The Beautiful Daughters by Nicole Baart
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
You can run from your past for only so long. For every five steps forward you take, your past takes six, until the distance between tomorrow, today and yesterday is no more than the space between heartbeats.
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Harper has a secret.
One that only three people in the whole world know. One of those three can’t reveal Harper’s secret… at least not any longer. Another won’t reveal Harper’s secret because to do so would reveal his own secret, and he will go to any lengths to prevent that. And the third person…?
She doesn’t know yet that the secret she possesses is not the secret she is hiding.
She doesn’t know yet that time and distance cannot stop the power of a secret.
She doesn’t know yet that no amount of penance can still the power of a secret.
But she is about to find out. And when she does, the carefully-crafted life that she has now will be irrevocably changed.
Harper has a secret.
But she is not the only one.
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Adri has a secret.
One that only three people in the whole world know. One of those three can’t reveal Adri’s secret… at least not any longer. Another won’t reveal Adri’s secret because to do so would reveal her own, something she is determined to prevent the disclosure of. And the third person…?
She doesn’t know yet that the secret she possesses is not the secret she is hiding.
She doesn’t know yet that time and distance cannot stop the power of a secret.
She doesn’t know yet that no amount of penance can still the power of a secret.
She is about to find out. And when she does, the carefully-crafted life that she has painstakingly built will be changed, and there is no turning back.
Adri has a secret.
But she is not the only one.
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In The Beautiful Daughters, the hugely talented writer Nicole Baart combines her gift for rich, textured prose with her gift of compassion and empathy for the human condition to weave a tale that is both as old as time itself and as new and fresh as this morning’s sunrise.
The Beautiful Daughters is the story of two daughters… daughters not by blood, but by a bond as strong as blood. It is a story of secrets. It is a story of penance. Of redemption. And second chances.
The Beautiful Daughters is the poignantly moving and powerful story of two young women and their journey through present and past to find their future.
With her keen understanding of the human condition and a seemingly bottomless well of compassion for humanity in all its shades, Nicole tackles a subject that – sorry, no spoilers here! – will make some people uncomfortable. But, as Nicole knows all too well, fiction is a reflection of reality… one that is sometimes sharper and more defined… and writers are more than just storytellers. We are chroniclers of humanity.
I recommend The Beautiful Daughters without reservation. This is a story that will stay with you long after the last page has been turned.
Thank you,
Veronica Marie Lewis-Shaw
16 August 2015
(Writing under a large mushroom somewhere in the Pacific Northwest)
Veronica The Pajama Thief 