The Marsh King's Daughter
“Subtle, brilliant, and mature . . . as good as a thriller can be.” – The New York Times Book Review
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 launch 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.
The Wicked Sister
“Massively thrilling and altogether unputdownable.”– New York Times and internationally bestselling author Karin Slaughter
For a decade and a half, Rachel Cunningham has locked herself away in a psychiatric facility, tortured by gaps in her memory and the certainty that she is responsible for her parents’ deaths. But when she learns new details about their murders, Rachel returns to the place she once felt safest in a quest for answers: her family’s sprawling log cabin in the remote forests of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.
As Rachel begins to uncover what really happened on the day her parents were murdered, she learns that home can be a place of unspeakable evil, and that the bond she shares with her sister might be the most poisonous of all.
“A haunting portrait of a family hurtling toward the tragic destiny they can foresee but are powerless to stop.” — Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2017
History and Inspiration
In 1974, Karen and her husband moved from Detroit to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula wilderness with their 6-week-old daughter, where they lived in a tent while they built a cabin from reclaimed materials, carried water from a stream, and sampled wild foods such as cattail roots and milkweed pods.
Karen’s homesteading experiences inspire her novels featuring strong female characters facing overwhelming odds in wilderness locations.
Karen's Book Recommendations
What do these books set in the forest, the swamp, the jungle, and the ocean have in common? They all take place in the wilderness!
Click through to see more of the books that Karen read and loved!
