The Good Mother by Karen Osman: Book Review

I love a good psychological thriller and I always enjoy trying new authors, so when I was asked to review Karen Osman’s debut thriller, The Good Mother, naturally I just had to say yes. Here are my thoughts:

The Good Mother by Karen Osman

Blurb from The Back Cover

Three women – all with secrets. Secrets that can no longer be ignored…

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…

A gripping psychological suspense with a shocking twist that will leave you reeling…

My Thoughts on The Book

The Good Mother starts out with three women just living their every day lives. Catherine is a housewife who volunteers to fill in her time, Kate is a downtrodden, unappreciated wife who begins to discover life away from her home and Alison is a student who begins to have a thing with one of her professors. And yet there is something about the book that kept me wanting to read more.

The way the book jumps between stories should be annoying, but it isn’t – in fact each section is just long enough to keep you wanting more but also feeling ready to move on to the next person at the same time.

The three main characters are well written and you feel like you’re getting a real insight into their lives. The story pulls you in and you just have to keep reading. Considering most of the books I read are full of blood, gore, murder and action, the fact that this book kept me gripped is a testament to the writer.

I’m not going to give anything away about the ending of the book, but I will say this. I don’t think the twist was particularly shocking and I had worked it out pretty early on in the book. But in spite of that, I still wasn’t sure how the book was going to end.

The ending was well done and if you haven’t seen the twist coming, then it will make sense of a lot of things and give you a real aha moment.

Conclusion and Rating

This is a really well-written debut novel that will keep you interested and wanting to read on. I would have liked the twist to be something else rather than the obvious one – now that would have been a real surprise, but overall, I thoroughly enjoyed The Good Mother. I would recommend this book to anyone who likes a character driven plot that is easy to read but still keeps you hooked. 4/5.

You can grab your copy of The Good Mother here.

Have you read The Good Mother? Let me know what you thought about it in the comments 🙂

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Disclaimer: I was gifted a copy of The Good Mother in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own and as an avid reader, I would never recommend a book I didn’t genuinely enjoy.