a heart of stone

Alison is a wife, mother of two, and author of the bestselling children’s book Moxie Saves Christmas. She lives in a lovely farmhouse in Vermont and spends one day every winter decorating the Christmas tree with her family. They make gingerbread and listen to Christmas carols and drink hot chocolate and laugh together. Christmas is Mark’s favorite holiday, as it is for their youngest daughter Olivia. Their teenager Izzy is skeptical of the holiday and would rather spend the day with her girlfriend, but Alison and Mark convince her to join in.

But decorating day is put on hold when Alison gets a phone call from Paul, her mother’s assistant. She’s barely spoken to her mother since she was able to be on her own. There had been an occasional phone call, a visit every few years. But otherwise, Alison had nothing to do with her mother’s life. Mavis Eldeen was an esteemed artist, wealthy and famous. But Alison had known her as a drunk and cruel mother. And now her mother was dying, and she wanted to spend her final weeks with Alison and her family, at their Vermont farmhouse.

Alison is slow to agree, but she does want to make some peace with her mother while she has a chance. She wants to try to understand her mother’s cruel remarks when she’d been a kid, the painful scars on her back, the mean-spirited pranks she had been subjected to. So she agrees. Paul takes over the planning, setting up the hospice nurse and providing all the paperwork, doctor’s orders, prescription information, everything Alison would need to care for her mother. They set up the guest room with a hospital bed and prepare for the arrival of Mavis.

Alison is worried at first, at how her mother would be around her husband and daughters. Would she be the same spiteful, abusive mother she had known as a kid? And if so, would she be able to protect her daughters from that? But as soon as Mavis shows up, she is generous and grateful, enjoying the ballet stories of Olivia, who is about to dance in her first Nutcracker performance. And when Izzy suggests video interviews with her grandmother, Mavis agrees to the interviews and encourages Izzy to make a documentary. Even Mark is charmed, playing cards with her.

At first, Alison is relieved that Mavis is being the mother from Alison’s good memories. But there are some unsettling events happening in the house too. A bunch of flies show up in Izzy’s room. Olivia starts having nightmares. And Alison feels unsettled, waiting for the other shoe to drop. And then her mother starts talking about a thing that happened when Alison was a kid, something that had happened when she had been alone in the woods. She had never told anyone about it. So how could her mother have known about it?

As the days go by, Alison tries to talk to her mother but her mother flips back and forth between the kind grandmother and the spiteful woman Alison had moved far away from. Sometimes it seemed like all Mavis cared about was the rock she had kept from her best friend. It was a special rock they had found on a trip to Mexico, beautiful with dark strands throughout. But for Alison, the rock seemed to make her crazy. Is the stress of dealing with her mother driving Alison crazy, or is there some dark magic that is seeping into their lives and putting them all in mortal danger?

My Darling Girl is a dark thriller about the demons that haunt us and the lengths we will go to trying to find safety and sanctuary. Author Jennifer McMahon is back to keep us all from a good night’s sleep with this twisted tale of family secrets, abuse, and dark magic.

This domestic thriller is a haunting good time, but it has some difficult moments to get through. Beside the child abuse, there is some animal abuse, talk of alcoholism, suicide, the painful reality of aging parents, and an overall chill that is hard to chase away without heavy blankets and a weapon stashed beside the bed. I love McMahon’s writing and her use of the supernatural, but there were moments of this book that may end up in my nightmares. This one is not for inexperienced thriller reader. It takes some work to get through. That being said, if you too ever wondered if your family member was possessed by evil, and you love a good horror movie, then My Darling Girl may just be the book you’ve been looking for.

Egalleys for My Darling Girl were provided by Gallery Books through NetGalley, with many thanks.