The Good Mother was sent to me by Aria Fiction prior to it’s release in return for a review. All thoughts on the book are my own and not influenced by them in any way.
The Good Mother by Karen Osman
The Blurb
How far would you go to protect your children?
A gripping psychological suspense, with a shocking twist that will leave you reeling…
Catherine is a good mother and a good wife. The family home is immaculate, her husband’s supper is cooked on time, but when she starts writing to Michael, a prisoner convicted of murder, she finds herself obsessing about his crime and whether he can ever truly be forgiven…
Kate has no time for herself. Caught in the maelstrom of bringing up two young children with no money, and an out of work husband, she longs to escape the drudgery of being a wife and a mother. And she soon starts taking dangerous risks to feel alive…
Alison has flown the nest. But university life is not what she had hoped for, and she finds herself alone and unhappy. Until the day her professor takes a sudden interest in her. Then everything changes…
Three women – all with secrets. And as the days tick down to Michael’s release, those secrets can no longer be ignored.
Review
The cover of this book wouldn’t necessarily draw me in, but as I started to read the blurb I was immediately interested. My mind began swimming with questions. Who were these women? How were they connected? When I was approved an early copy of the book in return for a review I was delighted and started reading straight away. It was one of those books I found difficult to put down and I stayed up until gone midnight on the last night to finish it off!
The first three chapters introduce you to three women, Catherine, Alison and Kate in turn. There is no suggestion they are connected and you don’t know how they are, if indeed that is the case. The sheer fact they are all featured in the story makes you start to draw your own conclusions, which I found rapidly changing throughout the entire book. The plot deepens and thickens and really kept me guessing until the end. The light bulb moment at the end of the story was totally worth it!
I found myself really drawn to the character of Kate but I liked all three women. Kate is a mum to two young children. She is slightly disillusioned with life after ‘losing’ herself since getting married and becoming a mother. These feelings are very commonplace and fresh in my mind. She embarks on a writing course, leading her into a potentially dangerous relationship with her tutor. I also could identify with the feelings Alison had towards her university professor. As a young girl, being blinded to the ‘real world’ and falling under the spell of your first love is a feeling I remember well. Especially when the person is a handsome, older, worldly wise and successful man. I least identified with Catherine although the arguments she has with herself about forgiveness are interesting and thought provoking.
As I have already said, this is a real ‘can’t put downer’ in my opinion. I found it really easy and enjoyable to read and could not wait to see what was going to happen to each of the women. The ending does not disappoint after all the gripping build up, the twists and turns as I tried to guess what was going to happen. Highly recommended by me, especially for fans of psychological thrillers, you will not be disappointed!
The Characters
Catherine – “Dear Micheal, my name is Catherine and I am a volunteer with the charity Friends of Inmate Rehabilitation. I hope things are as well as can be. When I was asked to correspond with you as part of the charity’s effort to help prisoners, I was initially apprehensive. However, I reminded myself that we have a duty to help those less fortunate than ourselves”
Alison – He was quiet in that silent but thoughtful, studious sort of way. Not Alison’s normal type, that was for sure (did she even have a type, Alison thought to herself) and certainly a lot older, maybe between thirty five and forty years old she guessed, which to her eighteen years seemed ancient. But her law lecturer, or The Professor, as she had fondly nicknamed him, the Americanism referring to his Hollywood good looks – was in a different league altogether”
Kate – “She sighed. No one had told her it would be this hard. Well, she corrected herself, they had, but she hadn’t listened. It wasn’t just the physical demands of running around after the children, the emotional energy needed was overwhelming. Love, guilt, worry, happiness, stress and fear made for a tumultuous cocktail of emotions, which saturated her days, and infiltrated her nights. She loved her children deeply – she would take a bullet for them – but she felt constantly depleted and rushed, with no time to replenish”
Book Club Question – If you could invite one character over to your house for dinner, who would it be and why?
I would have to choose Kate. As a fellow Mummy, I definitely understand her feelings of exhaustion and not being enough. I would want to get her to put her feet up with a glass of wine for a little while, remind her of all the things she was doing a great job with and serve her some delicious food she didn’t have to cook herself!
The Author – Karen Osman
Originally from the UK, Karen won the Emirates Airline Festival of Literature Montegrappa Novel Writing Award 2016 with her crime-thriller novel and now has a three-book deal with Head of Zeus. When she’s not writing novels, Karen is busy bringing up her two young children and running her communication business Travel Ink.
Website: https://www.karenosman.com/
Twitter: @KarenAuthor
Links To Buy
Amazon: http://amzn.to/2hllmdI
Kobo: http://bit.ly/2wL90xt
iBooks: http://apple.co/2wLlV2e
Google Play: http://bit.ly/2wauh47
The Publisher – Aria Fiction
Website: http://www.ariafiction.com
Twitter: @aria_fiction
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ariafiction
Instagram: @ariafiction
The Spoonie Mummy 
Leave a comment