Book Review : Daisy Darker by Alice Feeney

My Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Daisy Darker was born with a heart condition, has had to be resuscitated many times in the past and has been told that she won’t have a long life. Her family isn’t quite supportive of her and the only person she feels truly cares about her is her Nana.

Daisy’s Nana, Beatrice Darker, illustrious children’s book author and illustrator, is turning eighty and the whole family is gathering at her mansion, “Seaglass” on the Cornish coast, to celebrate. If a palm reader’s prediction is anything to go by, this birthday will probably be Nana’s last. But Nana is prepared and makes it a point to discuss her will with her family – her orchestra musician son and his ex-wife Nancy, their children Rose, Lily, Daisy and Lily’s daughter, Trixie and family friend, Conor. Needless to say, most of her family members aren’t too happy with the way Nana has distributed her considerable wealth and assets.

Later that night, Nana is found dead in her kitchen with a strange poem written with lines on each of the people present in Seaglass, on a chalkboard. As the narrative progresses, and the family waits for low tide (the island is inaccessible otherwise), Nana’s is not the only death Daisy has to deal with. One by one, other family members turn up dead, the corresponding lines from the chalkboard poem are crossed out and VHS tapes from the sisters’ childhood days keep turning up. Who could be responsible and what could be the motivation? Whoever is responsible for all that is happening is obviously among them. The rest of them just have to stay alive till they can get off the island. The story is told from Daisy’s PoV and moves back and forth between past and present.

Barring “I Know Who You Are”, I’ve enjoyed all of Alice Feeney’s novels. Needless to say, I‘ve been looking forward to Daisy Darker ever since I heard about it. Maybe my expectations were too high? I kind of figured out the identity of the mastermind quite early on and the final reveal while interesting, didn’t impress me much. The motive for the murders felt contrived and required that you suspend disbelief. The lack of originality in the plot (the strong nod to an Agatha Christie favorite was great but made the story more than a little predictable, i.e. not too many surprises along the way) and the final twist (I mean, you kind of see it coming and try to convince yourself that Feeney wouldn’t go there, but she did!) left me a tad disappointed.

What did work for me was the atmospheric setting, fluid narrative, and the cast of interesting characters (since they were being killed off, there wasn’t much scope for character development beyond what is shared through Daisy’s memories). The author does a great job of depicting a dysfunctional family with its share of lies, secrets, and deceit. I thoroughly enjoyed the ominous poems interspersed throughout the novel. In short, while I did not dislike Daisy Darker by Alice Feeney, I didn’t love it. I am aware that mine is an outlier opinion and many have loved this book more than I have. Alice Feeney remains one of my favorite writers in this genre and I look forward to her reading more from her in the future.