The Good Mother by Karen Osman (Crime, Thriller, 10E/10E)

 1st October 2017, Aria, 432 pages, Ebook, Review copy

Summary from Aria

How far would you go to protect your children?

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.

Nayu's thoughts 

This book is cleverly written! There are mega plot twists at the end which completely surprised me. By chapter 15 I realised there were several characters who might get murdered. Later on I guessed accurately who it was, but what happens after I can't talk about without the spoilng the intricate plot. To come up with the big plot twist some clever writing tricks are used, which I only realised the significance of at the end. 

Kate, Alison, and Catherine are three very different women, each with their own problems and guilty secret. While at different stages in their lives they all get entangled with an evil man, which has repercussions for the rest of their lives. I liked when Catherine wrote to a prisoner because it had me Googling what prison was like for 20 mimutes. She is lonely despite having a fulfilling life, unlike Alison, who is struggling in her first year at uni which is very different from Kate's issues of raising 2 young daughters while her husband works. 

They all find company in the wrong type of person, they all have a lot to lose if their secrets are revealed to their families, and they all have an important role to play. Once I got used to them all I didn't mind the frequent point of view switches (which naturally happened at tense moments). I like that the difficulty of being in an abusive relationship was brought up because domestic violence sadly still exists today and victims all too easily can make excuses for the abuser's behaviour. 

I'd love to know if anyone else has guessed the big plot twist before it happened, as it's a brilliant turn of events. I don't yet know i I will reread it, because these types of books rely heavily on me not knowing whats happening, which doesn't happen so much in a reread, but I most definitely recommend it! 

Suggested read

Another thriller that kept me guessing was Deep Down Dead by Steph Broadribb (Thriller, 9/10E, short 'n' sweet review)