The Stay-at-Home Mother: A completely addictive psychological thriller packed with jaw-dropping twists

Product Information

Andrea has a constant offer for Gabby to babysit Jack, but every time he uses her services, Gabby seems to be asking him out and missing deadlines when he’s supposed to come home. I raced through this and figured out one of the big twists quite early, but there were more surprises to come! Though the synopsis was slightly flipped, this book definitely didn’t disappoint; it was a page-turner that I read in one sitting, and it had good commentary about social media. Over a decade, Caro and Anna have bonded while raising their daughters, two little girls the same age but living two very different lives.

With secrets and lies being the backdrop of this story, there are some twists that happen in rather quick succession, leading to what will most certainly be a difficult and painful showdown. The book is narrated through two POVs—Andrea, who is a young pregnant mother who moves to a new neighborhood with a young toddler, and Gabby, the woman across the street who is very into posting on social media, especially about her teenaged son, Flynn. But from the moment Mary hires her to look after her young children, things start to feel just a little.

But as with all her books she takes topics that are relative to many and weaves her story around them while doing so with sensitivity. She hates those gurus who say things like ‘love them into being better people,’ and then don’t explain exactly how to do that. Baby brain,’ her mother said with a laugh when she told her she couldn’t seem to hold on to a thought for even a few seconds, but Andrea knows it’s more than that. Many thanks to NetGalley and Bookouture for gifting me a digital ARC of the latest psychological thriller by Nicole Trope - 4 stars!

We follow the points of view of the two women and get a creepy feeling that things will not go well and their new friendship will soon explode. There is a strong sense of foreboding that something bad is going to come from these two women forming a friendship. I read this book in less than 24 hours… So gripping, it had me hooked and unable to put it down until I finished the last shocking page! She’s careful about who is allowed to see her Facebook page, making sure that only other Australian mums can view it.Gabby glances up from the computer, focusing her gaze on the large window in the kitchen that looks out onto the garden, with its manicured stretch of bright green grass. I love books with unreliable narrators so this was a really fun one to read with lots of twists as we reached the second part of the novel. An absolutely unputdownable psychological thriller that will leave you gasping with shock and staying up way past your bedtime.

In the mirror she will practise moving her lips around her teeth, hoping that it looks natural, but when she talks to people and someone says something that makes her laugh, she always feels like she’s faking it. Emory Charbonneau, a pediatrician and marathon runner, disappears on a mountain road in North Carolina.You’re making me want to kill myself with that face,’ her mother said often enough for Gabby to struggle with the idea of smiling at anything. Terry is surprisingly good with babies, able to soothe them out of crying fits and never averse to changing a nappy. Although Terry really annoyed me and like Andrea I blamed him for alot of what happened I also did have a small amount of sympathy for him as like any other addiction what he did is an illness and hopefully he has learned his lesson. It was all pretty meh, and when it launched into the epilogue at 83% (the remainder was an extract from The Family Across the Street - a much better book) I was honestly shocked that was all there was to the story - talk about predictable!