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The Devil’s Daughter

The Devil’s Daughter is a romantic suspense that is heavy on thrills and fairly light on romance. I enjoyed the mystery elements, but the romance between the two main characters felt flat to me.

The mystery centers around a group called Elysia in a small Montana community. Supposedly worshippers of Persephone and led by a woman named Martha Collins, the group is most definitely a cult — and some of their rituals are terrifying (you’re in a cult, call your dad). When a young woman turns up dead and tattooed with symbols meaningful to the cult, local sheriff Zach Owens has to investigate. Then Martha’s adult daughter, Eden, arrives. Eden fled her toxic mother and the cult years ago and has since become a FBI agent. Someone sent her a message regarding the murder and Eden is determined to see her mother and her followers face justice for once. Then another girl goes missing. And another.

I didn’t find the romance between Eden and Zach especially engaging, mostly because so much time was spent focusing the cult, Eden’s childhood, and the mystery, there wasn’t a ton of character development for Zach. Still the suspense plot was very well done and I would happily have read this book as a straight mystery.

The Devil’s Daughter is high on tension, but light on gore and scares, so readers typically leery of suspense might consider this novel.

– Elyse

Growing up in a small town isn’t easy, especially when you’re the daughter of a local cult leader. Ten years ago, Eden Collins left Clear Springs, Montana, and never once looked back. But when the bodies of murdered young women surface, their corpses violated and marked with tattoos worn by her mother’s followers, Eden, now an FBI agent, can’t turn a blind eye. To catch the killer, she’s going to have to return to the fold.

Sheriff Zach Owens isn’t comfortable putting Eden in danger, even if she is an elite agent. And he certainly wasn’t expecting to be so attracted to her. As calm and cool as she appears, he knows this can’t be a happy homecoming. Zach wants to protect her—from her mother, the cult, and the evil that lurks behind its locked gates. But Eden is his only key to the tight-lipped group, and she may just be closer to the killer than either one of them suspects…