The Good Daughter by Laure Van Rensburg

 

When a fire kills a pastor and his wife suspicion falls on their teenage daughter who survived. Abigail has no memory of the three weeks leading up to the fire. As Abigail struggles to remember what happened she begins to question her whole life.

I thoroughly enjoyed Laure Van Rensburg's debut novel, Nobody But Us, last year and was really happy to be given access to a review copy of her new novel, The Good Daughter. The style of the two novels is similar, the reader is unsettled and unable to get a clear understanding of exactly what happened because of the constantly switching narrative. In the first novel Van Rensburg kept switching between the protagonists, this time round we switch time frames.

As the novel opens we learn that there has been a fire on the grounds of a conservative church group. There is evidence that the victims were killed before the fire started so suspicion falls on the daughter, Abigail, who survived. The story then jumps back five weeks and we learn that Abigail started talking to a podcaster who is investigating the church community.

From this point on the story switches between events after the fire and the five weeks leading up to the fire. Early on in the novel we learn that the church community is more like a cult, one in which women are seen as homemakers and mothers and that the outside world is corrupt. As time moves on we see how extreme the members of this group are and the lengths that some of them will go to in order to protect their way of life.

The events leading up to the fire show how Abigail is questioning not only the life she currently lives but also the memories she has as a child before joining the community and being brainwashed. Abigail happily accepted her role within the community, striving to be a "good daughter", never questioning that she would become a wife and mother when her parents decided the time was right. As memories are stirred she questions if everything the church leaders, particularly her father, say is right.

When you first start reading there is an intense feeling, almost claustrophobic. This is reinforced by the almost closed community and the southern setting. As we move through the story the tension builds and you can feel the panic rising in Abigail as she begins to distrust not only those around her but her own memories. There are even times were she feels as if she is going mad because she starts to see things.

The conclusion isn't shocking, enough hints are dropped in the run up to it, however it is satisfying. The novel left me with a feeling of anger more than anything, anger because religion is used by immoral people to control others.

The Good Daughter by Laure Van Rensburg will be published on 3rd August 2023 in hardback, ebook and audio format. My thanks to NetGalley and Michael Joseph books for a review copy.