4.5 stars. In The Good Daughter, the second installment of the Brennan Sisters trilogy, Jane Porter brings her readers another novel that is as heartwarming as it is poignant. It a journey of self-discovery for middle sister Kit as she struggles with an impending loss, unsettling memories from her past and what she wants for her future. Please click HERE to read my review in its entirety. ( )

This is the first of Porter's books I've read. It won't be the last.
The Good Daughter is my favorite kind of WF; meaty and real, but a bit of a love story to lighten the heavy subject matter.

The writing is wonderful. If you like the kind of fiction described above, do yourself a favor, read this book. ( )

This book wasn't as strong or driven to be a little different on the plot side as the first of The Brennen Sisters novels. The plot was still well written and the characters developed during the book and still a good read. ( )

Reviewed by: Crystal B
Book provided by: BookSpark PR
Review originally posted at Romancing the Book

I really wanted to read this book partly because of the title The Good Daughter, I consider myself a good daughter so it caught my eye. However I wanted to read Jane Porter’s latest work even more after I read a little bit about.

I was so into this book that I kept losing track of time. I get involved in a lot of books, but this one kept me hooked all the way through. I hated to put it down when I had to do something else.

Kit is a loving, caring, nurturing, busy teacher turning 40. I felt a connection to Kit right away and what all she is going through. She’s dealing with her mother’s illness that isn’t going to get any better, she has a child in her class that is in a bad situation that she’s trying to help, and she’s tired of dating losers. She also wants to be a mother and she’s ready to become a mother even if she has to adopt and be a single mother. You can tell Kit has what it takes to be a good Mom.

Watching Kit interact with her family shows us a great view of a loving family that is always there for one and another. Kit takes care of her Mom for a week while the family has another commitment. This part has some emotional moments. Keep the Kleenex handy.

When Kit is trying to save Delilah the girl that she knows has family problems she meets Jude. Jude isn’t Kit’s idea of the perfect man for her at all but she can’t control her feelings. She finds herself falling for Jude.

Jude is a good guy with a Bad Boy imagine. How can you not like a Hot Bad Boy with a good heart? He too is also trying to help Delilah, he’s the next door neighbor to her family.

Jane Porter has wrote a fabulous story. This book is part of a series but I didn’t have any trouble following along with out reading the book before this one. After reading this book I will certainly be looking for the first book in this series and anxiously awaiting the next book.

This book has a lot of emotion in it, wow I just really enjoyed this book and would recommend it. I think you’ll enjoy it. ( )

Jane Porter’s The Good Daughter struck a chord with me, mostly because my life churns around a cycle of guilt. I believe this is, to some extent, just part of being a woman . . . because, you know, we really feel things. Sometimes I feel too many things. And this book? Didn’t help me turn my brain off.

Let’s start with the good, shall we? Porter has a true knack for creating big, boisterous and lovable characters who endear themselves to readers immediately. After finishing The Good Woman last fall, I really looked forward to reconnecting with the Brennans — even with inevitable tragedy on the horizon. Though complicated (which family isn’t?), their love and devotion for one another is obvious. I initially thought this story would center on Tommy and his wife, following their struggle to start a family, and was a little disappointed it was about Kit.

There.

I said it.

Because Kit blends in; she plays it safe. This is the whole point of this story, I know: Kit morphing from modest school teacher to impulsive, lively woman. To be perfectly honest, I couldn’t recall much about Kit from the first book — and that was pretty telling. The other sisters? The woman with a husband playing baseball in Florida, the twin volunteering in Africa? I remember them. But Kit? She just seemed so . . . school-marmish.

And this book — her story, the titular “good daughter” — didn’t do much to change that. Though Jude posed a passing interest for me, he felt too much like a caricature — and the endless descriptions of his rugged appearance and rough-around-the-edges demeanor felt obvious. I liked him, but he was kind of . . . cardboard. He never felt real.

Blended into Kit’s story is the sad, sad saga of Delilah, the daughter of a meek mother and abusive stepfather. The scenes in which her jerk-face stepdad appeared made me physically uncomfortable, and I often found myself skimming those paragraphs because they were just really sad. Overall? That’s how this book made me feel: bummed. Super bummed. And I didn’t expect that, given how sucked into a story about infidelity I was with Porter’s first installment.

And yet.

Porter obviously has skills, and her writing kept me engaged. But the story itself? I found it much harder to get any enjoyment from the Brennans’ latest struggles, and Kit wasn’t as compelling a lead as Meg. I feel bad, like I’m further contributing to Kit’s marginalization here . . . but I just didn’t like it nearly as much. After finishing the story, I felt a little relieved to put it in my rearview mirror. ( )