Darling Rose Gold

                                                         by Stephanie Wrobel 

Patty Watts is a wonderful mother, a pillar of the community and loved by everyone for the care she gives her only child, sickly Rose Gold. Patty is a healthcare provider and she knows what Rose Gold needs and if one doctor won't help her, she finds one who will. Rose Gold needs a feeding tube because she keeps vomiting and her teeth are rotten because of it. She is so weak and malnourished she needs a wheelchair.The town rallies around the family holding fundraisers and providing food and emotional support to Patty.  For eighteen years mother and daughter are completely dependent on each other and  Rose Gold is convinced that she is sick and that her doting mother is helping her. It turns out that Patty has been poisoning her only child.  

Patty has spent the last five years in prison for what she did but she is about to be released. She has nowhere to go and begs Rose Gold to take her in saying that all she has ever done is love her.  The town is shocked when Rose Gold, with her infant son, picks her mother up at the prison and takes her home. However, she isn't taking her mother in out of the goodness of her heart.  Rose Gold has her own plans because daughters never forgive. 

This debut novel is a taut, twisted, psychological thriller told from both Patty and Rose Gold's points of view. There are many twists and turns and as a reader I  sometimes wasn't sure who to believe , who was more twisted or what was going to happen.  

Darling Rose Gold has an unexpected ending that I didn't see coming.  I am looking forward to the next book by this author.

Darling Rose Gold will be published on March 17th, 2020. Thanks to NetGalley and Berkley/Penguin Random House for an Advanced Reading Copy in exchange for an honest review.