The Baby Group by Jade Lee Wright
Genre: Psychological thriller, Domestic suspense
Read: 3rd August 2025
Published: 31st July 2025
★★★★ 4 stars
DESCRIPTION:
Six mothers-to-be. One of us is lying.
My fiancé and I traded our cramped London flat for a beautiful beach house on the Cornish coast. With our first child on the way, it’s the perfect place to start our new life. Quiet. Peaceful. Safe.
But the isolation is suffocating. Alex is working all hours, and he’s showing no interest in our wedding plans.
So I join an antenatal class - a chance to make friends with other mums-to-be. That’s where I meet Cora, Carmen, Violet, Rachel and Lucy. We bond over baby names, birth plans, and the sleepless nights ahead.
But something’s wrong.
I don’t like the way Lucy looks at Alex.
I’ve heard whispers about her husband’s first wife – and how she died.
At one of our get-togethers, she clutches Violet’s baby a little too tightly. The child begins to choke. No one forgets how long it takes her to let go.
I should have trusted my instincts.
The closer I get to my due date, the more frightened I feel. It seems like I’m falling apart – but I know my baby is in danger.
MY THOUGHTS:
This book starts off with an explosive prologue, making me want to swipe the pages of my kindle faster. Darcy has just given birth and her baby has been taken, leaving her and her fiance Alex lifeless beside the birthing pool.
"My baby's been taken," Darcy sobs into the phone. And before she can digest all that has just happened, she slumps into unconsciousness.
Darcy and Alex have been together just under a year when Darcy fell pregnant just a couple of months into their relationship. But this was what she had always dreamed of - being a mum. OK, so it wasn't planned and it was unexpected but it could work. And so they are looking for a fresh start when they decide to move from the busyness of London to the quiet Cornish seaside village of Rock and preparing for the arrival of their baby together.
Darcy decides to join an antenatal class, figuring it might be a good way to make new friends. They could share their experiences together whilst forming firm friendships. But Darcy has always struggled to make friends and she finds it difficult to connect with the women in the group, her past insecurities looming heavily. Add to those along with pregnancy hormones, her paranoia flares.
At first, she connects with Cora and feels an affiliation with her but soon her insecurities cloud her judgement as she begins to feel shut out from the rest of the group. This is highlighted even further as one by one the women begin giving birth and each becomes a mother. The dynamics of each begin to shift as tensions rise and their little group becomes smaller, shutting Darcy out completely.
Stupidly, Darcy confides in no one about her fears but then how could she? Who could she really trust? It was clear from the outset that there are insecurities around her relationships and for the most part it is completely understandable why she in turn shut everyone out. But did she really have no one? It seems so.
Of all the women in the antenatal class, Carmen and Lucy are the ones Darcy trusts the least. But when Cora, Rachel and Violet all start to shut her out, Darcy wonders what she has done to upset them. Why are they meeting up in cosy little gatherings in cafes, some of them with their bundles while others still awaiting the arrival of theirs? Even Lucy, with whom she had grown much closer to in recent weeks, has ghosted her while gathered with the others laughing away - most likely at her. Again, her paranoia flares. She can't confide in Alex her insecurities - he doesn't even know the half of it, let alone will he understand. He's her rock, her security; if he didn't believe her she doesn't know what she'd do. So she kept her fears, her paranoia and her insecurities to herself.
As her due date approaches, despite the women shutting her out of the group entirely, Darcy has noticed Lucy sidling up to Alex. Is something going on there that she isn't aware of? Darcy is sure something is going on but Alex will only deny it and throw familiar accusations at her. And he wouldn't be entirely wrong. Needless to say, a ton of drama ensues.
After most of the book detailing Darcy and her insecurities, constantly whining about having no friends and being left out to be being jealous of all the women for a variety of reasons and berating Alex for a previous infidelity, we get to the culmination of events that precede the penultimate climatic conclusion. And boy, does it get interesting! Up till now I found myself skimming pages with a dragging realisation that Darcy was infinitely annoying and Alex was a complete knob. But now the tension mounts as Darcy goes into labour and things get hairy to say the least. She changes her mind about birthing plans but no one seems to be listening to her. She is terrified and scared and tries calling for help but to no avail. And then secrets burst to the surface as Darcy realises the dreaded reality of her situation. And in the end, her baby is gone. Darcy is inconsolable.
The final twists were revealing in themselves, although it was the very l ast one in the epilogue that I didn't see coming, as I predicted everything else that unfolded with ease. But that was a nice a touch to leave readers dangling.
This is a fairly quick read though it took me longer due to personal reasons and time being a factor. But I raced through over half of the book this afternoon to its thrilling end. Darcy was hard to like because of her constant whining. I could relate to her with not making friends as I too find it hard to make friends but she just constantly moaned on an on about it. I didn't like Lucy either. She was completely transparently fickle and bitchy. The other women were OK but most of the focus was on Lucy and sometimes Carmen and Cora. So it was up to us as readers to work out which one we couldn't trust. Alex was a complete twat. He could have at least tried to be a little more understanding but he didn't even try. Instead he shoved Darcy in the direction of Lucy when it was clear she wasn't comfortable with her. Instead of taking her concerns seriously, he waved them away and told her to get a grip basically. I would have liked to get a grip on him - firmly around his neck!
A quick read, it was intriguing enough but the pacing was a little sluggish in parts and I found it hard to stay fully engaged. I loved the ending though. Everything from where Darcy goes into labour to the birth and the aftermath was nail-biting and I raced through those pages till the final conclusion.
I would like to thank #JadeLeeWright, #JoffeBooks and #ZooloosBookTours for an ARC of #TheBabyGroup in exchange for an honest review.
MEET THE AUTHOR:
Now I’m incredibly proud to be signed with Joffe Books on a two-book deal. My debut with them, The Baby Group, is set for release in July 2025. It’s a suspenseful, emotionally charged thriller about motherhood, identity, and trust. My second novel, The Family Secret, will follow in 2026.
When I’m not writing (or daydreaming about the next twist), you’ll usually find me with my nose in a book.
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