She Treads Softly: The Stepchild

Thursday, March 3, 2022

The Stepchild

The Stepchild by Nicole Trope
3/15/22; 252 pages
Bookouture

The Stepchild by Nicole Trope is a very highly recommended novel of domestic psychological suspense.

Leslie has Shelby, her 12-year-old stepdaughter, babysitting Millie, her three-year-old daughter, while Leslie runs errands. As she's leaving the grocery store, Shelby calls her and tells her that Millie is gone, missing; she ran away while Shelby was upstairs using the bathroom. Leslie rushes home and calls her husband Randall. They are all frantically searching for Millie. The police are called. Bianca, Shelby's mother and Randall's ex shows up, and then her new husband Trevor. It's every parents nightmare - a young child is missing and can't be found.

The Stepchild is told through the point-of view of Leslie, Shelby, and Ruth. Ruth suffers from agoraphobia, OCD, and a traumatic experience in the past. Her connection to the search for Millie is not discovered immediately but when it is slowly disclosed it will send your mind scrambling to find the clues and follow them. However, you will also know that Shelby is not telling the whole truth of what happened, which also will have you looking for clues in what she says. Leslie is frantic but she also didn't disclose every errand she was doing that day. Everyone has some secret, but Trope is very careful to disclose information slowly while providing plenty of misdirection.

Characters are depicted realistically and almost all of them will elicit sympathy. Some will evoke suspicion or doubt as new secrets are revealed and new clues exposed. You will not like all the characters, and your opinions will change several times as events unfold. Trope also handles the twists perfectly.

While I knew I would enjoy The Stepchild, I didn't realize how much I would enjoy it. The writing is clever and adroit. It is skillfully, tightly plotted and well-paced, which all serves to keep you reading just one more chapter as fast as possible. Almost every chapter ends with a cliffhanger or open question or foreshadowing which really works in this narrative to keep you guessing and frantically reading. The secret Shelby is holding and the cause of Ruth's pain is heartbreaking, but handled expertly and with great compassion. There was one element that was a bit unbelievable, but this is still an excellent novel. 4.5 rounded up

Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of Bookouture via NetGalley.

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John Updike's six rules for reviewing:

1. Try to understand what the author wished to do, and do not blame him for not achieving what he did not attempt.

2. Give him enough direct quotation--at least one extended passage--of the book's prose so the review's reader can form his own impression, can get his own taste.

3. Confirm your description of the book with quotation from the book, if only phrase-long, rather than proceeding by fuzzy precis.

4. Go easy on plot summary, and do not give away the ending.

5. If the book is judged deficient, cite a successful example along the same lines, from the author's oeuvre or elsewhere. Try to understand the failure. Sure it's his and not yours?

To these concrete five might be added a vaguer sixth, having to do with maintaining a chemical purity in the reaction between product and appraiser.....Review the book, not the reputation.... Better to praise and share than blame and ban. The communion between reviewer and his public is based upon the presumption of certain possible joys in reading, and all our discriminations should curve toward that end.