Poignant and haunting—Erin Kelly’s latest novel Stone Mothers has an elegance to it that is both poetic and dark. Things are not always what they seem in this novel, and it is sort of written as a novel in reverse, beginning in present day and then moving progressively backwards in time, before resetting back to present day. I found the characters in this novel absolutely fascinating, particularly the more we learned about their past. By about 35% I struggled to put this book down!

The setting of Stone Mothers really takes the trend of refurbishing old buildings into luxury apartments to a new level, as a former Victorian mental asylum is transformed into luxury accommodations. I thought the descriptions of the hospital, both before and after the renovations, were so vivid. This is the first novel I’ve read by Erin Kelly but she has a way with building a mental image of the scenes she describes. I found this book to be incredibly atmospheric, which really added to the suspenseful feel of this gothic thriller!

We begin in present day, where architectural professor Marianne Thackeray is traveling back to Nusstead, the place where she grew up to visit her ailing mother. Marianne left Nusstead—a town built primarily around Nazareth Mental Hospital—at seventeen, with barely a backward glance. A few years before she left, Nazareth closed its doors for good—sending the town of Nusstead into an economic crisis as the majority of residents were left without work.

But the building itself—called a Stone Mother due to the belief when it was originally designed that the building itself could offer therapeutic benefits to those suffering from mental illness—always held a strange fascination for Nazareth. It is the place she first fell in love, and also the place where her darkest secret lives. A secret shared with her then boyfriend, Jesse Brame, and politician Helen Greenlaw.

Now, Marianne is worried about the secret getting out. She’s returned to Nusstead and it has set off a chain of events that she’s not sure she can stop alone…

That mysterious secret shared by an unlikely trio—I found myself wondering what it could possibly be! The first part of the book is told by Marianne in the present, and then the second part is told be Marianne in 1988—the year she was seventeen and decided to leave home. I won’t spoil anything, but this is where you learn about the secret, and it is quite unexpected! And you also learn about another secret…

Then in the third part we move even further back in time to 1958, when Helen Greenlaw was a young woman, and more secrets are revealed. Helen as a character positively fascinated me. I wish I could talk more about Helen, but I think there is little I can say without spoiling it for readers. And rest assured, you do NOT want to be spoiled on Helen’s story! From the turn to 1988 in Part 2 and 1958 in Part 3, readers will not be able to put this book down. Both storylines are complete engrossing, and tie together with one another in very intricate ways.

I’m going to leave you there with this review… I absolutely loved this book! As some readers noted, it is a bit slow in the first part, because you aren’t really sure what is going on fully. That didn’t bother me at all, I found it very typical for a gothic thriller to begin slow and build up. My recommendation—get to know Marianne and Nazareth in Part 1. It all ties together in a fantastically intricate way!!!

Thank you to the awesome team at Minotaur Books for my copy. This book is out now!

Thank you Netgalley and St. Martin's Press for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review. This was my first by Erin Kelly but I'm familiar with some of her other work. The premise of the book was very intriguing and I found the characters to be complex, layered, and multi-dimensional. However, the ending left me wanting more and I felt the pacing was slow or rushed, but not often even.

Stone Mothers is a slow burn of a suspense novel, and I can see where some readers may not want to put in the time. The book delves into two different story lines, and one takes longer than the other, and makes less sense.

I enjoyed the asylum component of this book, and felt it was well researched and put together. Asylums are very interesting, and the visuals were a great motivator to keep me reading.

Over all, I think it was a good story, but spread out longer than needed.

I appreciate the advance copy. All thoughts are my own.

3.5 stars

“Sodomites. Pederasts. Deviants. Reproductive Control. Behavioral Correction.” All treatable at The East Anglia Pauper Lunatic Asylum established 1868.

“You’re actually lucky to be ill in this day and age.”

2018: Marianne is horrified when her husband gifts her with a new home he purchased at Park Royal Manor. The Manor stands on the grounds of a former mental institution. It is also the place that holds Marianne’s deepest and darkest secrets from her past.

1988: Marianne and her boyfriend, bad boy Jesse, commit a crime that will haunt them for the remainder of their lives.

1958: Helen Morris commits a crime in the eyes of society and is sentenced to be treated at The East Anglia Pauper Lunatic Asylum.

Told through the eyes of Marianne, Helen, and Honor, Stone Mothers offers an interesting take on the history of the Victorian mental asylum.

The beginning of the novel moves at a very slow pace but gradually builds. I was ready to give up, but then at the 30% mark things finally started to get interesting with the transition to 1988 and Marianne’s past.

In addition to different POV's, Stone Mothers is also split into different timelines. I loved the narrative structure and change in timelines. Helen’s character and the story were the most fascinating! I would have liked to spend more time with her character. At the same time, I could have done without Honor’s take on events.

