synopsis: Helena Pelletier has a loving husband, two beautiful daughters, and a business that fills her days. But she also has a secret: she is the product of an abduction. Her mother was kidnapped as a teenager by her father and kept in a remote cabin in the marshlands of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Helena, born two years after the abduction, loved her home in nature, and despite her father’s sometimes brutal behavior, she loved him, too...until she learned precisely how savage he could be.

More than twenty years later, she has buried her past so soundly that even her husband doesn’t know the truth. But now her father has killed two guards, escaped from prison, and disappeared into the marsh. The police begin a manhunt, but Helena knows they don’t stand a chance. Knows that only one person has the skills to find the survivalist the world calls the Marsh King—because only one person was ever trained by him: his daughter.
probably more a 3.5
pretty creepy story, yet fascinating Good read.

Two stories are going on in THE MARSH KING’S DAUGHTER. One story is Helena’s past when she grew up with her father, dubbed “The Marsh King,” after he kidnapped and raped her mother; the other is Helena’s present after she learns of her father’s escape from prison.

At first, I thought I was not going to like THE MARSH KING’S DAUGHTER because the first quarter of the book contains too many details that do not advance the story. But I continued reading because of Karen Dionne’s skillful descriptions of life among Michigan’s Upper Peninsula’s marshes and navigation in the area. Throughout THE MARSH KING’S DAUGHTER I wondered how she was able to do this so well that I felt like I was there, even getting cold when Helena fell in the marsh and when she was forced to spend three days in a well.

But, I promise, the two stories do become tense and unputdownable. Dionne’s ability to describe tracking someone in the marshy area does this in Helena’s present-day story of searching for her father (although I wasn’t convinced she couldn’t have left this to the police). And the story of Helena’s interactions with “The Hunter” and of bringing her mother and herself to safety is equally as tense and unputdownable, especially because Dionne tells both stories at the same time.

So I was glad I finished reading THE MARSH KING’S DAUGHTER and upgrade my original rating of three stars to four.