THE PERFECT MOTHER

 

SYNOPSIS

We all want different things. Francie wants to be the perfect mother. Nell wants to escape the past. Collette wants to spend more time with her family. All Winnie wants is to have her baby back.

When Nell suggests a night out in Brooklyn to her new mums' club, the others jump at the chance. But the evening takes a tragic turn when Winnie learns that her six-week-old son Midas has been kidnapped.

As the investigation hits a dead end, Nell, Collette and Francie make it their mission to succeed where the police are failing. But as Winnie and those around her come under scrutiny from the media, damaging secrets come to light and friendships are pushed to the limit.

Because people will do almost anything to protect the ones they love.

Title: The perfect mother

Author: Aimee Molloy

Publisher: Sphere

Publication date: July 11, 2019

REVIEW

RATING: ⭐⭐⭐💫

Last year I absolutely adored "Goodnight beautiful". It's not usual that a book catches me completely unaware and that one manages to blindside me not once but twice. Although I enjoyed "The perfect mother" as well, it was not in the same league as "Goodnight beautiful" and that's great, cause it shows that Aimee Molloy is getting better. With just two books she's become one of those authors I know I will read anything they come up with.

The start was great and I became quickly engaged but the first half became a little bit repetitive with too much mothering talk and breast feeding references. The other thing that was a bit confusing was the huge number of characters and their kinship relations. More than once I had to stop and think "ok, so this one is married to this one and their baby is that one". The fact that two of the main characters had very similar names did not help.

Things got better in the second half, once secrets started to come to light and the "May Mothers" take a more active role in the investigation. Halfway through I had a theory in my head, but once again Ms. Molloy pulled out of her sleeve a very well done misdirection. How did I not see that after having read "Goodnight beautiful"? I'm still berating myself! She certainly makes the reader make some assumptions that are later proven completely wrong.

I had a bit of an issue with the villain's choice and some of the explanations given as I'm not sure how believable some of them would be irl, especially amongst a group of new moms.

The demands that society requires of new moms and the ones they ask of themselves to be "perfect mothers" were very well portrayed, and those emails at the beginning of each chapter (I hated them) were proof that sometimes a lot of information is worse than no information at all.