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.

We Love to Entertain by Sarah Strohmeyer (Bibliolifestyle Book Tour)

 

Thank you, Partner @bibliolifestyle @harperperennial for the review copy of We Love to Entertain by Sarah Strohmeyer.

Do you like home improvement shows?  I love them.  We cut the cable cord many years ago, but every time we stay at a hotel, HDTV is on.  I love to watch, but also make fun of the shows as well.  I especially love it when a house looks new to me (it’s from 2015!) and it’s decided that it needs a complete redo.

Erika Turnbull was going through a rough time in life, but she was able to get a great job as an assistant for a couple, Holly Simmons and Robert Barron who are working on renovating a log cabin home for a reality TV show.  When Holly and Robert go missing immediately after their wedding, Holly is suspicious.  Are they really on a surprise honeymoon?  Why would they go missing at such a critical time during the renovation project?  Unfortunately, the town grows suspicious of Erika.  Did she kill Holly and Robert in a jealous rage?  What about the unfortunate incident that Holly was involved with back in high school? Erika’s mother Kim may drive her crazy, but as things start to go south for Erika, she is there to support her and help her figure out what happened to the Barrons.

I enjoyed the mother and daughter combination of Erika and Kim.  They take turns narrating the novel and other viewpoints are added in as well.  I liked that their mother – daughter relationship improves throughout the book.  I also enjoyed Kim’s assistant, Doreen, who was not always that helpful.  There was fun humor in the book such as how Holly and Robert’s posts for how wonderful everything was didn’t quite match reality.  I liked the suspense in the novel and all of the twists and turns it took.  I did figure out most of this one, but I really liked how Strohmeyer tied everything up at the end.  This is a good book for those that love a cozy suspense mystery and home renovation shows.