By: Julia Spiro
Many thanks to St. Martin’s Press, Minotaur Books, and NetGalley for the ARC!
With a newborn baby and a seemingly perfect marriage Brynn should be the happiest person around, but she’s not. She’s struggling. Her husband isn’t really around, and she’s left to take care of her newborn, Lucas, by herself most of the time, as well as everything else, all while losing herself. A girl they know washes up dead and her husband is arrested for her death. Before being arrested, he whispers something to her. Now she must figure out what he means and find out what really happened to this girl.
I was on the struggle bus this whole time this whole book. It had such potential but unfortunately it lost me. There was so many long paragraphs of just nothing but prose and no dialogue (which, if you’ve been reading my reviews, you know is something I just don’t like). Then in the middle of a chapter, with no line break, there would all of a sudden be a flash back and I had to figure out when the flashback started and stopped. It got really confusing. Most of these flashbacks didn’t push the story further along, they included details or anecdotes that just gave us background information that if left out, would not have changed the trajectory of the story.
I thought I was getting a suspense/mystery book, but what it really is, is a book that discusses a lot of new mother hardships with a little bit of mystery. I will say this, the author was REALLY spot on with Brynn’s feelings about being a new mother. I do wish she would have come out and called it post partum depression though. There’s such a huge stigma surrounding it. It’s something that I suffered with when I had my first child, so I completed connected with Brynn on this level.
The twist at the end of the story was predictable. There are so many books where a lot of people figure out a twist and I can’t figure it out. Well, I figured this one out so that’s saying something. I was disappointed in this book – I really wanted to like it more. That being said, others have really enjoyed it so maybe you will too! My opinion is just that, mine!
Publish Date: April 29, 2025
Find the book here.
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