A Daughter to Die For is a dark romance about a broken boy and an angry girl, both driven by pain from their childhoods. Nicolas is a desperate Casanova turned criminal, and Judith is the femme fatale, determined to hunt him down. Nicolas has abducted Martha to seduce her into replacing a woman who broke his heart. Now, Judith vows to kill the man who took her mom, and only Justin, the sexy cop she met the night her mom went missing, can stop her.
Martha, a bleeding-heart therapist, decides she must help Nicolas face his past if she ever wants to get free. Then she meets his father, Erik, and damn—suddenly, getting kidnapped isn’t so bad. A second chance for Martha, a soulmate for Judith. Mother and daughter could end up having it all—or end up dead. As Judith walks the warpath, searching for clues, Justin plays mind games to win her heart. Until Martha discovers why Nicolas took her, and all hell breaks loose.
Suspenseful, steamy, and led by a strong heroine, this is a heartwarming story about the power of love that will appeal to all those who aren’t scared of the dark stuff.
A Daughter to Die For is a dark romance about a broken boy and an angry girl, both driven by pain from their childhoods. Nicolas is a desperate Casanova turned criminal, and Judith is the femme fatale, determined to hunt him down. Nicolas has abducted Martha to seduce her into replacing a woman who broke his heart. Now, Judith vows to kill the man who took her mom, and only Justin, the sexy cop she met the night her mom went missing, can stop her.
Martha, a bleeding-heart therapist, decides she must help Nicolas face his past if she ever wants to get free. Then she meets his father, Erik, and damn—suddenly, getting kidnapped isn’t so bad. A second chance for Martha, a soulmate for Judith. Mother and daughter could end up having it all—or end up dead. As Judith walks the warpath, searching for clues, Justin plays mind games to win her heart. Until Martha discovers why Nicolas took her, and all hell breaks loose.
Suspenseful, steamy, and led by a strong heroine, this is a heartwarming story about the power of love that will appeal to all those who aren’t scared of the dark stuff.
Judith Monroe was an angry girl, and she wouldn’t deny it. She despised her pathetic mother, her dirtbag father, her bratty sister, and all nine of her ex-boyfriends and nineteen hookups ranging from reasons like excessive nerdiness to excessive drugginess. She even hated the smart one. What was his name, Lance? For being too damn smart.
Everyone had the same effect on her. They tried to make her feel like the losers they were. She wasn’t a loser, she was a victim. A survivor of a future wrecked by parents who put themselves first and left her to come in last for the rest of her life. At almost twenty years old she had plenty of life left in her. What was she supposed to do now that her whole purpose for existing was gone?
“Judith” was another reason she hated her mother. Seriously? Judith? What a terrible name to curse a beautiful girl with, regardless of whether it once belonged to some war heroine way up in the branches of her family tree or not. It was damn ugly! And a constant embarrassment for her at all the beauty pageants her parents thrust her into for years then abruptly cut her off when the divorce drained all their resources.
Judith used to be a perennial queen. No one could match her allure. Now, thanks to her parents, her attributes were all going to waste. Growing up, there were dancing and acting classes, voice lessons and martial arts—the works. Judith was their prize and she loved that it was she and not her stupid sister who kept her parents together. When the world could see, they were about as compatible as pickles and ice cream, her dad being the ice cream. Who was she stuck living with? The pickle.
Judith glared at her gorgeous reflection. Time to slip on her bridesmaid’s dress and look stunning. Too bad she couldn’t wear it to a competition and take home a trophy instead of to this bullshit wedding. Her new stepmom was like gooey chocolate syrup. She drowned out all the best parts of ice-cream dad with her loud voice and lewd jokes, to which he replied by turning red and playing dumb.
While Judith appreciated his need to rebound as far as possible from her mother in personality and appearance, she couldn’t understand why he had to marry the hag. Lori wasn’t worth the hassle and spent all her time smothering any hopes of an inheritance for his daughters with her insatiable lust for shopping.
After high school, her dad refused to pay for her modeling career. He suggested that she get a job instead. Now she worked as a server in a restaurant and it sucked. Mom was trying to relive her twenties by returning to college and there was no money anywhere. She sighed in despair. Life was so unfair. She stared at the long shelf covered in beauty pageant trophies and feared they meant nothing now. Which meant she meant nothing now.
Judith watched the curtains start to blow wildly at her window. It smelled like rain, which was good for her current mood and bad for her gown. This whole thing was a farce. Dad had been shacking up with Lori ever since he left mom. Why the marriage facade? To appease the guilt for what they did to his family? And then there was her mom. Still hung up on a guy who treated her like shit. It was embarrassing.
