It's here! Browse the 2024 Penguin Christmas gift guide
Daughter

Daughter

The Gripping Sunday Times Bestselling Thriller and Richard & Judy Phenomenon

Summary

Penguin presents the unabridged, downloadable audiobook edition of Daughter by Jane Shemilt, read by Sophie Aldred.

'I still don't know why we had to check. Did we really think you would be there, curled up and sleeping on the stage? That we would put our arms round you, and take you home?'

Naomi has vanished, leaving her family broken and her mother Jenny desperately searching for answers. But the traces fifteen-year-old Naomi's left behind reveal a very different girl to the one Jenny thought she'd raised. And the more she looks the more she learns that everyone she trusted has been keeping secrets.

But will discovering the real Naomi help to find her?

Praise for Daughter
'We absolutely loved this book. It's about a GP and her family and the sudden horror that devastates their lives when their 16-year-old daughter disappears one night. It's difficult to believe that this accomplished book is a debut' Judy Finnigan, Richard and Judy book club

'Ostensibly a suspense novel about the disappearance of a teenage girl, this taut and thought-provoking debut novel explores a working mother's guilt, something all-too familiar to many of us' Woman & Home

'Complex and baffling. Jane Shemilt builds layer upon layer of tension in a novel you won't be able to put down' Tess Gerritsen

'Gripping to the last page!' My Weekly

'Thrilling' Sunday Express

'Clever' Sun

'Taut and thought-provoking' Sunday Mirror

'Utterly gripping. A tautly coiled spring of suspicion and suspense which builds to a devastating ending' Mail On Sunday

'A wonderful plot, full of tantalising reasons to read on, and of course with a killer twist at the end. What impressed me most was (. . .) the impossibility of truly knowing those closest to us, the pressures of parenthood - in particular working motherhood, and the terrible loss at the heart of all parenting: they grow up and away' Christopher Wakling, author of What I Did

Reviews

  • It is gripping and full of emotion . . . yet the twist at the end makes you question your assumptions, and really makes you think about the nature of a mother-daughter relationship and how different it can be from each side of the coin
    Jessica Eames, author of Bad Seed

About the author

Jane Shemilt

While working as a GP, Jane Shemilt completed a postgraduate diploma in Creative Writing at Bristol University and went on to study for the MA in Creative Writing at Bath Spa, gaining both with distinction. Her first novel, Daughter, was selected for the Richard and Judy Book Club, shortlisted for the Edgar Award and the Lucy Cavendish Fiction Prize, and went on to become the bestselling debut novel of 2014.

She and her husband, a professor of neurosurgery, have five children and live in Bristol.
Learn More

More from this Author

Sign up to the Penguin Newsletter

For the latest books, recommendations, author interviews and more