This post contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. For more info, read my Disclosure Policy.

---

BOOK INFO

---

BOOK BLURB

Mother. Hero. Liar. Killer. How can you tell when all you have is…

PIECES OF HER

What if the person you thought you knew best turns out to be someone you never knew at all . . . ?

Andrea knows everything about her mother, Laura. She knows she’s spent her whole life in the small beachside town of Belle Isle; she knows she’s never wanted anything more than to live a quiet life as a pillar of the community; she knows she’s never kept a secret in her life. Because we all know our mothers, don’t we?

But all that changes when a trip to the mall explodes into violence and Andrea suddenly sees a completely different side to Laura. Because it turns out that before Laura was Laura, she was someone completely different. For nearly thirty years she’s been hiding from her previous identity, lying low in the hope that no one would ever find her. But now she’s been exposed, and nothing will ever be the same again.

The police want answers and Laura’s innocence is on the line, but she won’t speak to anyone, including her own daughter. Andrea is on a desperate journey following the breadcrumb trail of her mother’s past. And if she can’t uncover the secrets hidden there, there may be no future for either one of them. . . .

---

---

MY REVIEW

Andrea (Andy) and her mother Laura are having lunch at a mall, when a man shows up and starts shooting. Andy sees a very different side of her mother during the attack. Andy soon learns her mother wasn’t always Laura. In fact, Laura has been hiding from her past for thirty years. Andy starts on a journey to find who her mother really is.

Told using multiple timelines, this novel flips between 2018 and 1986. The present day story opens with Andy realizing there is more to her mother than she ever thought. This revelation leads Andy on a search into her mother’s past. The past (1986) is Laura’s story about who she was and how she became the woman she is in the present timeline.

Laura has maintained a low-key lifestyle, but that changes when she and her daughter are under attack. It turns out, she’s pretty badass. On the flip side, Andy is insecure, dependent, and timid.

This story has plenty of mystery and action, but it also examines a mother-daughter relationship. The mystery is who is Laura, and what is she hiding. The action is bouts of violence and mayhem in both timelines. The mother-daughter relationship shows that Laura had a life before becoming a mother.

I enjoyed Pieces of Her by Karin Slaughter, but it was different than others I’ve read by her. I loved The Good Daughter and Pretty Girls, but both of those novels are darker and more graphic than Pieces of Her.

Pieces of Her is an intense story that involves secrets and lies. Intriguing, suspenseful, and twisty.

Books in the Andrea Oliver series:

1. Pieces of Her
2. Girl, Forgotten