I started Darling Rose Gold by Stephanie Wrobel last night on my Audible app. So far so good. It’s told in first-person from two narrators. One narrator is a mother named Patty convicted of child abuse via Munchausen’s Syndrome by proxy. The other narrator is the daughter, Rose Gold,  who testifies to put her mother Patty behind bars. The book begins with Patty’s release from prison and–surprise, surprise–it’s Rose Gold who shows up to pick up Patty and take her home. They share the house where Patty grew up, which Rose Gold has recently bought, unbeknownst to Patty and also to Patty’s horror.

The story moves back in time to show how Rose Gold’s illnesses began and how Patty “took care” of Rose Gold. All the while, the reader wonders about Patty’s motives and whether we can trust the story Rose Gold tells. Slowly, we learn that while Rose Gold is a victim of her mother’s manipulation, she’s also capable of that same type of toxic manipulation now that she’s a grown woman.  Rose Gold moves from believing she’s sick, to distrusting her mother, to attempting to trust her mother again to… I won’t spoil it for you.

From the very beginning, Patty, a master manipulator, comes across as an unreliable narrator who cannot be trusted. The media and the neighbors in their small town certainly see Patty as a monster who deliberately made her daughter sick.

I’m only a third of the way through this novel, so I cannot give a final verdict on it yet, but so far it slowly pulls the curtain back to reveal a complex mother-daughter relationship using two deeply flawed characters.

The two audible narrators are Megan Dodds and Jill Winternitz. I’ve never listened to these two readers before, but I really like their voices. For me, good narration in an audiobook is tantamount to good writing.

I look forward to finishing this book.

Photo credit: Amazon.com