By Jo Crow
The perfect life becomes the perfect lie.
Molly Burke has it all. With the help of medication to control her borderline personality disorder, she’s become a successful real estate agent with a loving husband who treats her four-year-old son as if he were his own. The emotional highs and lows from a difficult childhood have smoothed out but are still best concealed with little white lies to protect loved ones from her troubled history. Until Molly’s past returns to shatter her idyllic life.
Molly’s son, Colin, is discovered injured and covered in his grandfather’s blood—and her father-in-law is nowhere to be found. The police suspect foul play. Longstanding bitterness erupts between Molly and her mother-in-law, exacerbating Molly’s feelings of inadequacy and triggering fierce reactions that can no longer be contained.
A hallucination of her missing father-in-law only increases Molly’s paranoia over the sins of the past. Deceit lies around every corner and embroils everyone in the growing madness. Someone knows what she did. And someone is trying to expose the truth.
And if the truth is revealed, her family will pay the price.
Official Summary
Mothers Don’t Lie explore the fear a mother has of losing her child. This tale takes you deep into the mind of a woman who has been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder and compulsive lying, a combination that keeps you on the edge of your seat while you read.
This is the first time I have read a book by Jo Crow and I raced through this story in less than two days. The easy writing style and gripping storyline had me hooked from the moment I read the blurb of the book, and I was not disappointed anywhere along the way. This was one of those books where you simply had to get to the end.
Molly had a troubled childhood, and life did not seem to get any better for her. Then her son, Colin, was born and she felt like her world was falling apart. Until Bryan Burke walked into her life. For the first time, Molly felt safe. She gained control of her borderline personality disorder with the help of medication. Life was perfect! Until her son is discovered covered in blood and her father-in-law has disappeared. Molly’s past comes knocking and she finds herself spiralling back to old habits, lying to keep her past hidden, only to feel herself losing everything important to her.
This book consumed me from the minute I opened the first page. I was deeply drawn into Molly’s world, it felt as if I was losing my grip on reality right along with her. While reading this story, with one lie after the other it soon became exceedingly difficult to keep track of what was real and what was not. You venture through her emotional turmoil loving her and then hating her, believing her, and then doubting her. This was a brilliant tale, nothing like anything I have read before.
The characters in this book keep you guessing. While you know Molly is a compulsive liar, and you come to expect her to not be honest, you simply must love the mother-in-law! She is a dragon, to say the least, and you expect the worst from her all the time. But she is a mother too, looking out for her child and her grandson – making it a little harder to dislike her. Four-year-old Colin plays a big part in the book, but you do not get to know him. At times I wondered if he was real – not a bad thing as this just added to your uncertainty about Molly while you were reading.
Mothers Don’t Lie will appeal to readers who love the edge of your seat suspense. This book keeps you guessing all the way. A brilliantly written psychological thriller guaranteed to keep you up until the early hours.
If you enjoy psychological thrillers, do yourself a favour, read this book!
Author: Jo Crow – ISBN: 9798564242929 – Publisher: Relay Publishing – Source: ARC NetGalley
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Author bio from the author’s website
Jo Crow gave ten years of her life to the corporate world of finance, rising to be one of the youngest VPs around. She carved writing time into her commute to the city, but never shared her stories, assuming they were too dark for any publishing house. But when a nosy publishing exec read the initial pages of her latest story over her shoulder, his albeit unsolicited advice made her think twice.
A month later, she took the leap, quit her job, and sat down for weeks with pen to paper. The words for her first manuscript just flew from her. Now she spends her days reading and writing, dreaming up new ideas for domestic noir fans, and drawing from her own experiences in the cut-throat commercial sector.
Not one to look back, Jo is all in, and can’t wait for her next book to begin.
Thank you, NetGalley for a gripping read that helped me miss an entire weekend of rain! As always thank you for reading my review of this title. Have you read any Jo Crow books? Which is your favourite? Leave a comment below. Until next time, Happy Reading!
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