A real page turner couldn't put it down characters are well developed and the plot moves along nicely an ending with a twist

“When I was asked to correspond with you as part of the charity’s efforts to help prisoners, I was initially apprehensive. However, I reminded myself that we have a duty to help those less fortunate than ourselves, and I hope that through these letters I can give you a little insight into the outside world.”

When Catherine, perfect wife and mother, begins writing a prisoner named Michael- the reader is curious to know just what he is guilty of. Her correspondences with the prisoner are tender and uplifting. Does he deserve to become a better person? To start fresh, have another chance to make better choices in life? Surely forgiveness should be easy to give if one is repentant! Right? And Michael certainly seems intelligent and good, not like the usual scourge of society. His mind seems to be in the right place, in fact it’s hard to remember he is a criminal, he seems nothing like the others.

Alison is off to university and finding it hard to assimilate with the other fresh students. The only thing holding her focus is ‘The Professor.’ He is older, intelligent, and before long she discovers that the feeling is mutual. Struggling with the law class, when he tells her his door is always open to her she imagines he is just being helpful. When he takes her to a pub instead of out for the purposed coffee, he confides he sees passion in her, and so begins the seduction. The relationship may be too much for Alison to handle, but he is an addiction she can’t kick. It will be a tumultuous time, and not because of her classes.

Kate is carrying her family, with her jobless husband and the intimacy between them dead she finds her days of raising her children and resenting her jobless husband too much to bear. The days of easy affection are long gone, his pride has left her sick with resentment, having risked so much of their security and his inability to accept the help they needed. Looking for an easy escape she finds something for herself, Kate wants to play, to feel like a woman and not simply a mother and put upon wife. How could she possibly have known that stealing a few moments for herself would cost her so much?

The women are all struggling with their emotional state, trying to tame danger or control fate. Michael is on the verge of release and as that day creeps closer, each woman’s choices are going to culminate but will anyone survive the destruction they’ve brought into their own lives? Just how ‘good’ or ‘bad’ are these women? What exactly has Michael done in the past?

It begins with an innocent correspondence between a woman and a prisoner, a young girl taking her first step into the adult world of university, and a mother/wife disappointed by her withering marriage and slowly spirals into darkness. A good read.

Publication Date: October 1, 2017

Wow! The way this book was written was from the viewpoint of three women, Kate, Allison and Catherine. This kept me interested from the very beginning because I couldn't wait to find out what was going to happen to each of the three women, but there was a kind of a cliffhanger at the end of most chapters. Allison is a new law student who gets involved in a bad affair with one of her professors. Kate is a bored housewife and mother whose husband pays little or no attention to her, so she signs up for a creative writing class and enjoys gettiing to know the teacher there. And Catherine is a more mature woman, with a grown daughter, who is involved in volunteer work and one of the things she does is to write to prisoners. The reader finds out in an explosive finale that the three lives of the women are intertwined in a way that is unbelievable. I absolutely could not put this book down until I completed it, and once I did it kept me thinking about how I had missed all of the clues along the way. What a great psychological thrilller and a not-to-be-missed read!

The Good Mother by Karen Osman is an unexpectedly unique psychological thriller. Based on the blurb, readers know they will be in for the ride of their life- but the reality of it is that is it so much better than that! I loved this book. It's gripping, interesting, and so unique that my mind was BLOWN. I can't wait to read more by the author based on this one.

I read this book over three nights, at first I felt the book started slow and then by the middle it grips you and the end is just brilliant.
This book follows three women through two different timelines, one being the 80's and the other at present date.
Cathrine is a mother and wife, she loves her family but keeps a secret from them, she volunteers to write to a murderer in prison to support him on his on he up coming release.
Alison has just started uni, it's not long into her uni lifestyle she meets the older but handsome professor. She happy and in love but this doesn't last for long.
Finally, Kate, she a young married mum in the 80's, life is hard and the kids are demanding, she decided to go back to school and enjoys a life outside of her marriage.
Brilliant first novel, I look forward to the next.

