The Dream Daughter and Other September Reads

I finished eight books in September:

Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper by Robert Bloch
The Cuckoo’s Calling by Robert Galbraith (audiobook)
The Ancient Nine by Ian Smith (eARC)
Betrayal by John Lescroart
The Dream Daughter by Diane Chamberlain (ARC)
When the Lights Go Out by Mary Kubica (audiobook)
The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers
November Road by Lou Berney (ARC)


This has been a bit of a blah reading month for me. Honestly, I didn’t read anything this month that I super loved. Two of the ARCs I read were very meh, you can find links to my reviews here:
The Ancient Nine 
November Road

The third ARC, I really did not enjoy. I am posting that review here, because I was able to identify exactly why I didn’t enjoy the story. I would love to hear other opinions, though, whether you agree with me or not!

I received an ARC of The Dream Daughter by Diane Chamberlain from the publisher (St. Martin's Press) in exchange for an honest review. The Dream Daughter is scheduled for release on October 2, 2018.

I usually avoid all spoilers in my book reviews. This time, however, I can't. I need to discuss something that happens very early in the book (within the first 50 pages) but is not mentioned in the blurb or the publisher's information. This suggests that the author (and publisher) want this to remain a surprise. So here is your warning, read ahead at your own risk. HERE THERE BE SPOILERS!

The Dream Daughter is the story of a woman (Carly) who has just lost her husband in the Vietnam War. Just before his death, she learned that she was pregnant and sent him a letter that he didn't receive in time to know that he was going to be a father. Carly is already facing single parenthood (though she has lots of family support in the form of her sister and brother-in-law) when she learns that her unborn baby has a serious heart condition. In 1970, when this story takes place, this condition was a death sentence. Carly is devastated that she is going to lose the only piece of her husband she had left.

In her moment of crisis, Carly's brother-in-law, Hunter, confesses his deepest secret. He is actually a time traveler, originally from the year 2018. He wants to send Carly into the future so that her unborn child can have pre-natal surgery to save its life. This is the secret that I need to talk about. Honestly, if I knew up front that this was a time travel novel, I probably wouldn't have agreed to read it. I am a very tough sell on time travel stories. They are difficult to do well. There are often plot issues that the author wasn't able to fix due to the complexity of a plot that loops through itself in time.

This novel did not deal with the time travel aspect well, in my opinion. The problems started almost immediately. Hunter discusses the importance of not changing anything as a time traveler. Yet he has stayed in 1970 for a long time, gotten married, and had a child. He doesn't seem to recognize that this is exactly what he said a time traveler should not do. He created a whole human that would not otherwise exist, which is bound to change the course of time. Maybe in insignificant ways, but the effects could be huge.

Later in the story, despite being a near-genius who can do the complicated math to send Carly to the exact when and where of his choosing, Hunter makes a mistake that is based on him forgetting one of the most significant dates in recent history. These types of issues were scattered throughout the story, making everything feel very unrealistic and keeping me from sinking into the story.

I also struggled with the characters throughout. We spend the majority of the novel with Carly, in her head. I didn't feel like I really got to know any of the other characters. I also didn't feel like I got to know Carly, or maybe that there was anything to know about Carly. Despite spending so much time with her thoughts, all I knew about her at the end was that she loved her husband and child and wanted to be with them. I knew nothing else about her.

Overall, I didn't enjoy this novel. Granted, I was biased as soon as I saw time travel, but the story did nothing to change my mind. Both the plot and characters felt shallow and inconsistent.