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Daisy Darker

A Novel
Pages
352
Published
2022
Language
English

Synopsis

Daisy Darker was born with a broken heart, and has spent her life being told she might not live long. On Halloween, her fractured family gathers at Seaglass, the crumbling gothic house on a tiny Cornish island that can only be reached at low tide, to mark Nana's eightieth birthday. For a few hours, cut off from the mainland by the rising sea, the Darkers are forced back into one another's company along with all their old grievances.

At the stroke of midnight, Nana is found dead — and a message scrawled on the wall promises that the rest of the family will follow, one an hour, until the tide turns. Trapped together with no way to call for help and no way to leave, the surviving Darkers begin to realise that the killer is almost certainly one of them, and that the family's carefully kept secrets are about to be dragged into the open.

A knowing homage to Agatha Christie's closed-circle mysteries, Daisy Darker combines a stormy, atmospheric setting with Alice Feeney's taste for misdirection. As the hours count down, the story circles back through decades of family history toward a revelation designed to make the reader reconsider everything that came before.

About the author

A
Alice Feeney

Alice Feeney is the New York Times and Sunday Times million-copy bestselling author of eight novels. Including Sometimes I Lie, His & Hers, Rock Paper Scissors, Daisy Darker and Beautiful Ugly. Her books have been translated into thirty-nine languages, and have been optioned for major screen adaptations, with His & Hers coming to Netflix in 2025 starring Tessa Thompson and Jon Bernthal, and produced by Jessica Chastain's Freckle Films. Alice was a BBC journalist for fifteen years before becomin...

Characters

Daisy DarkerProtagonist

The youngest Darker sister, born with a heart condition, who narrates the family's fateful night.

Nana (Beatrice Darker)Supporting

The family matriarch and a children's author, whose eightieth birthday brings everyone together.

All characters in Daisy Darker

Frequently asked questions

  • What classic mystery style does Daisy Darker draw on?

    Daisy Darker is a modern, closed-circle "locked room" mystery in the tradition of Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None — a family cut off from the mainland by the tide, picked off one by one, with the killer among them.

  • Was Daisy Darker nominated for any awards?

    Yes — Daisy Darker was a finalist for Best Mystery & Thriller at the 2022 Goodreads Choice Awards.

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