This is a slow, but fascinating read about Victorian mental hospitals. Helen’s chapter is riveting and serves as an interesting commentary on how mental health was regarded and treated in the past. However, as a whole, I was confused on what this book was trying to be: thriller, social commentary, an ode to motherhood and female friendship? In the end, the message got muddled and the plot fizzled out.

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

“Stone Mothers” is another slam dunk for Erin Kelly. The story centers around three women in different time periods and the mystery surrounding the mental hospital, Nazareth.
Like all of Erin Kelly’s books, it combines suspense with great literary fiction. Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for this ARC.

Stone Mothers by Erin Kelly is full of so many secrets and so much mystery. The novel is centered around Marianne’s life and the steps she takes in order to protect her family from a dark secret of her past. I was completely engaged in the entire story and consistently surprised by each turn of events. I especially loved the structure of this novel. I enjoyed all of the different view points over various time periods and the short chapters. There was a lot going on, but it flowed very nicely. Lots of great layers to this story. This was the second novel from Kelly that I’ve read and definitely my very favorite. If the history of insane asylums and mental institutions is something that interests you, then you must read Stone Mothers. Thank you to NetGalley and Minotaur Books for providing an advance reader’s copy in exchange for my honest review. 4/5 stars for Stone Mothers!

This one is so hard to review. Most importantly, it felt like two different books- even two books written by two different writers to tell the tale of how Marianne and Helen became entangled, along with Jesse. The first half is Marianne's story and by the time it switched to Helen's, I was quite tired of Marianne and her big nasty secret. The scene in the tower was difficult to visualize and went on too long. Helen's story was more interesting and oddly, given the subject matter, much more detached than the somewhat frantic Marianne portion. I didn't find it suspenseful but I did want answers to the questions that arose from the way Kelly played things with Helen. Thanks to net galley for the ARC. I liked Kelly's earlier novels and this, with a little patience, does have a number of bright spots.

Stone Mothers was just an okay read. I do not think it was a book for me. It did not flow as well as I would have liked. I give it two stars.

I've read almost all of this auhtor's book and Stone Mothers lived up to expectations! I don't want to give anything away, but the story was cleverly plotted and gripping from beginning to end!

2.5/5 stars

Stone Mothers is my first book by this author. It is a psychological suspense set in the UK.

The title of the book comes from the fact that the Victorians used to call their mental hospitals stone mothers.

The book is divided into parts. There are three narrators. And all of the parts take place in different time periods.

The first narrator is 47 year old mother and wife Marianne (1st person POV). Then we have Helen (3rd person POV). And Honor (Marianne's daughter - 1st person POV).

I didn't love the change in narrators or time periods. Something interesting happened at the end of part one. But we didn't get back to that part of the story until the end. That did not work for me.

I didn't mind the idea of getting to see other characters' POVs. However some of the scenes were exactly the same. And I did not find that this added much to the story.

I wanted to like this book. But it was too slow for me. I did not like Jesse at all (Marianne's old boyfriend). And I was sort of annoyed with her husband for what he did at the beginning of the book. The asylum is a big part of the story and it was super creepy. I guess that set the tone of the book.

I did like Marianne's daughter Honor. There are a lot of secrets in this book. And that was interesting. I was also fascinated by what became of Jesse and Marianne, considering they came from the same small town.

I love the genre of psychological suspense. But unfortunately I just didn't love this book.

I usually finish books quickly, but unfortunately, Erin Kelly's Stone Mothers never kept me fully engaged and therefore took me four weeks to finish. It's lacking in character development from secondary characters who play an important role in the ending, but also lacks a plot that continuously moves forward. The flashbacks in time and different perspectives of the same event sequences helped add dimension, but it ultimately fell flat.

This was a really great read! I love books that take place in old asylums (yes there are quite a few)- to see how women were treated in those places is horrifying! Overall an interesting read with engaging characters.

3 for neutral. I’ve tried on a few occasions to get into this book, but just haven’t been able to. It could be my mood or just not for me, but will update if I’m able to get Into it.
I will use in a challenge in Chapter Chatter Pub and let members know that they should give it a shot!

3 1/2 ⭐️‘s
This book is told in four parts. Part One starts on the slow side and readers are left pretty much in the dark. Just as it reaches a nice flow we are left with a gigantic cliff hanger as it enters Part Two. Part Two tells us the back story of Marianne and Jesse and the secret they have been hiding, the secret that still binds them together. A secret of the dark history they share. Part Three continues the backstory of Nazareth, the Asylum and the patients there. It’s about “a time when patients were being dumped in asylums by their families like something from a Victorian novel”. What an incredible creepy place. What a scary time. Kelly does an excellent job of portraying asylum life. From my own history, I know that my Aunt was in Steilacoom in Washington State during this time frame and it was not pretty! Once again, we are left with a cliff hanger at the end of Part Three. Part Four starts off with the reader in the dark again! What happened to Marianne, what happened to Jesse??? It does finally fill in all of the blanks, but I found it to be a bit on the depressing side. Sometimes secrets left in the dark can overshadow the rest of life.

