Now on Netflix! Starring Toni Collette and Bella Heathcote!
Mother. Hero. Liar. Killer. How can you tell when all you have is...
PIECES OF HER
What if the person you thought you knew best turns out to be someone you never knew at all . . . ?
Andrea 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. . . .
Now on Netflix! Starring Toni Collette and Bella Heathcote!
Mother. Hero. Liar. Killer. How can you tell when all you have is...
PIECES OF HER
What if the person you thought you knew best turns out to be someone you never knew at all . . . ?
Andrea 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. . . .
Reviews-
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February 15, 2018
On Gullaway Island, the mall is suddenly rent by terrible violence, and Andrea's mother is later shot. That's how Andrea learns that her mother has unimaginable secrets. Slaughter's recent The Good Daughter reached No. 2 on the combined New York Times best sellers list, her record high. With a 250,000-copy first printing.
Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
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May 28, 2018
At the start of this gripping standalone from bestseller Slaughter (The Good Daughter), down-in-the-dumps Andrea “Andy” Oliver and her mother, Laura, a gifted speech therapist, meet for lunch at the Rise-n-Dine in her hometown of Belle Isle, Ga., to celebrate Andy’s 31st birthday. When a gunman opens fire in the diner and kills two women, Laura confronts the man and shows remarkable courage in putting an end to his spree. In the ensuing media frenzy, Andy realizes how little she knows about her mother, who turns out to have been involved in some shady activities in the late 1980s, as revealed in flashbacks. As Andy tries to track down the pieces of her mother’s past, her curiosity puts others in danger. Readers will be fascinated by Laura’s backstory if sometimes frustrated by timid Andy’s woes. The plot takes a while to build momentum, but once it does, it speeds to the satisfying payoff. Slaughter reinforces her place at the top of the thriller pack. Author tour. Agent: Victoria Sanders, Victoria Sanders & Assoc. -
June 1, 2018
A plain-Jane daughter's 31st birthday celebration explodes into a nightmare within a nightmare in Slaughter's latest stand-alone.Andrea Oliver's always felt inferior to her parents. Her father, Gordon Oliver, is a trusts and estates attorney; her mother, Dr. Laura Oliver, is a speech therapist. Andy herself has never aspired to any career goal higher than serving as an assistant to someone important. Even when she left Belle Isle, Georgia, for the Big Apple, she got nowhere, and she was only too eager to return home when her mother announced three years ago that she'd been diagnosed with breast cancer. As the two women mark Andy's birthday by sharing lunch in a mall cafe, a crazed shooter opens fire on a mother-and-daughter pair who've stopped to greet Laura, and Andy's life changes in an instant. Or rather two instants, the first when the shots ring out and the second when Laura, after inviting the killer to shoot her next, coolly and dispassionately dispatches him. It takes the dazed Andy hours to realize that her mother's not at all who she seems to be, and by the time she's ready to accept the fact that Laura Oliver is a woman with a past, that past is already racing to catch up with both mother and daughter. Cutting back and forth between Andy's harrowing flight to nowhere after Laura pushes her out of her home and a backstory 30 years earlier involving the Army of the Changing World, a cell of amateur terrorists determined to strike a mortal blow against greedy capitalists and, it eventually turns out, each other as well, Slaughter (The Good Daughter, 2017, etc.) never abates her trademark intensity, and fans will feel that the story is pumping adrenalin directly into their bloodstreams. Long before the end, though, the impostures, secret identities, hidden motives, and double-crosses will have piled up past the point of no return, leaving the tale to run on adrenalin alone.Reading anything by Slaughter is like riding a particularly scary amusement park ride. Reading this one is like booking a season ticket on a ride that never lets you off.COPYRIGHT(2018) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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Starred review from May 1, 2018
Slaughter moves in a new direction with this story of a woman whose past catches up with her. Mousy Laura Cooper lives a quiet life in Georgia with her twentysomething daughter, Andrea. One morning, the women are in a restaurant when a man bursts in and starts shooting. Laura leaps up and kills the man, leaving Andrea (and the whole world, thanks to another diner's cellphone video) wondering where the hell Laura's ninja-like skills came from. When Andrea witnesses a stranger threatening Laura in their home the next day, Laura forces Andrea out of town to keep her safe. That backfires as Andrea becomes determined to uncover her mom's past, which is a doozy of a tale. Slaughter reveals the story bit by bit in chapters that leap from 1986 to the present, leading the reader from Oslo to San Francisco to Texas and back to Georgia. Her talent for writing convincingly flawed yet sympathetic characters is in high relief here, as she juggles the mystery of Laura, past and present. Readers will find themselves totally immersed in the suspenseful, alternating story lines and won't want either of them to end.HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: This departure from Slaughter's more-gruesome stand-alone thrillers and popular series mysteries will more than satisfy her many fans.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.) -
June 1, 2018
The latest stand-alone thriller from Edgar Award nominee Slaughter (Cop Town; The Good Daughter) introduces Andrea Cooper, a college grad living in New York City, working three part-time jobs and sitting on a mound of college debt. When her mother, Laura, is diagnosed with breast cancer, Andrea returns to the beach town of Belle Isle to care for her. While visiting a local mall, Andrea and Laura get caught up in a fatal shooting, revealing a side to Laura that Andrea has never before witnessed. Twenty-four hours later, Laura is in the hospital, wounded by an intruder who has spent 30 years trying to track her down. As secrets are uncovered and exposed, Andrea starts to wonder if everything she thought she knew about her life has been a fabrication. VERDICT With an intrigue- and suspense-filled plot, Slaughter's well-crafted, tense, and exhilarating story will keep readers on the edge of their seats. [See Prepub Alert, 1/22/18.]--Joni Gheen, Lady J's Bookish Nook, McConnelsville, OH
Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
- Entertainment Weekly on Pieces of Her "The ever-popular crime novelist is back with another pulse-pounding standalone, this one considering the twisted relationship between a mother and a daughter after the latter realizes she may not know the woman who gave birth to her at all."
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Booklist (starred review) on Pieces of Her
"[Slaughter's] talent for writing convincingly flawed yet sympathetic characters is in high relief here... Readers will find themselves totally immersed in the suspenseful, alternating story lines and won't want either of them to end."
- Washington Post "All of Slaughter's books... are satisfyingly surprising and plausible, but it's Slaughter's prodigious gifts of characterization that make her stand out among thriller writers.... Slaughter's satirical touches are as deft as her grimmer renditions of real life."
- theSkimm "If you're into mystery thrillers, then you're into Karin Slaughter."
- Lisa Ko, author of The Leavers "Enter the world of Karin Slaughter. Just be forewarned, there's no going back."
- Jeffery Deaver "Breathtaking.... Fiction doesn't get any better than this."
- Gillian Flynn "Simply one of the best thriller writers working today. I'd follow her anywhere."
- Suspense Magazine on Pieces of Her "It's a compelling story that swept me along, unable to resist and unable to stop reading."
- Library Journal on Pieces of Her "With an intrigue and suspense-filled plot, Slaughter's well-crafted, tense, and exhilarating story will keep readers on the edge of their seats."
