and as you get to know them better you really feel their pain. It takes a lot of bravery for some of the stories to be told and, unfortunately, the scenario is far too common. The story was excellent but I felt it was let down slightly by too much repetition of some elements. Nevertheless I will be very keen to see what Nicole Trope comes up with next. Many thanks to Netgalley and Bookouture for the much appreciated arc which I reviewed voluntarily and honestly.