"Stone Mothers" is a slow-building mystery, not fast-paced or intense enough to be the thriller I expected. Marianne has long escaped her poor hometown and had no interest in returning. However, when her mother became ill, she took a sabbatical from work. Her husband surprises her by buying a flat there for her to stay while she cares for her mother. However, what he doesn't know is that her fascination with the old mental asylum- now converted into high-end flats- is not out of appreciation for it but something darker.

As she spends time there, she is also forced to confront her past, as Jesse still lives there. We know that she, Jesse, and a politician, Helen, are hiding a big secret. However, the time to finding out what happened is long and somewhat boring. If you can power through it, it does get more interesting later on, but this felt more like a character study rather than a thriller, as we delve into the lives of these characters and what drives them.

Common threads through the story are the ways that the past drags you down and never lets you go, as well as poverty and mental illness. The book tends to go very deeply into motivations and the characters. It's overall a very slow burn and was difficult for me to get into for this reason. The answers and secrets are very slow coming, and I kept thinking I had missed something. That being said, it does pick up the pace later in the story, so if you power through, this does improve.

Overall, this book struck me as more of a mystery/character study than a thriller. I recommend for people who like to go deeply and slowly into a story. Please note that I received an ARC from the publisher through netgalley. All opinions are my own.

Wow!!!!!! Loved this book!! It is just as suspenseful as He Said She Said if not better. Marianne's husband thinks he's buying them a lovely getaway home but he doesn't know a clue about what memories that place hold for his wife. Thank you to Netgalley and St. Martin's Press for my honest review

What a crazy yet amazing book! Stone Mothers was intriguing and had me glued to my kindle. The slow build in the beginning  had me trying to figure out where Erin was going. But when the poo hit the fan did it ever!

The story is told from the viewpoint of Marianne in the present and then when she was seventeen, from the viewpoint of Helen from the time she was a teenager until her eighties, and from the viewpoint of Honor, Marianne's daughter, in the present. During the first section of the book, I was having a hard time getting into the book but once we got to Marianne's younger years, getting more background to the story made it more interesting, and then by the time we got to Helen's viewpoint, I was hooked. Helen's story is a sad one but I had trouble deciding if her cold parents led to Helen's inability to connect with people or if she would have been that way anyway. Whatever the case, what happened to Helen when she was young, was the catalyst for the things that happen later in the book.

A lot of the story takes place in and on the grounds of an old asylum, while it was still in use as an asylum, while it was a decrepit and dangerous mess of rubble, and lastly rebuilt as luxury apartments and cottages. A young Marianne and her young boyfriend Jesse, blackmail politician Helen and this leads to the three being tied to each other for decades to come. So many lies tie them together and each are haunted by what happened in the past and the secrets that they try to keep under wraps. The character of Helen intrigued me the most but for all she had in her life and all she accomplished, the fact that she could not connect with other people meant she had nothing at all.

Thank you to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for this ARC.

I’m so glad I was able to get my hands on this ARC of “Stone Mothers” by Erin Kelly. Even though Marianne thought that what happened at Nazareth Mental Hospital was long buried in her past, all it takes is one gesture from her husband to bring it to the surface. Some things don’t stay buried forever.

I really liked this book but I don’t know if the different sections of time and character point of views worked for me. It felt jumpy and I wondered if there was a way to have streamlined it more effectively. Especially with that transition into the daughter’s voice and how quickly the action sped up at the end. Parts of it felt choppy, for sure.

I don’t know what the author’s intentions toward Helen Greenlaw were (in terms of painting her as a villain) but I just felt sad for her. All she wanted was to pursue her ambition and she was thwarted at every turn. That’s how I felt about Marianne too, until she made a break from her relationship and pursued her goals. Overall, I think fans of Erin Kelly and “He Said/She Said” will enjoy this book. (This book was 3.5 stars for me but I rounded up since I liked it overall).

Marianne was doing well for herself. She’s been married for 25 years to a wonderful and understanding man. Her daughter, who is mentally ill, hasn’t had an episode in over a year. Life is good. Then her husband surprises her with a trip to her home village of Nusstead. A place she has rarely gone back to since she left at 17. A place where a death occurred and was covered up.

Her happy life is in jeopardy when her ex-boyfriend threatens to expose her secret about what happened at the Nazareth Hospital.Marianne is forced to join forces with the only other person who knows what happened that night. But Helen has her motivation for aligning with Marianne. She has her secrets, and she is willing to do whatever it takes to keep those secrets from coming out.

