The Mother by Valerie Keogh
Genre: Psychological thriller
Read: 25th May 2025
Published: 27th June 2024
★★★★★ 4.5 stars (rounded up)
DESCRIPTION:
A terrible wife...
Sarah Westfield is unhappily married to perfect husband Nick. Handsome, devoted and kind, he should be the ideal man for her, but Sarah knows their marriage is the biggest mistake she’s ever made…and she wants out.
But then Nick offers her one last chance to make their marriage work – a baby.
Sarah is horrified – a baby would tie herself to this man forever…wouldn’t it? Or could it be exactly what she needs?
So Sarah agrees.
A terrible mother?
When the baby arrives, Sarah struggles with motherhood and her resentment towards Nick only grows. Sarah feels more trapped than ever, but she loves her precious daughter...doesn’t she?
And then baby Kaya goes missing...
And everything Sarah has ever believed in comes crashing down around her...
Don't miss another page-turning, nail-biting read from the queen of psychological thrillers, Valerie Keogh! Perfect for fans of J.A. Baker, Keri Beevis and Nina Manning.
MY THOUGHTS:
Be careful what you wish for...
It's been awhile since I read a Valerie Keogh thriller (because some could be hit or miss) but I needn't have worried. This one is a definite hit! I don't know what I was expecting going in except maybe a slow start (which is usually Keogh's way) and yes, it was a slow burn to start but boy did it pick up pace into a fast-moving narrative! And while it did venture into crazy land a tad towards the end, it was still believeable, readable and thrillingly enjoyable! Even if none of the characters were all that likeable. Really, they weren't.
Sarah is a thirty eight year old GP married to Nick. Unhappily married, I might add. And with the distance Nick has been keeping lately, Sarah is sure Nick feels the same way. They met and married after a whirlwind romance, her on the rebound of a three year relationship to who she felt had been the love of her life. But six months later, she and Nick are married and are a happy...for a while. Now she dreads returning to the flat they chose together each night, stopping at a pub on the way and numbing her senses with a double vodka before going home.
But when Nick suggests they have a baby, instead of saying how she really feels, Sarah stupidly agrees hoping she won't fall pregnant. After all, her biological clock is ticking. But she does. And she has a rough time of it. But at the end of it all, baby Kaya is born and she is perfect. Nick is sputtering platitudes of how beautiful and perfect she is while Sarah struggles to find any emotion for this screaming bundle she just ejected from her body.
Naturally, as the reader would expect, things do not improve - neither for Nick and Sarah or for Kaya and Sarah. She does not love her husband and she cannot feel any love for her baby daughter either. Can things possibly get any worse for her? She wanted out before a baby was added to the mix; and nothing has changed. If anything, she wants out more than anything. She wished she wasn't married to Nick and she wished she never had a baby. She wished both of them would disappear...and she could continue her life and maybe fulfil her dream of becoming a country GP.
So when baby Kaya is kidnapped (rather stupidly, by all accounts), Nick is understandable distraught since he's the one who has doted on her from the beginning; he's the one who wanted her. But Sarah is detached. It's hard to find any emotion on the woman who has just had her three week baby daughter kidnapped from under their noses and yet there is none. None that the police could see, at any rate. Which naturally raises their suspicions. But Sarah was trapped in a marriage she felt stifled in to a man she didn't love and it was clear she was suffering post natal depression. Wasn't it?
The author cleverly weaves a tangled web of lies and deception, manipulating not only her characters but also her readers' opinions of the main characters. One could be forgiven for feeling at first sympathy for Sarah before becoming frustrated with her and then suspicious of her motives and behaviour. As frustrating as Sarah was, I could relate to her not wanting a child despite her husband thrusting the choice upon her. And then when she loses that child her emotions are even more confused. Did she want her baby to just disappear? Or is it a case of "don't know what you have until it's gone?" and she is inwardly distraught at what's happened but feels she doesn't deserve the right to grieve because she never wanted her in the first place? Emotions are complex and are running high in this incredibly emotive and deceptive tale.
The narrative included one of Sarah's confused state, the police investigation into the abduction and the perspective of an unknown character peppered in between. Together, it weaves a deceptive tale that is both complex and clever. Keogh cleverly manipulates her readers to the point we are second guessing every move and every twist right up to the shocking end.
Admittedly, I had begun to piece it all together with Zoe-Lee and Sarah completing the picture before the next big reveal - no, Keogh wasn't finished with us yet!
Very clever, very addictive and very twisted. A must for psychological thriller fans!
I would like to thank #ValerieKeogh, #Netgalley and #BoldwoodBooks for an ARC of #TheMother in exchange for an honest review.
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