Amy Bird

The style of writing took a bit of getting used to at first but once you do get used to it, The Good Mother is such an addictive read. The reader is thrust inside the minds of Susan and her captor. I must say that it's a bit crazy at times and I almost felt like I was descending into madness myself. It was almost a relief to put the book down and blink to see my familar surroundings infront of me.

Susan finds herself held captive in a strange room, her only source of comfort is that her daughter, Cara, is also being held in the room next to hers. Susan knows that she has met her captor before...if only she could remember where, but her memories are held tantalisingly out of reach. Susan and Cara devise a means of communication and they hatch a plan for escape but their captor still has more than one surprise up his sleeve.

The Good Mother really plays with your mind as you think you have it all worked out then a surprise jumps out and smacks you in the face. I found it quite hard to get into at first as it's never pleasant to see inside somebody's mind and you really get to read Susan's darkest innermost thoughts in this book. It's a relatively quick read and one that will appeal to all psychological fiction lovers.

I chose to read an ARC and this is my honest and unbiased opinion.… (mais)

This book was very interesting and made me audibly shocked at least three times! I absolutely enjoyed it.

Jen Sutton is a lawyer and in Witness Protection with her young son Josh. When she starts working on a case involving a woman in prison and leaving behind a daughter, things start to spiral. The case has a scary similarity to her own past and as she starts to dig, she finds something that changes everything.

I received this ARC for an honest review, but I would recommend picking it up ASAP.… (mais)

This is a book all about the twists, and my review will be full of spoilers, so look away now!

I read this because a friend recommended it, and she'd recommended me Room, and I wanted something similar. It is a bit similar - simple prose, gripping, hard to put down, stories of kidnapping and being trapped and mothers love - but while I think Room is an amazing masterpiece, this is a bit more pulp fiction. Veering to horror, really. Maybe that's it, maybe it's just stark because it doesn't have the hope at the end.

The story is built up backwards, with twists and unreliable narrators, but unwound, it is the story of Susan, who loses her baby at about 7 months, has a breakdown, is committed, has another child, her husband leaves her, she remarries, and then when her daughter is 8 the child is killed in a car crash, and Susan has another breakdown. But it starts when her husband is keeping her in the house and feeding her food laced with anti psychotics, in the hope he can bring her back to herself.

Oddly, I didn't read this as part of all the baby loss books, I had no idea what the twists would be until I got to them, and it's actually one of the best ones I've read. You second guess authors, don't you, but I wonder if she did lose a baby - so many things that are true, but that I can't imagine people making up if they hadn't been there, like having the shadow child living in your head at the right age, that sad sex where you try so hard not to think of your dead baby and you know you have to have sex because that's the Plan for fixing things, the overanalysing of all the things she could have eaten that caused it... Maybe this is her story for catching the dark side she didn't turn to, what if you did just have a breakdown over it all, what if you did just go and kidnap a child, what if you did just kill yourself? I hope not. But it reads very true.

I don't think it's a book you should read for a moral / life lesson, just for a gripping story. The moral of 'don't try to help crazy people by locking them up in their own home because they will still be crazy and might kill you' isn't very widely applicable. Less tongue in cheek, Paul cares and loves Susan, and while it would have been a less stricking ending, I would have liked a happy ending for them.… (mais)

Let me just say this straight out. Ellie is a witch – not a real witch that can cast spells and not a witch who rides a broom, dons a pointy hat, and is blemished by an ugly wart on her chin. She’s a witch of the worst kind – devious and evil. The beginning chapters alternate between Will and Ellie Spears. They are a couple who have been married for three years and are expecting their first child — a boy. Ellie appears to resent the closeness that Will has with his parents, John and Gillian. Ellie is not happy with anything that her mother-in-law tries to do. She steals a CD from their house from an area that Gillian normally keeps locked. The concert pianist is Max Reigate. Will happens to resemble him – a lot! She begins to suspect and then manages to prove that Will was adopted. Once confirmed, Will goes into a tirade on his ‘fake parents.’ But, Ellie isn’t done yet. She keeps digging; she’s determined to provide her husband with the entire truth.

When Ellie goes into labor, it is Gillian that takes her to the hospital. If Ellie wants the truth, she’s going to have it. Now, even Ellie seems to be onboard with Gillian. Will can never, ever find out the truth!

This novel is fraught with high emotions and the reader feels it from the start. I’ve also read Three Steps Behind You by Amy Bird. She takes you into the mindset of deeply troubled people as few other authors are able to do. The chapters alternate between the key players, giving a first person account of each, and giving the reader a clear focus into their intentions. The characters were not really likable, but they were realistic. The only character deemed ‘likable’ was John Spears, and he basically played a bit part. I rated Hide and Seek at 4 out of 5.… (mais)