Convoluted

A Mother Would Know is a twisted psychological thriller about a woman with early-onset Alzheimers. With two women found murdered in her neighborhood, she is shocked when her son is one of the main suspects.

Narrated by Valerie, with a few other voices mixed in, I found the structure MESSY. As she shares her fears regarding her memory loss, memories from the past make their way into the narrative in a nonlinear order. Included are Valerie's past as a musician and her obsession with a little girl who was murdered in the Victorian house she loves. There are multiple storylines, many of which are left unresolved.

I had a lot of issues with this book. The pacing is slow--nothing happens for the first 25%, and it is all telling. Finally, when someone dies, the plot picks up momentum but, unfortunately, suffers from too much telling and not enough showing, which is the kiss of death for me.

Another issue I have is that the police must be blind because they leave behind blatantly obvious evidence. Valerie is the one who finds the clues after breaking into two crime scenes without getting caught--did I mention she is struggling with her memory, yet she is capable of stealthily breaking into two houses and finding evidence? At one crime scene, the police didn’t even take the victim’s laptop or diaries. I was rolling my eyes nonstop during these scenes.

There are a few good things about this book: Bowie the dog being one of them. Thankfully, he doesn’t come to any harm. There are also some good twists and turns, but they are not good enough for me to recommend reading this mess.

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley and Harlequin in exchange for an honest review.

This was a twisty read that made me think, I can't imagine having doubts/suspicions that my son was potentially involved in the murder of a woman. However, I got a little confused with the shifting POV's and timelines and somehow glossed over the part of the blurb referencing the main character's memory loss. While I enjoy an unreliable narrator, I don't really enjoy reading novels with main characters who are addled with dementia or addiction, just my personal thing.

Thank you NetGalley, MIRA, and Amber Garza for the advanced copy of A Mother Would Know in exchange for my honest review.

I enjoyed the pacing of this book, but I did find it to be pretty predictable. There's a certain storyline that also reminded me a lot of a different book, though I won't say because it will spoil this one.

I wish we would have gotten more alternating POV chapters, there is a certain character in particular whose perspective I was interested in.

A Mother Would Know will be on bookshelves December 13!

How will your adult son coming home to live with you at your request work out?

Valerie’s husband passed away a few years ago, and she is now suffering with memory loss.

She hopes having her son with her will give her some peace of mind, but the opposite happens.

Her son Hudson isn’t the best person to have around. He has a history in the town. He was accused of murdering his girlfriend.

The murdered girl’s mother lives next door and hasn’t forgotten about Hudson especially since he was found not guilty of the crime.

What is going to happen now that Hudson is back home?

Plenty...including one girl and then another murdered.

We keep getting a hint about something that Valerie did in the past, and she does things in the present that are a bit unbelievable.

Which character is hiding things? I was thinking all of them.

A MOTHER WOULD KNOW has no likable characters in it, and the story line is very confusing.

One minute it’s in present day and in almost the next sentence it’s in the past, and it takes a minute to figure out where you are in time.

Even though there are some surprises and a great ending, I was a bit disappointed because the book was all over the place, and I have enjoyed other books by Ms. Garza. 3/5

This book was given to me by the publisher via NetGalley for an honest review.

5 stars! I am am mother myself so throughout the entire story I tried to ask myself if this could ever happen? We think we know the people in our lives but do we really? I did not want to put this book down to adult. It was entertaining and fascinating! A job well done!

Whoa, I was not expecting that. A propulsive read that had me glued to the pages. The author has a really creative and unique way of placing the reader deep into the MC's (Valerie) POV, which worked so well for the plot. This was my first Amber Garza read, but scanning her backlist I see a few others that will be hitting my TBR.

This was such a strange book.

