Note: Thank you to NetGalley, Bookouture, and author Laura Elliot for the advanced reader copy of this book. This review will also be posted on NetGalley. What follows is my unbiased review of the book.

Imagine learning when you’re 29 years old that your entire life was built on a lie. This is what happens to Gabrielle Grace when her father’s last words are “I stole you.” As an adoptee, I could relate a lot to what Gabrielle goes through in Not Their Daughter, except most adopted people learn very young that they were adopted, rather than having it dropped on them as adults. Laura Elliot does a terrific job detailing the pain and confusion that these types of lies have on people.

Gabrielle tries to write off her father’s words as a side-effect of the medications he was on, but it nags at her. She tries to open a dialogue with her mother, Cassie. The two have a fractured relationship, which is one of the reasons Gabrielle built a life in New York, rather than back in Ireland where she was raised. Her younger twin sisters get along fine with Cassie, it’s only Gabrielle who seems to have a certain effect on her. Gabrielle’s questions about her past disturb Cassie, who has spent a lifetime battling alcoholism.

After stealing DNA from her father’s and mother’s hairbrushes, Gabrielle is reassured when she learns her father is definitely her father. The second test comes back that Cassie is not her mother. Gabrielle returns to Ireland, determined to find out who she really is.

Not Their Daughter is not just about Gabrielle’s search for her identity, but a thriller as well. Someone doesn’t want her getting close to the truth. Gabrielle is angry with her father for denying her 29 years with her mother, but it soon becomes obvious there is more to it than that. The story unravels into a thriller as slowly the truth begins to get out. Gabrielle figures out that it’s likely that she is a famous missing child from many years before who is believed to be deceased. Why would her father have stolen her out of the cradle next to the woman he loved?

The one part that didn’t seem realistic to me was Gabrielle’s career. In the beginning, she’s working at a New York City radio station as a sort of “shock jock” taking phone calls from people. She quits her job to return to Ireland several times throughout the course of this book. I can’t imagine the back and forth across the Atlantic like that, never mind the moving costs. She seems to pick up a life in Ireland with no trouble, including a car, and then go back to New York City and pick up life again there with little interruption. I can understand that there’s a lot of confusion at this time of her life, but it just seems like all of this was all too easy for Gabrielle to accomplish.

Other than that, though, the story is great. Gabrielle insinuates herself in the life of the woman she believes is her real mother. Maria Russel is the wife of a noted politician. She’s been abused by him for many years, both psychologically and physically. She was married to him at the time she gave birth to her missing daughter, but he can’t be Gabrielle’s father. Gabrielle wavers between telling Maria who she is, even as the secret she holds takes another life.

All of the characters had depth to them. Aloysius Russell is politically ambitious to the exclusion of everyone and everything else. He only sees his relationship with his family as transactional. When his younger son had a girlfriend he thought would make a bad impression on the “family values” politician, he drove her away and Jonathan has never forgiven him. Yet Aloysius has no concept of why Jonathan carries a grudge. He has zero compassion, despite what he tries to convey when the cameras are on him. Maria is the supportive wife because that is her role to play, and she’s suffering with despair over losing her daughter at three weeks old. She doesn’t have the energy to stand up to her husband and just wants to focus on areas where she can make a difference.

Not Their Daughter is a book about lies, and about how they haunt families who try to keep them. The characters are great and relatable. Ireland is a beautiful setting, and I felt like I knew the small town where most of the action takes place. There was one minor issue in the story that didn’t quite feel right, but other than the ease with which Gabrielle moves back and forth as well as the ease with which she loses her job and finds another, and then goes back, and then quits again, the book reads very well.