Dear daughter

Review by Booklist Review

Former celebrity Janie Jenkins gets out of jail on a technicality after serving 10 years for killing her high-society mother. She doesn't remember doing it, but she didn't like her mother very much; still, once out of jail, she's determined to determine what really happened. Janie is smart, but she has a smart mouth, too, which tends to put people off. Her attorney, Noah, is on her side, but she has a hard time telling him or anyone else the truth. Meanwhile, tabloid reporter Trace is after her, convinced she's guilty and willing to put his money where his mouth is, offering a large reward for her whereabouts. Janie digs into her mother's past, which leads her to Ardelle, South Dakota, a small town filled with small-town secrets and a cast of quirky, sketchy characters, including a suspicious police chief; but Janie keeps them all guessing. It seems that the more she finds out, the more she needs to know as the mystery continues to deepen. Janie is an unusual protagonist who will intrigue readers who favor strong, smart women.--Alesi, Stacy Copyright 2010 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

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Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Jane Jenkins, the heroine of Little's assured fiction debut, single-mindedly pursues one goal when she's released from a California women's prison. After serving 10 years of her sentence for the 2003 murder of her mother, socialite and philanthropist Marion Elsinger, she wants desperately to find out if she was indeed the culprit. Public opinion, led by the media and including crime blogger Trace Kessler, strongly leans toward belief in her guilt. Armed with a false persona, Jane disappears from the public eye and even her lawyer's protection to follow the slimmest of leads into her secretive, tempestuous mother's mysterious past in tiny, decaying Adeline, S.Dak., and its mirror community of Ardelle. Little (Trip of the Tongue: Cross-Country Travels in Search of America's Languages) effectively intersperses outside perspective in the form of emails, text messages, and other communications in Jane's entertainingly caustic first-person narrative (e.g., "Multi-tools are like insults, girls-you should always have one on hand"). Agent: Kate Garrick, DeFiore and Company. (Aug.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

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Review by Library Journal Review

Jane Jenkins is a snarky celebutante, famous for being famous, until she is convicted of the murder of her wealthy socialite mother. After being released from prison on a technicality, Janie tracks down the one lead she has on the real killer and is startled by what she uncovers about her mother's past in small-town South Dakota. VERDICT Clever, original, and darkly witty, this mystery's many twists will keep you on your toes. Little has infused a compelling page-turner with well-aimed jabs at the current social media-driven culture. (LJ 6/15/14) © Copyright 2018. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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Review by Kirkus Book Review

