Starling Darling

A whodunnit mystery with a tender mother-daughter estranged relationship at its center

In this striking and suspenseful story of love, mothers, and memory, Starling Darling is Lucia’s journey to reclaim what’s hers and let go of what’s not. Can she find a way toward an unwritten future by forgiving her mother without abandoning herself?

Lucia Starling gets a phone call that changes her life: Her mother has died, and in the wake of it is an inheritance of an 18th century necklace, and memories of a mother she hasn’t spoken with in five years.

Neither of which she knows what to do with, except, perhaps to escape New York and leave the country. Far from home at least, she won’t have to face her father’s sorrow, or her own guilt.

When her mother’s necklace is robbed from her hotel room in Rome, Lucia suspects the culprit to be a mysterious foreigner. When she discovers his identity, she's faced with an impossible voyage. Lucia must decide to confront her past or her future; return to New York City, or find the necklace before it’s sold on the black market and lost forever?

One thing is for certain: her mother's necklace is only the beginning.

“Beautiful, a stunning tribute to the fractured relationships between mothers and daughters. Absolutely, phenomenal women’s fiction. Literature I will highly recommend for years to come.”

— Goodreads reviewer

“I went into this as I do every book - wanting to be blown away but not expecting to be. And yet I enjoyed this book so much that, unplanned, I inhaled it in a day and couldn’t put it down until it was finished.”

— Goodreads reviewer