“Judith? Do you need help with your hair?”
Her mom knocked then shook the handle. Was there no end to the irritation? She still pretended she was a pageant mom waiting with the curling iron and hairspray.
“No mom. Of course, I don’t!”
“What about the dress? Does it still fit?”
“Yes!” What was she trying to insinuate? Bitch.
“Okay, we need to leave in less than ten minutes.”
“Fine mom. I still don’t know why we are doing this.”
“I know. It seems ridiculous, even to me. Now hurry. Lizzy and I are waiting.”
Perfect little Lizzy. A straight-A student who graduated from high school a year early and was now a college girl, mom’s bestie, so sweet and good, got everything she wanted and everyone loved her best—little brat.
Life was hell with her mom and sister. Her only hope was that her dad would relent and take her to live with him once the honeymoon ended with psycho-shopping Lori, or she’d move into a homeless shelter. At this point, anything was better than this.
Judith listened to her mom walk away then plopped down on her bed, considering her place in life. She was beautiful but that was useless these days. Sure, people stared at her and guys lusted after her but that meant nothing. Secretly, she wanted to find someone who could rescue her from her stagnant life. That seemed impossible. All the guys she had met sucked. A bunch of losers partying it up on their daddy’s dime looking for a free whore. Not their soulmate.
She had a ton of unresolved pain from her childhood. Being a perennial trophy winner wasn’t all rainbows and sunshine. Too many maelstroms were eager to cast their shadow on innocent things like pretty young girls. Worse, it wasn’t she who enjoyed the accolades but her parents. Mainly her dad. The same one who dumped her for Hag-Lori.
It was all too much. She couldn’t cry. She wouldn’t cry. She hadn’t seen her dad in months and didn’t want to witness him marry that bitch. It would kill her. Her eyes burned as she tried not to think of all her dad memories. He was such a wonderful dad before Lori. Why had he changed? If only she could read his mind.
One thing was clear. It would take a perfect man to incite her to fall in love. She would never let a man do to her what dad did to mom. She would bring down all her considerable pent-up wrath on any man who hurt her. Burn him into dead meat. She’d turn into Black Widow or even Harley Quinn and make him regret it.
To make herself feel better, Judith mentally relived all the many competitions where she heard those words “And the winner is!” Why was life so cruel? It wasn’t for all her friends who were now partying it up at out-of-state schools or making wedding plans. Judith had no idea where she was going in life. She had always focused on beauty pageants instead of academics, convinced it would be looks that took her places. It turned out that beauty wasn’t enough. You also needed money—lots of it.
Judith wanted to curse, scream and throw one of her usual fits but contained herself. Now wasn’t the time to vent but to pretend. Time for competition mode. Smile prettily and prance down the aisle in front of the sleaze her dad chose over his favorite daughter who was once affectionately known as his one and only weakness.
Presently, she had even more pressing matters—a matching sandal to find and her cell phone to charge and not forget. She had fistfuls of lustrous waves to scorch into bridesmaid curls and layers of carbon-black mascara to apply. Followed by dozens of tears to blink back from leaking past her rigid barriers and ruining her dry-clean-only pale-pink satin.
Daughter to Die For by Tanya Madsen is a dark, emotionally complex journey of trauma, obsession, and the leftover shards of love. Right from page one, the story casts a kind of urgency and dread, and it doesn't really relent even once you've closed the book.
What differentiates A Daughter to Die For from many others is how textured the characters are as well as their moral complexity. No one is wholly good or bad, and no one falls into any easy formula. Madsen writes people like raw nerves—hurt, reactive, and resilient. The prose has a quality of urgency that resembles the chaotic emotional world the characters exist in, and it is fantastic to read! Whether you feel the tension of the wounded Casanova or the desperation of the determined young woman trying to understand her world. It all strikes with equal force and sorrow.
Despite being purposeful, the scenes and pacing are never boring. Madsen pens the scenes and actions with a cinematic quality—sometimes painfully observationally close, sometimes distant and poetic, but always grounding her characters with a kind of feverish authenticity. It's an odd quality, but the discomfort, distress, and lamentation that many characters endure give it additional gravitas. It's both profound and—is not easy for those (the reader or characters) to understand. The themes are rarely easy: mourning, manipulation, and power.
Madsen won’t hold your hand or provide you with easy answers. She asks you to come along with her characters on their journeys into the depths of despair—and figure out for yourself what redemption might look like.
A Daughter to Die For is not a pleasant read, but it is memorable. And long after you turn the last page, you will still have the characters living in your head rent-free. Highly recommended for readers who love intensity and don’t mind delving into the dark.