Valerie has two grown children, Hudson and Kendra. Kendra lives close by with her husband and their baby. Valerie sees her often, but Hudson was never around. Valerie started having memory issues and there was a family history with her mom. So she talked to Hudson and asked if he wanted to stay with her for a bit. That way there was someone there to help out. She was protective of Hudson. When something happened in high school, Valerie helped him cover it up. A woman was murdered close by and Hudson was interested in her. It made Valerie start to question things about him. She looks for his ex girlfriend and talks to her. Then another woman got murdered right across the street. It's another death that made Valerie question Hudson. She wanted to believe that she would know if something was wrong with him. It's forced her to look back on her life and remember that she was in a band and not home often. Her children were cared for by her husband. Everything makes Valerie think of the past, but she wonders if the things she sees and thinks are because of her memory issues or if it's something she missed.

I gave this book 4 stars.

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for my earc.

Can a mother truly know her children? That is the question that all readers will need to ask themselves as they fly through the pages of this excellent novel. Chilly and mesmerizing is the best way to describe it!

We are more connected than ever before. Many children have access to tablets and smartphones before they learn to walk and talk. This begs the question: Are we being misled by a false sense of connection to our kids? Do we really know them? Ever?

Valerie Jacobs asks herself the same questions and starts to query everything she thought she knew about her son, Hudson, when a neighbour is found dead. Could he have done it? Is her lack of parenting coming back to haunt her? You’ll love this chilling read about a mother who is forced to unravel a web of imperfect, twisted relationships within her own family in an attempt to see if A MOTHER WOULD KNOW if her son was a monster.

This is an eerie read, perfect for a spooktacular Fall evening! The setting of a haunted house in Sacramento, California, a lonely widowed mother who’s suffering quietly and alone with Alzheimer's, a dog who barks at invisible people, an insolent, moody, drifter son who suddenly returns home, and Amber Garza’s superb writing skills made this a hair raising read.

Garza explores what happens when our past comes back to revisit. She highlights sibling tension and careless parenting in conjunction with past mistakes and regrets to produce a thought-provoking thriller. Oh, the twists! I love her complex characters and her dedication to examining them; what feeds their monster within and what starves it, what haunts them and what do they haunt? She’ll have you jumpy and as you turn the last page, perhaps you’ll be like me, not so afraid of ghosts anymore…but of people!

So, did he do it? You’ll have to read to find out.

I was gifted this copy by Harlequin Trade Publishing, MIRA and NetGalley and was under no obligation to provide a review.

Wow. What a book. This is my first book by Amber Garza and it won’t be my last. I read this book in a day. It is quite the page turner. I couldn’t put it down. It certainly kept my guessing. There were many twists and I was genuinely surprised at the ending. Well she was hardly a sympathetic character, I could relate to Valerie being forced into a mother role that she never really wanted. As a mother of an adult child who has made some very poor choices, I look back and wonder if different actions on my part could have changed things. Just as Valerie spent time questioning her actions. I also enjoyed the dementia, unreliable narrator plot.

A fun premise with a surprise ending! The author is SO good at delivering those final twists that you never saw coming and this one was no exception. I was second guessing everything and everyone! I was blown away by the conclusion because I never saw it coming. This was a quick read that left me turning pages!

I was super excited when I seen this book was approved! So much thanks to MIRA for this eARC!
Amber Garza put together a fun and exciting thriller full of unreliable narrators and multiple points of view!
A Mother Would Know by Amber Garza is a wild, crazy story.
But a story I couldn't tear away from.
There was something very satisfying in the core concept of this plot.
And I'm telling you it hooked me immediately.
It is an easy, fast read, and very engaging.
I thought the characters were relatable and their stories were entertaining.
The ending was a complete shocker, actually the last couple of pages blew me away.
This engaging book was wrapped up with a fabulous conclusion.

"I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own."

MIRA,
Thank You for your generosity and gifting me a copy of this amazing eARC!

What would you do if you found out your child was a killer?? Intriguing, right. Well, this story posed a lot of interesting scenarios around this question. It was a bit slow but good enough to keep me reading because I wanted to know what would happen in the end. Pretty good.

