A Daughter to Die For by Tanya Madsen Book Review

A Daughter to Die For by Tanya Madsen is a tense, character-driven dark romance novel about fractured families, obsession, and dangerous love, published in 2025.

In order to give her daughters closure and show everyone that she was stronger than they believed, Martha, a recently divorced mother, attends her ex-husband’s extravagant wedding.

Nicolas, a pleasant but mentally ill young server, develops an obsession with Martha over the course of the same weekend. She was the “Replacement” for a lost love in his eyes.

With Nicolas’s growing obsession endangering Martha’s and her children’s lives, what starts as an awkward wedding devolves into a nasty game of deception, pursuit, and violence.

Spoiler-Free Plot

Martha is a dedicated mother and psychologist pursuing a doctorate. She reluctantly attended the wedding of her ex-husband Craig to Lori, the woman with whom he had cheated on her with. Lori was the same reason their marriage ended.

Martha’s colleagues were not pleased with the idea of her attending. They thought she was insane for attending the wedding ceremony of the same man who had cheated on her.

The pains of watching him get married to the same woman he had cheated on her with, was rather weird. But in her defence, she wasn’t attending the wedding to offer any form of moral support to her estranged husband. She also was not trying to win him back. Rather, she wanted to prove to everyone who cared to know that she was stronger than she was. She also wanted her two daughters, Judith and Lizzy, to have closure.

Judith Monroe, a former beauty-pageant star, was an angry girl who hated everyone. She resented the event, her father, and her mother’s perceived weakness. She even hated the fact that her parents named her “Judith”.

Amid the festivities, Nicholas, a strikingly handsome server with a history of failed romances, locks eyes with Martha. In his mind, she is the Replacement, a perfect replacement for a woman who abandoned him. He was determined to make her his.

Martha found Nicholas’s attention flattering, but unsettling. She believed that her divorce was still fresh. Therefore, she didn’t want anything intimate.

What no one realizes is that Nicholas’s obsession with Martha runs deep and is dangerous. Behind his charm lies a willingness to manipulate and harm to get whatever he wants.

Over the course of a few days, the lives of Martha and her daughters are upended. Nicholas’s pursuit for a Replacement blurs the lines between romance and menace. Martha is forced to confront her vulnerability and her protective instincts as a mother.

When Nicholas kidnaps Martha, Judith is ready to fight to kill the man who abducted her mother. But will she succeed, or will she and her mother end up dead?

My Take on A Daughter To Die For

Tanya Madsen’s “A Daughter to Die For” is a slow-burn psychological thriller that mixes family drama with the menace of an obsessed stranger. It is also a dark romance novel.

Martha, a middle-aged psychologist and devoted mother to Judith and Lizzy, is the story’s emotional anchor. Still reeling from her ex-husband Craig’s betrayal, she attends his wedding out of pride and to give her daughters closure, despite the emotional toll. Intelligent, self-aware, and protective, she becomes increasingly driven to shield her daughters as danger grows.

Judith’s voice is sharp, often unpleasant, but consistently compelling. Judith is Martha’s eldest daughter. She is a young woman whose childhood of beauty pageants has left her both confident in her looks and bitter about her family’s collapse. At almost twenty, she’s sharp-tongued, confrontational, and unafraid to voice her contempt for her father, Lori, and even her mother’s perceived weakness.

Her attitude masks deeper insecurities. It highlights that she is insecure about her future, her value beyond physical beauty, and the instability in her home life. Judith’s anger gives her presence in every scene. Also, her refusal to play nice at the wedding makes her a forceful counterpoint to Martha’s restrained dignity.

On the other hand, Lizzy provides a softer counterbalance. She is often caught in the middle of family tensions. Academically gifted and more reserved, Lizzy is less confrontational but still capable of speaking her mind when pushed. She tries to mediate between her mother and sister. However, she occasionally sides with Judith, but her loyalty to Martha is evident.

Nicolas, however, steals the show in the most unsettling way. His internal logic is a cocktail of romantic fantasy, entitlement, and latent violence. Madsen writes him with a disarming charm that makes his fixation both understandable and horrifying. His swings from tender self-affirmations to disturbing violent fantasies keep the reader in constant suspense.

One of the novel’s strengths is its psychological depth. The title, “A Daughter To Die For,” recurs in a way that is initially sentimental but later becomes charged with menace. It ties into both Martha’s maternal devotion and the threat encroaching upon her family. Themes of trauma, obsession, pain and While the slow-paced early family drama may test action-seeking readers, it pays off by building strong emotional investment before danger strikes.

Once it does, the stakes feel deeply personal. The main character is believable, the supporting cast heightens tension, and each chapter deepens the intrigue. Just when the mystery seems solved, the plot delivers a smart, natural twist, ending on a note that leaves you eager for the next book.

Fans of domestic suspense, dark romance, and multi-POV thrillers will find this a satisfying, unsettling read.

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