When I started reading Stone Mothers, I thought that this was going to be a quick book to read. A book with an easy plotline to follow. One I could keep track of the main characters. An interesting book that would keep my attention. Unfortunately, Stone Mothers only hit two out of the three for me.

The Stone Mothers had two significant plotlines. I had a hard time following Marianne’s plotline. It was all over the place. It could be present day then morph back to the ‘80s and then again to the present day. It drove me nuts.

I found myself wondering when the colossal secret was going to be revealed and what it was. It was alluded to in Marianne’s plotline often, but it wasn’t explain until halfway through the book. At that point, I was so irritated by the constant flashbacks that I didn’t care about the secret.

Helen’s plotline was wonderfully written. It stayed in chronological order. There were none of the bouncings around that made Marianne’s plotline so hard to read. As weird as this sounds, I thought that Helen’s plotline was written better.

I do think that Helen’s plotline should have been first in the book. That way there would be no confusion about what was going on. Also, I would have liked to see Marianne’s stay in chronological order. No bouncing around. It would have made the book much easier to read.

I did like that the author got into the history of how the mentally ill were treated in England. It was eye-opening what was considered mentally ill back then. Husband beating you. Mentally ill. Gay or Lesbian. Mentally ill. Someone who was a square peg trying to fit into a round hole. Mentally ill. A woman who wanted to get an abortion. Mentally ill. I could go on and on. It disgusted me.

I was horrified by how the mentally ill people were treated in the book. The treatments that they were put through were illegal and awful. How the staff managed the patients were horrible. Sure, there were a few that were nice, but they were few and far between. Most of the time, the staff was abusive towards the patients.

I liked also explored what it was like when those hospitals shut down. Unfortunately, what the book showed is the truth. I grew up about 10ish miles from a state hospital (Danvers State). They closed down in the mid- ‘80s. With nowhere to go, they put a bunch of patients out on the street. I remember not being allowed to play outside the summer it happened because my mother was terrified. She used to work there, and she said that there were sick people in there. People that shouldn’t have been allowed back on the street but were there because of cutbacks and lack of funding. So, what happened in Stone Mothers, I could believe.

I did like how the author was able to show how far treating mental illness has come. Marianne’s daughter had her struggles with mental illness. She was functioning because of therapy and medication. The stigma of having a mental illness has lessened but is still there. In this book, it shows how far it has come and how far there is still left to go.

I couldn’t get a feel for Marianne during the first half of the book. She did come off as having an “I am better than you” attitude. I didn’t understand her reaction to having an apartment bought for her until later in the book. Up until then, I thought she was an ungrateful snot. I also didn’t understand her codependent relationship with Jesse. It wasn’t explained until much later in the book. I did come to respect her towards the end of the book. Everything she did was for the love of her daughter.

I did not like Jesse. I did feel bad for him when everything happened with Clay. But other than that, nope. Didn’t like him. His identity was so wrapped up in Marianne’s that he didn’t know what to do when she broke it off. His behavior was erratic from the middle of the book on. By the end of the book, he scared me.

Helen was the only one out of the three that I liked. She worked hard to become who she was. While she had an outward facade of not caring, she did. As for her story, I am not going to go into it. All I have to say is that she deserved most of the stuff that happened in the book.

I didn’t feel that Stone Mothers was a good fit in with the thriller category. There was no thrill. Because of Marianne’s plotline jumping around, I never got that feeling.

As for the mystery/suspense categories, I was kind of eh. I felt that the plot moved too slow and jumped around too much for any suspense to be built. The mystery angle was also eh. I couldn’t get into it because of Marianne’s plotline jumping around.

There was a lag in the plotline about halfway through the book. The author was able to bring the book back on track. There was also the matter of dropped characters and insinuated plotlines. The way the book set up a particular character, I thought that she was the one killed. But, nothing else was mentioned about her until the end of the book. And it turned out to be different than what I thought. I went back and reread that passages to make sure I wasn’t confusing things.

The end of Stone Mothers seemed rushed. I wasn’t expecting what happened. It was also mentioned that something happened to another main character. Then that character was brought back into the book. I did like that it was from Honor’s POV. I liked that I was given an outsider’s perspective on the whole cluster. Still, I was left wanting at how the book ended.

I would give Stone Mothers an Older Teen rating. There are mentions of sex but the deed itself was never talked about. There is violence. There is language. I would recommend that no one under the age of 16 read this book.

I am on the fence if I would reread Stone Mothers. I am also on the fence if I would recommend it to family and friends.

**I chose to leave this review after reading an advance reader copy**

I would like to thank the author, the publisher, and NetGalley for allowing me to read and review Stone Mothers.

All opinions stated in this review of Stone Mothers are mine.

Have you read Stone Mothers?

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