Grand Central Publishing
My Daughter’s Secret by Nicole Trope is a heart wrenching story of lies, deceits, and secrets.
“The idea came to me with the image of the two girls walking down a suburban street on Halloween. I knew they were around eighteen and that they had both come from a Halloween party and I knew that they were a little tipsy. I saw the house they passed very clearly. I knew it had a wraparound porch and that, despite it not being decorated for Halloween, there was a life size dummy hanging from a beam. And once that image was clear, I knew what had happened and the character of Claire appeared. I instantly knew what she had lost and how she would handle it. I understood her desperate need to know exactly what had happened to her child.”
In the middle of the night, Claire wakes up to discover that her beloved daughter, Julia, is dead – and life, as she knows it, is over.
“The idea of suicide came about because part of being a parent is protecting your child. Parents feel that they are, to some extent, responsible for their children’s happiness. There is a quote, attributed to Jack Harbaugh, that ‘you’re only as happy as your unhappiest child.’ As a mother, I understand that to be true. And that means that if they take the drastic step of taking their own life, especially when you assumed they were fine, it will feel impossible to just accept it. That’s what drives Claire. She simply cannot fathom why her child would have done this.”
Searching for answers, Claire stumbles upon a pile of letters, hidden under Julia’s bed in an old, battered shoebox, and feels closer to her daughter than ever before. They tell her that Julia was happy, that she was thriving at her university, and that she was in love.
“The letters are a way for the reader to see into the relationship, to know what was going on. Julia cannot be here to tell her story, so they allow the reader to know her and what she was doing to a certain extent.”
But as the letters go on, Claire starts to feel uneasy at something hidden between the lines. Even as she grieves, she must prepare to face a shocking discovery. Because Julia was hiding a terrible secret – and when it’s uncovered, it might make Claire question everything she thought she knew about her daughter. Claire’s relentless search for the secrets surrounding Julia’s life and death leads her to an astounding, shocking truth that shatters her reality.
“I wrote Claire as grief-stricken, and that makes her obsessive about getting answers. And that is, of course, all overlayed with her sadness that her daughter did not come to her with her worries and fears. She blames herself and the burden of guilt rests heavily on her shoulders.”
“Julia was someone who loved her life and who had big plans. But she was also naïve to a certain extent. It’s understandable because she was very young. I also believe that she had a strong core of integrity, despite what she was involved in. She wanted to do the right thing.”
Readers will feel the sadness, anger, and guilt, right along with Claire, as she tries to understand why her daughter would have committed suicide.
