A Mother Always Knows by Sarah Strohmeyer (Bibliolifestyle Book Tour)

 

Title:  A Mother Always Knows

Author:  Sarah Strohmeyer

Narrated by:  EJ Lavery, Karla Serrato, and Reena Dutt

Publisher: Harper Perennial

Length: Approximately 10 hours and 31 minutes

Source: Thank you, Partner @bibliolifestyle @harperperennial for the review copy of A Mother Always Knows by Sarah Strohmeyer. Audiobook purchased from Audible.

Do you like reading about cults?  I do, I always find them fascinating.

Stella O’Neill is a librarian living a normal life until a true crime obsessive posts her current name and address online.  Suddenly everyone knows that as a child she lived in a Vermont commune of “diviners” and that her mother, Rose, was murdered when she was ten years old.  Her murder has remained a cold case. Will Stella be ablet to solve her mother’s cold case?

My thoughts on this novel:

·       The cover of this novel is great and fits in well with the story!

·       This was a riveting thriller and I enjoyed listening to the audiobook.  Great narrators.

·       Multiple narratives between Rose in the past right before her murder, Stella in the future, Priti the wife of a suspect in future.

·       The three POV’s worked well together.  Priti is the outsider trying to piece things together.

·       Rose’s chapters detailed the inner workings of the cult.

·       Stella has vague memories of living in the cult from age three to ten.

·       I enjoyed the novel, We Love to Entertain, from this author previously.

·       There was a great twist at the end of the book that I did not guess.

·       The parts of the story in the commune were creepy.  Radcliffe MacBeath is the guru in charge.  Rose has started to realize that he is fake and a hypocrite.  She wants out, but how can she escape with her daughter?

·       Stella may have divining powers where she can sense dead bodies by walking over their graves.

·       There were great twists and turns in the book.

·       I was only annoyed with one item when Rose wouldn’t leave the commune when the opportunity arose, and she had a way out. 

Overall, A Mother Always Knows by Sarah Strohmeyer was a twisty thriller with a unique premise.