Review: Darling Rose Gold

Title: Darling Rose Gold
Author: Stephanie Wrobel
Genre: Fiction, Thriller
Publisher: Simon and Schuster Canada
Source: Publisher via NetGalley
Format: Ebook
Release Date: March 17, 2020
Rating: ★★★★

Goodreads Synopsis:

Sharp Objects meets My Lovely Wife in this tightly drawn debut that peels back the layers of the most complicated of mother-daughter relationships…

For the first eighteen years of her life, Rose Gold Watts believed she was seriously ill. She was allergic to everything, used a wheelchair and practically lived at the hospital. Neighbors did all they could, holding fundraisers and offering shoulders to cry on, but no matter how many doctors, tests, or surgeries, no one could figure out what was wrong with Rose Gold.

Turns out her mom, Patty Watts, was just a really good liar.

After serving five years in prison, Patty gets out with nowhere to go and begs her daughter to take her in. The entire community is shocked when Rose Gold says yes.

Patty insists all she wants is to reconcile their differences. She says she’s forgiven Rose Gold for turning her in and testifying against her. But Rose Gold knows her mother. Patty Watts always settles a score.

Unfortunately for Patty, Rose Gold is no longer her weak little darling…

And she’s waited such a long time for her mother to come home.

Review:

Patty was sent to prison for poisoning and abusing her daughter, Rose Gold. She made her daughter and everyone else believe Rose Gold had been sick her whole life, but it turns out she had been poisoning her. Now she has gotten out of prison, and her daughter welcomes her into her home, where she lives with her newborn baby.

This story follows two perspectives. Patty tells her story right as she’s gotten out of prison and moved in with Rose Gold. Rose Gold tells the story of what she was doing during the five years her mother was in prison. Their stories often conflicted, so I was curious to see what would happen in the end. The Rose Gold that Patty described in the present didn’t sound like the same Rose Gold who was telling her part of the story. These conflicting narratives kept up the tension and mystery of the story.

Many parts of this story were devastating and difficult to read. Patty treated Rose Gold horribly by poisoning her for years. It was almost hard to believe she could get away with it for so long, but there was a real mother who did that to her daughter. It made the story even more sad, imagining that this happened in real life.

The story didn’t end the way I thought it would. I was surprised at the way it all turned out. This was a very suspenseful story!

Thank you Simon and Schuster Canada for providing a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

What to read next:

Have you read Darling Rose Gold? What did you think of it?