The Miller Women by Kelli Hawkins

Publisher's Synopsis

When a teenage girl goes missing, Nicola Miller fears for her own daughter. Not for Abby's mental health or safety, but that she might have had something to do with it. She worries her daughter is a killer. Just like her.

Nicola has never told the truth about what happened with Abby's father. But now as the search for Cara continues, Nicola, her mother Joyce and her daughter Abby all risk their secrets coming to light.

A stunning, captivating and yet unnerving exploration of how the sins of the fathers - or in this case, the mothers - can echo down the generations.

My Review of The Miller Women by Kelli Hawkins

The Miller Women is a psychological thriller, set in the fictional town of Arundal, somewhere on the New South Wales Central Coast and, as you’d expect, centres around the Miller family. In particular, we’re introduced to three generations of women, all of whom are hiding secrets from their past. It’s imperative for each of them that the truth doesn’t come out. But this is made particularly difficult when the town is rocked by the disappearance of one of the local young women.

Cara Ross, a Year 12 schoolmate of Abby Miller’s, has disappeared from her home. When she hears of the disappearance, Nicola Miller, Abby’s mother, immediately wonders if Abby had something to do with it. On the surface, this seems to be a strange first thought for a mother to have, but it speaks volumes about each of the women involved here.

The story is broken into three parts, each told from the first person perspective and is effective in providing us with necessary backstory as well as a deeper understanding of each Miller woman.

To kick things off we get taken into the mind of Nicola Miller and almost immediately there’s a suggestion that she’s carrying a secret that has to do with her daughter, Abby’s, father. Flashbacks to her younger days, when she’s taking a gap year in Canada, gradually clarifies the secret.

Part 2 is told from Abby’s perspective. The story is taken up from the start of her final year of school where she’s shocked to find that Cara Ross has joined the school. Abby and Cara know one another from years earlier when they holidayed together. As it happens, something took place on that holiday, a shocking event that both girls would prefer to remain a secret.

Joyce, Nicola’s mother and Abby’s grandmother is the first person perspective that we follow in Part 3. This quiet, unassuming woman who appears to be the glue who holds the entire community together also has a rather dark past and, when it’s slowly revealed the entire story starts to come together in shocking fashion.

There are some great twists in this fabulous psychological thriller that starts off looking very much like a missing person case before turning into something far more edgy. Using three separate first person perspectives to gradually uncover closely guarded truths provides us with deep insight into the psyches of the three main characters and tells us far more than you can possibly imagine about the missing Cara.

This is a thriller stacked with dark themes.There are some serious questions being asked regarding the difference between good and evil, right and wrong. The moral quandaries dealt with are very real and the way they were dealt with are divisive. And all of that makes it a very successful and thought-provoking thriller indeed. It’ll probably make you squirm, it certainly made me squirm as I closed the book on the last page.