Review published on Goodreads, 26 June 2022:

Well, that was a weird and depressing read! Honestly, I'm not sure why I kept reading A MOTHER WOULD KNOW, but I did. The characters are almost wholly unlikable. Valerie is the most appealing of the bunch and she's a bitter, whiny has-been who thinks the world is out to get her. Her children are even more messed up than she is! The novel's plot is far-fetched and strange, without the kind of subtlety that could have made it a far better psychological thriller. As is, it's melodramatic, cliché, unrealistic, and just...dumb. I found the ghost element to be the most interesting aspect of this story; unfortunately, not much came of that subplot. Bummer. Even though I did end up finishing this book, I found it to be a strange, unsatisfying read. I really don't know why I didn't put it down any of the times I wanted to...

A Mother Would Know is the latest domestic thriller by Amber Garza. The story centres around a 50 something widow, Valerie who is slowly losing her memory. She lives alone in a large Victorian house until her moody, often absent son Hudson comes back to live with her. It is not an easy reunion because neighbours cannot forget a traumatic event that happened years ago where the blame was put on Hudson. Furthermore, a murder of a young woman in the neighborhood once again casts suspions on Hudson. Valerie not only struggles with memory loss but also questions whether her son is the monster that others believe he is.

What I liked about the book:
-unreliable narrator and multiple points of view
-multiple timelines
-the fear of early onset Alzheimer’s by Valerie since her mother had suffered with it
-the creepy Victorian house and it’s past history
-the rock and roll backstory of a Valerie’s past
-a mothers guilt and questioning if she did right by her children and if her being on the road and away from the family made her children the way they are as adults
-the multiple twists in the story with a highly satisfying ending

What I didn’t like about the book:
-Some choices Valerie made in her life that at times made me unsympathetic to her current situation

My rating 4 ½ out of 5

Potential Trigger Warning-stalking, abusive, controlling relationships, affairs, harassment, alcoholism

My final takeaway
This was a highly satisfying read for fans of twisty, domestic thrillers, which raises the question: does a mom know if she is raising a monster and was it the result of her child rearing?

A huge thank you to Netgalley and Harlequin Trade Publishing for this eARC.

3.5/5

I really liked the premise here, a mother wonders if her son could possibly be a killer, could you even imagine? 😮 A parent always wants to take the side of their child but what if their side is the wrong side? What if they are capable of violence? Such interesting questions and I definitely felt compassion for Valerie as she struggled with this as well as her own memory issues. I found this to be a slow burn, there ended up being some pretty decent twists but the path to get there took quite a while for me. I think the authors previous books have been more my speed, more pacey and bingeable for sure. Overall this was enjoyable enough for me just not my fave of hers.

Loved this book! Truly suspenseful. I felt like I was guessing the whole time, and the ending was perfect!

This was a good read! There are plenty of twists and some great characters! The only thing was the shifting points of view there wasn't any wrong when it happened so it was a little confusing at times but other then that it was an interesting read!

A Mother Would Know is a fast-paced, twist-thrilled thriller sure to keep readers on the edge of their seats. Valerie is suffering from memory issues and her daughter worries about her living alone in her big house. Her daughter has her own family, so she asks her adult son, Hudson, to move in and help out. When Hudson was younger, he was accused of killing a girlfriend. So the neighbors aren't pleased with the new arrangement. When a murder happens nearby, Hudson is accused. Valerie defends her son because a mother would know what her son is capable of, right? Highly recommended to anyone looking for a twisty thriller. Be sure to check out A Mother Would Know today.

Valerie is currently suffering with memory issues and asks her son, Hudson, to move back in to help her. Valerie's daughter Kendra is married and has a young son that Valerie often helps with. After Hudson moves back in, there are two deaths in the neighborhood. When he was younger he was accused of killing his former girlfriend, but was never convicted. Did Hudson commit these crimes or was it someone else? A mother would know, right??

I really enjoyed this story, the creepy house where Valerie lived and it's history. I also enjoyed how the story would detail Valerie's life in the past and present, which I thought kept the story interesting. I do recommend this book to my friends, as it is an entertaining, twisty read. This was the second novel I have read by Amber Garza and I really like her style! I will be reading more of her books in the future!

4.5 stars!

Many thanks to Netgalley and Harlequin Trade Publishing, MIRA books for my ARC in exchange for my honest review.

This review will be posted to my Instagram Blog (@coffee.break.book.reviews) in the near future.