#BlogTour #BookReview (5 Stars) Mother by @SELynesAuthor @bookouture #Psychological #Thriller

I’m delighted to be part of the blog tour for the brilliantly dark psychological thriller Mother, written by S. E. Lynes and published by Bookouture 🙂

Blurb:

How far would you go for the perfect family?

When Christopher Harris climbs into his family’s dusty attic, he finds a battered old suitcase containing a letter. Inside the letter is a secret; a secret about his mother that changes everything.

Every mother loves their child. Every child deserves to be loved. But Christopher has grown up so lonely it hurts.

Finally, Christopher thinks he has a chance at happiness. A happiness he will do anything to protect, whatever the cost…

An unputdownable thriller about the lies we tell and the secrets we keep, Mother will hold you breathless until the very last page and leave you reeling. Perfect for fans of The Girl on the Train, The Sister and Apple Tree Yard.

My Review:

I finished this last night. Oh my goodness, what a book!!! I’m still feeling a little bit traumatised by it, eek!

I’ll be honest, it did take me a while to get into. Due to working long hours and being exhausted, it actually took me six nights to reach halfway, and I was unsure what direction the story was going to take. I gave myself the evening off yesterday, and sat and read the second half in one sitting (I even managed to hold off going for a wee), and flippin’ ‘eck, what a second half that was. Bloody brilliant!!!

Mother has quite a dark and somewhat sinister feel to it. Set during the time of the Yorkshire Ripper, some of the characters are either afraid for their lives or concerned they’ll be accused of being the killer. This gave the book an unnerving and edgy atmosphere, as it made me suspect the characters even more than I normally would.

The other main focus is on adoption and the strong desire to connect with birth relatives. My husband is adopted, so this book had my mind doing overtime when it came to considering all sorts of less than pleasant reunion scenarios. Don’t think I’ll be encouraging him to hunt down his birth parents in the near future after reading this. Especially as he’s from Yorkshire and born in the late 1970s, so I’ve now linked the Yorkshire Ripper to my whole imaginary meeting of family scenario. Shudder!

This is definitely one of my favourite psychological thrillers this year. What I will say, is if you find it a little slow or unclear at first, it is well worth it for the second half. Just think of the first half as introducing you to the characters and their lives. Then things start to fall into place later on in the book.

I started off intrigued and ended up shocked and had tears in my eyes. My heart physically ached near the end of this book. I went from such intense emotions to a sort of deflated feeling of grief and regret, almost desperate to change the ending to make it easier to cope with.

You need to grab yourself a copy of this book, I’d hate for any of you who love dark psychological thrillers to miss out on this one 🙂

5 Stars

Where to find this book:

Goodreads

Amazon UK

Amazon US

About the Author:

After graduating from Leeds University, S E Lynes lived in London before moving to Aberdeen to be with her husband. In Aberdeen, she worked as a producer at BBC Radio Scotland before moving with her husband and two young children to Rome. There, she began to write while her children attended nursery. After the birth of her third child and upon her return to the UK, she gained an MA in Creative Writing from Kingston University. She now combines writing with lecturing at Richmond Adult Community College and bringing up her three children. She lives in Teddington. Her first novel, Valentina, published by Blackbird Digital Books, came out in July 2016. Her follow up novel, Mother, is published by Bookouture.

Where to find the author:

Twitter

Facebook

Here are the details of the blog tour in case any of you wish to follow it: