Review: The Forgotten Daughter

Do you ever hold off reading a book because you're not sure if you're going to love it as much as you think you will? I had that a little bit with Joanna Goodman's The Forgotten Daughter. I was really looking forward to it's release last fall because I really enjoyed the story she started in The Home for Unwanted Girls. While the sequel didn't quite live up to my expectations, I still enjoyed the read and the history lesson Goodman shared.

Here's the book's description:

Divided by their past, united by love.
1992: French-Canadian factions renew Quebec’s fight to gain independence, and wild, beautiful Véronique Fortin, daughter of a radical separatist convicted of kidnapping and murdering a prominent politician in 1970, has embraced her father’s cause. So it is a surprise when she falls for James Phénix, a journalist of French-Canadian heritage who opposes Quebec separatism. Their love affair is as passionate as it is turbulent, as they negotiate a constant struggle between love and morals.
At the same time, James’s older sister, Elodie Phénix, one of the Duplessis Orphans, becomes involved with a coalition demanding justice and reparations for their suffering in the 1950s when Quebec’s orphanages were converted to mental hospitals, a heinous political act of Premier Maurice Duplessis which affected 5,000 children.
Véronique is the only person Elodie can rely on as she fights for retribution, reliving her trauma, while Elodie becomes a sisterly presence for Véronique, who continues to struggle with her family’s legacy.

I absolutely loved that this story reminded me of Quebec's recent history. I was too young in the '90s to fully understand what was happening with the referendum in 1995. I know I would have learned about it when I got a bit older but the why of it wouldn't have been explored like it was in this book. The novel also gave some closure to the Duplessis Orphans, who we learned about in the first book. There was a lot of important events for the characters that were overlapping which was interesting from a historical perspective.

That overlapping didn't quite work from a story standpoint for me. It felt like two separate stories were trying to be mushed together in one plot because it seemed convenient. James and Véronique were bringing those two stories together but them being together romantically never made sense for me and it all seemed forced. I enjoyed each character and their story separately but once they came together in various ways, that's when I started to lose the threads a bit.

I've read a few historical fiction novels lately that have a journalist for a main character. My partner is a reporter for the local newspaper and to see that (very important) profession explored in a historical context is always interesting to me. I especially liked that James was a French Canadian who was working for an English Canadian newspaper and the extra level of tension that it added to the story was well done.

Even though I had a review copy from the publisher, I ended up listening to most of this one on audiobook from my library. I think that was a really great idea as the narrator, Esther Thibault, uses a Quebecois accent when speaking dialogue and I felt it added a lot to my overall enjoyment of the story.

I think I would still recommend Joanna Goodman's novel The Forgotten Daughter but note that readers should pick up The Home for Unwanted Girls first and/or have a very heavy interest in Canadian politics. The stories Goodman told were good ones but the execution of those stories were a miss for me.

*An egalley of this novel was provided by the publisher, HarperCollins Canada, via NetGalley in exchange for review consideration. All opinions are honest and my own.*