Nancy Taylor Rosenberg (1946–2017)

I really can’t give an honest rating to this book because I couldn’t bring myself to read past the 12th chapter. This “heroine”...and I use the term loosely...needed a lesson in manners...or perhaps a good hard wallop up the side her head. She flew into screaming, cursing tantrums about everything. Actually, all of the characters, up to chapter 12 were angry and spiteful, even in neutral situations. Needless to say, it got very, very annoying. I think of the thousands of books that I show more have read this one might have been the worse *If by some chance you are a glutton for punishment and feel that you simply must visit with this book.... please, please BORROW it from the library or fish it out the trash can where the last reader threw it...but don’t spend one red cent of your hard-earned money for it!!!! show less

I registered this book at BookCrossing.com!
http://www.BookCrossing.com/journal/14118429

Lily Forrester, ADA and Chief of the Sex Crimes Division of a city in Southern California, is shaken by a horrifying incident in her daughter Shana's life. She abandons all she knows about crime and punishment and decides to go vigilante. Or I believe we are meant to believe she acts out of blind rage and doesn't realize what she is doing until she has done it.

It's a serious subject and it deserves show more serious treatment. I don't think Rosenberg is a good enough writer to tackle it. I was irritated all the way through by the actions and thoughts of this supposed champion of law. It just didn't ring true. I kept feeling Lily was making excuse after excuse and so was everyone else. show less

Had I realized that this was a continuation of a story, I probably would have bypassed My Lost Daughter. It would have saved me the time it took for me to speed read through this rather blah story. There is something about a character who has survived being raped, two divorces, murdering the wrong man, the murder of her ex-husband, and the politics to get a seat on the Superior Court of Ventura County that is more than unbelievable; it becomes a bit unbearable as well.

The story itself is show more extremely repetitive. Told in two parts - Lily's and Shana's experiences - Ms. Rosenberg flashes back to all the evils done to Lily and Shana and then some. Not only that but she then revisits these flashbacks by continually mentioning them. This does nothing but bog down the story while doing nothing to further it. Lily's story consists of nothing more than her memories of the past, worries about Shana, and fretting about her relationship with her fiance.

Shana's story is only slightly better. Her experiences in the mental hospital are truly awful but a bit too awful. While there is no doubt that such places do exist solely to cheat the insurance companies, one gets the impression that Ms. Rosenberg was trying to drive home the point a bit too forcefully. Not to mention the fact that the entire storyline is rather predictable. Even the sloppiest of readers will be able to discern how the book will end well before the ending.

My Lost Daughter remains one book that was better left unread. Lily and Shana are not the most impressive of characters. They are both whiny, self-centered, and just plain stupid about their decisions. The story itself is poor and poorly written with too many repetitive scenes and phrases to provide the much-needed continuity good mysteries need. While the message about our health care system is an important one, the entire story is too heavy-handed to be effective, unfortunately. show less

The story of My Lost Daughter is a frightening one. Following Lily's attempts to ensure that she is a good mother, she commits her daughter Shana to a facility that appears reputable and helpful, only to find that Lily's best efforts to stay in contact with her daughter are futile as the center in which Shana is committed to is from every patient's nightmare -- doctors that issue medications that don't really serve to help, only to confuse, other facility workers who seemingly have no show more ethics, and patients who may or may not need to be in the hospital, all while Shana seems to spiral down in a maze of drugs that she is powerless to stop. To top it all off, there is a sick and twisted killer somewhere in the facility, and he's definitely got his eyes on the new patient. Both Lily and her daughter Shana have a serious past that also contends with who they are today, as they were both raped by the same man one fateful night. They've come out of that horrific night only to be trapped in another nightmare.

I received this copy from PR by the Book, and was happy to review My Lost Daughter as it was written by an author that I hadn't experienced before. Although this isn't the first book in this series, rest assured that it can be absorbed without needing to be familiar with the characters previously. There are enough flashbacks that do an excellent job of securing a strong foothold to understand the reasons for the character's emotions amidst the turmoil of the events that they are trapped in. Nancy Taylor Rosenberg crafts an effective thriller that her fans will enjoy, one in which the recurring theme of a strong female lead with a tortured past continues on. Twists and turns abound, a bit more at times than necessary, but readers of Ms. Rosenberg's work will not be disappointed by this new installment in the series, and new readers will be able to jump into the fray without confusion.

http://coffeeandabookchick.blogspot.com show less