A superb thriller from Karen Osman.The Good Mother is an excellent read which involves Catherine a loyal wife and mother,Kate a mother of two whose life is not ideal and Alison a student who has flown the nest to find her feet at university.The book is written in the style of all three women telling their story,Catherine starts to write to an inmate who is due for parole after serving eleven years for murder and as the letters become more frequent Catherine does she have an ulterior motive ? Kate is in an unhappy marriage and seeks escape by going to night school and meeting new friends and Alison starts university as a shy and lonely student but eventually comes out of her shell.The story is a brilliant well told thriller which had me hooked from the first page and had me thinking what the connection is between the three women and when the climax comes it really was a surprise to me.A superbly written 5 star read and one of best books i have read this year.Enjoy !!

What a ride! As you meet the characters in this novel, you become increasingly certain that their separate stories are enmeshed but it is not until the end that you realize how the lives of Alison, Michael, Kate, The Professor, Mr. Barnes and Catherine are intertwined. The author deftly handles issues affecting new parents, young married couples, university students, and abusive relationships. Sounds like too many intense story lines for one novel, but the various tales are brilliantly handled individually and pulled together as a whole for a believable and satisfying ending.

In the seemingly infinite realm of the ever popular for us by us female authored female driven suspense thrillers this one isn't going to make many waves, maybe a ripple or two. It's a debut and so some allowances must be made, it's perfectly decent. It creates a narrative via a three way split that comes together nicely in the end for that twist thrillers fans have come to expect from the genre. One third is a epistolary kind, involving communication with a convicted murderer about to be up for parole. One third is a chronicle of a two year abusive relationship between a university student and her professor. One third is a story of a young wife and mother who ends up having an affair with her writing class mentor. These I've just listed in a reverse chronology, but even without knowing the years, it's fairly obvious who ends up murdered, so the twist is more about how the other two plot lines are related. The pacing is nice, the writing has an amateurish vibe to it, it's serviceable, but simplistic, entirely too similar/identical really from one timeline to the next and quite estrogen heavy as these things tend to go. Decent fun and a relatively quick read, nothing special really, but passes the time in a relatively entertaining fashion. Thanks Netgalley.

Described as a ‘gripping psychological suspense’ this book to a certain extent fulfils that description. It goes on to add ‘with a shocking twist’ and I would say that is an understatement, because I was certainly not expecting that.

On the face of it we are presented with the voices and stories of three different women:

Catherine has a nice home, with a good husband and a daughter. She is ‘lucky’ enough to be able to fill her days without the burden of working. Instead she works for various charities and decides to embark on writing to Michael a prisoner in Durham jail to ready him for his parole and eventual freedom. She keeps this a secret from her family and looks forward to the exchange of letters even though doubt creeps in when considering his sentence for murder.

Kate who was destined for university finds herself in love, abandons academia and has two children. When her husband finds himself unemployed he suffers from depression with the result that Kate is left somewhat lonely, feels unloved and unappreciated whilst putting her all into raising the children on little money. She then finds an outlet in writing.

Finally, Alison who escapes from home to University in Durham hoping for a degree in Law. Unfortunately Alison struggles from uncertainty and doubt until help arrives in the form of The Professor.

Three women, three stories each with a secret, a secret which leads to problems.

We have all read books with secrets at the heart of them, in a way it is a fundamental human condition – through embarrassment, shame or hurt we seek to protect ourselves and others by keeping the secret, whether it be your secret or someone else’s. Within The Good Mother the secrets are slowly revealed and you may consider the actions of the protagonists to be understandable and if they had only spoken…. Here is a story of abuse, physical and psychological and emotional negligence.

At the beginning of the book I struggled a little as I tried to bind the histories of the three women together but as I became involved in their stories this faded. I was just anxious to find out more, to see what developed. I am glad I did because I was more than surprised at the end. So, would I recommend this? Yes, I certainly would. Was it a page-turner? I read it in one-night foregoing sleep. Need I say more?

Thank you to the publishers and NetGalley for providing an ARC via my Kindle in return for an honest review.