Agatha Christie meets Kim Kardashian in this sharp-edged, tart-tongued, escapist thriller.Author of two nonfiction books (Trip of the Tongue, 2012, etc.), Little makes her fiction debut with a stylishly written tale that plays off our culture's obsession with celebrity scandal. Janie Jenkins, the infamous Hollywood celebutante, was known for her notoriety rather than for anything she ever did, until she was convicted of murdering her mother. From the preponderance of circumstantial evidence, it seems plain that she did itor that she was framed. And though she had motive enoughthere was little love lost between the twoher memories of that evening (like many evenings) are so hazy that she really isnt sure whether she did it or not. Now, after 10 years in jail, Janie is freed on a convenient technicality, and she embarks on a secret mission to discover the truthabout her mother, about herselfwhile celebrity journalists and a particularly zealous blogger try to figure out where she's gone. Says Janie: It's hard to maintain your innocence when so many people are so sure you're not. Its impossible when youre not sure of anything at allother than the awful, inescapable fact that you hadnt particularly liked your own mother. Her quest leads her (somewhat implausibly) to a town in South Dakota where five families have a long lineage from the days of gold fever. Amid this close-knit community, which is like a Thanksgiving dinner that never ends, Janie tries to discover who her mother really was, who her father really was, who she really is, and what her lawyer knows that she doesnt. The town is like one of Christies closed roomssomeone who lives there holds the key to all the secrets, and that person may well be her mothers murderer. Unless Janie is.This is breezy reading: nothing too deep or disturbing, and stronger on style than plot. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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***This excerpt is from an advance uncorrected proof*** Copyright © 2014 by Elizabeth Little As soon as they processed my release, Noah and I hit the ground running. A change of clothes. A wig. An inconspicuous sedan. We doubled back once, twice, then drove south when we were headed east. In San Francisco we had a girl who looked like me board a plane to Hawaii. Oh, I thought I was so clever. But you probably already know that I'm not. I mean, come on, you didn't really think I was just going to disappear, did you? That I would skulk off and live in the shadows? That maybe I would find a distant island, a plastic surgeon, a white ceramic half mask and a Punjab lasso? Get real. But I never meant for it to come to this. There's attention and then there's attention , and sure, the latter gets you fame and money and free designer shoes, but I'm not Lindsay Lohan. I understand the concept of declining marginal returns. It was the not knowing--that's what I couldn't stand. That's why I'm here. Did you know that the more you remember, the more you expand your perception of personal time? No, really. There's, like, studies and shit. Even though we can't outrun death, if we muscle up our memories the race, at least, will seem a little longer. That is, we'll still die, but we'll have lived more. Kind of comforting, right? Unless, of course, you're me. Imagine how it would feel if, out of the blue, someone were to hand you a gold medal and tell you it was yours. Oh my god , you'd think. I am so super awesome! I won the Olympics. But, wait-what did I win? When did I win it? When did I train? Shouldn't my biceps be full-on Madonna? How could I possibly forget the defining moment of my life? And what does it mean that I did? Now imagine that instead of a gold medal you were given a murder conviction, and you'll have some sense of how it is for me. When I think back on the night my mother died, it's like trying to adjust a pair of rabbit ears to pick up a distant broadcast signal. Every so often something comes into focus, but mostly I just get the scrape­ sound of static, an impenetrable wall of snow. Sometimes there isn't even a picture. Sometimes there isn't even a TV. Maybe if I'd had a moment to stop and think that morning I might've had the chance to imprint a useful detail or two, but the police hustled me out of the house and into a cruiser and over to the station before I could even think to worry about what I was wearing, much less what I might have done. By lunchtime I was in an interview room picking dried blood out from under my fingernails while two detectives explained what they wanted me to write in my confession. Not that I blame them. I was always going to be the best story. Next was the trial, which didn't have anything to do with what I knew but rather with what other people had decided I knew, and soon enough I lost the ability to tell the difference between them. And now I 'm stuck with a mess of a memory, a hodgepodge of angry testimony, sanctimonious magazine profiles, made-for-TV movies-less linear narrative than True Hollywood Story highlight reel. I don't know what's mine anymore. And then there's the evidence. The only fingerprints in my mother 's room: mine. The only DNA under my mother's nails: probably mine. The only name written in blood next to my mother's body: definitely mine. (That's right. You probably didn't know that part, did you?) It 's hard enough to maintain your innocence when so many people are so sure you're not. It 's impossible when you're not sure of anything at all-other than the awful, inescapable fact that you hadn't particu­ larly liked your own mother. The uncertainty ate at me, maggots mashing the already-decaying corpse of my brain. And in jail, isolated from any real means of investigation, all I could do was wonder. I began to treat every action of every day like an omen, a crystal ball, a goat's intestines. How would a killer brush her teeth? How would a killer brush her hair? Would she take sugar in her coffee? Milk in her tea? Would she knot her shoelaces once? Twice? Totally kidding. Like they would have given me shoelaces. Of all the challenges of incarceration, this was perhaps the worst: I was a fundamentally rational creature reduced to rudimentary divination. I promised myself that if I ever got out I'd try to find out what really happened, to find out what I really was. I ignored the voice that said killing again was the only way I'd ever know for sure. < Messages N oa h C on t a c t Tuesday 5:14 PM Testing. Is the new phone working? Did you get this? (It's Noah.) W h a t the fuck is this It's called text messaging. I know what it is I just don't know why we're doing it I need to make sure I can reach you. W h a t people don't actually talk anymore Welcome to the future. Ca n I go back to jail now Adapt or die, Jane. :) Excerpted from Dear Daughter by Elizabeth Little All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

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