Book Title: HER DAUGHTER
Character Name: Alice Wilson
Alice is meeting with her divorce lawyer to prepare for her looming legal battle with her vengeful, estranged husband, Dan, over custody of their four-year-old daughter, Esme.
LAWYER: How would you describe your own childhood and your own family while you were growing up?
ALICE: Well, my dad died when I was nine--It was a freak accident; he fell off the roof while he was cleaning the gutters. So that was hard, of course, but my mom never made me feel like our life was a tragedy. She doesn't like to look at the depressing side of anything-- And she's a great cook. Esme loves to help her bake raisin-chocolate chip cookies.
LAWYER: So do you see her as a role model for what you could be, as a single mother to your daughter? Loving, warm, baking cookies, providing a secure home? A portrait we can paint for the Family Court judge.
ALICE: Actually, I don't cook much.
LAWYER: You don't cook. Okay, what is your greatest talent?
ALICE: Umm...I work hard for the things I care about. At my job, instance. My boss calls me the Environmental Guru, because I nag him about using throwaway paper coffee cups.
LAWYER: What's your job?
ALICE: I'm a financial advisor, and right now I'm trying to persuade a couple of logging companies not to cut down a huge forest up in Northern California.
LAWYER: That sounds important. Do you like your work?
ALICE: I love it! It can be frustrating, for sure, but when I take people on walks to see the endless, magnificent vista of mountains and trees that they're endangering, you know, I feel like I just might change their minds.
LAWYER: Do you have any "significant other" in your life?
ALICE: WHAT? I'm trying to get free of my husband.
LAWYER: Yes, I realize that. But if there was any cheating during your marriage, I assure you that your husband's lawyer will find out and use it against you.
ALICE: James is just a friend.
LAWYER: (Brief silence) So you and your daughter moved out of the marital home. Where do you live now?
ALICE: Oh, we have a wonderful apartment. It's only a few blocks from Santa Monica Beach.
LAWYER It would be better for your legal case if you'd stayed in your home and Dan had moved out. But, be that as it may; tell me about your neighborhood now. Is there some reason you chose that neighborhood, something you're particularly attached to?
ALICE: Esme and I both love the beach. We try to dig holes so deep in the sand that we'll reach the bottom of the Earth, you know? And we like walking along the edge of the water, jumping when the waves come in. She loves the big ones! And, um, I can afford the rent.
LAWYER: Is it a safe neighborhood?
ALICE: Well, sure. Why wouldn't it be?
LAWYER: Your husband will make it an issue. Family Court judges think the Santa Monica-Venice area--your neighborhood--is a dangerous place full of drug addicts. (Shrug) Nothing we can do about your address now.
ALICE opens her mouth but doesn't speak.
LAWYER: Is there anyone that your husband might call as a witness--any enemies--who might badmouth you?
ALICE: Dan badmouths me all the time.
LAWYER: Besides--
ALICE: When Esme came home from her visitation with him last Sunday, she started saying things like, "Daddy says you hate dogs" and "Daddy says the clothes you give me are dirty" and--
LAWYER: Do you hate dogs? Do you have any pets?
ALICE: Well, you know, it's tough in an apartment ...
LAWYER: Does Dan have pets?
ALICE: Esme says he promised her a puppy.
LAWYER: Get a puppy now, Alice.
A big sigh from ALICE.
LAWYER: What else do you and your daughter do together for fun, besides going to the beach?
ALICE: We went to see The Nutcracker --which was lovely--Afterwards, she lined up all her stuffed animals to perform a dance for me! And she really wants to go to ballet classes now with her friends. But the problem is, the lessons are on Saturdays, which means she'd miss class every other weekend when she's at Dan's house for visitation.
LAWYER: Oh come on, do you honestly think he wouldn't bring his own daughter to her ballet class?
ALICE just stares at the lawyer.
LAWYER: Have you discussed this with him?
ALICE: Oh yeah.He said that if I have a problem, he's told Esme she can come live with him and there are 15 wonderful ballet schools near his house where she could go.
LAWYER (Removes her eyeglasses, pretends to wipe the lenses, puts them back on): Tell me, Alice: What is your greatest personal failing--the weakness we most have to worry about in court, that your husband might say makes you an unfit mother? You don't cook. You don't like dogs. What else?
ALICE: My biggest failing? I was such a door mat. Such a stupid, blind jerk. I didn't see what Dan was doing, how he was undercutting me with a big smile all the time--and in front of Esme. All those years. I didn't fight back.
"I'm only telling you in case the police contact you. Esme was arrested, but I'm handling everything, and she doesn't want to hear from you."
That email from her ex-husband is almost the only information Alice Wilson has had about her twenty-three-year-old daughter, Esme, in the six years since Esme abruptly ended all communication.
As Alice, an environmental activist, scrambles to learn why Esme was arrested and what might happen next, she inevitably also rethinks the past. Her obsessive search up and down the California coast antagonizes her friends and jeopardizes her job. But none of that matters to Alice as she uncovers hints of a daughter she'd never known-and of her then-husband's role in their estrangement, even while they were married.
Who is the Robert Corning who was arrested with Esme, and why did she pay his bail? Why did Esme become bulimic in college? Why is she continuing to push Alice away while still being chummy with her father? Most importantly, will Esme agree to meet with Alice? And if she does, will Alice say the wrong thing-whatever that wrong thing is?
Women's Fiction Family Life [ Black Rose Writing, On Sale: January 22, 2026, Trade Paperback / e-Book, ISBN: 9781685136994 / ]
Fran Hawthorne has been writing novels since she was four years old, though she was sidetracked for a few decades by journalism. During that award-winning career, she wrote eight nonfiction books, mainly about consumer activism, the drug industry, and the financial world, and was also an editor or regular contributor for The New York Times, Institutional Investor, and many other publications. But she never abandoned her true love: Her first two novels, The Heirs and I Meant to Tell You, were published in 2018 and 2022 and together won or were named a finalist for nine awards. HER DAUGHTER, her third novel - newly published by Black RoseWriting - is the story of a family where the father deliberately gaslights the daughter to alienate her from the mother.
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