This was a fast paced thriller told from different character perspectives both in the past and present. It focuses on Claire, a mother who sadly lost her son to a genetic disorder, and is now desperate to have another child who does not carry the same gene. With the help of a fertility expert and his partner they work together on an illegal experimentation which changes all their lives, forever.
The story is an unusual idea and I enjoyed the way it unholded. It built up to a very dramatic and twisty ending where everything went a bit crazy! I liked the character of Claire but she is incredibly selfish and makes a huge decision without thinking about the consequences. It effects everyone involved, and I felt sorry for the character of Ethan as the implications for him seem to be forgotten about early on.
It was an interesting look at the ethics of human experimentation and the lengths people are willing to go too to get what they want.

This was a fantastic book. I really enjoyed the thriller part of the story and the mix of the science in it as well. It did suck me in after a couple chapters wondering what would happen next. I do feel it became a little predictable towards the end but all in all it was a great read.

Like recent release Her Daughter’s Mother, Mother Knows Best (Crooked Lane Books, September 10, 2019) is another medical thriller that deals with a woman’s difficulty trying to conceive. Both are excellent.

Here, Claire Abrams still grieves for the loss of her son, who died as a result of a genetic mutation she passed along. Desperate for another child, she seeks the help of progressive fertility doctor, Robert Nash, and his brilliant post-doc, Jillian. Together (and behind Claire’s husband’s back), they create the world’s first three-parent child. This could usher in a new world in which inherited diseases are eradicated.

Their experiment is illegal, however, and when authorities are alerted to it, Claire and Robert are forced on the run. Jillian is sent to prison.

Ten years later, Abby is an extraordinarily healthy child. But she has many questions—why on earth are her parents so reclusive and secretive? She begins to look deeper into her family and recognizes something isn’t right.

And when Jillian returns to the picture, driven mad by her destroyed life, even bigger problems surface for the family.

Mother Knows Best is told in Claire’s, Jillian’s, and Abby’s points of view, in both the part and present day.

Where Her Daughter’s Mother deals with IVF, which is pretty much accepted in the medical community (though not without its own set of ethical questions for some), Mother Knows Best takes a look at a much different side of reproductive medicine: genetically engineering human embryos. And though its function here is for seemingly benign reasons rather than creating a “designer baby,” it’s clear that there could be far reaching implications. Peikoff uses her degree in bioethics to create a quite believable tale of the lengths one woman will go to bring life into the world without suffering.

What I really liked is that Peikoff handles the issue gracefully. There is an even-handed portrayal of both sides of the issue, forcing readers to draw their own conclusions about this heated ethical dilemma.

She also draws several characters that are easy to hate/love. Claire’s motivations are easy to understand. You feel for her grief and her desire for motherhood. With Abby, it’s easy to empathize with her frustrations and the fear that she could easily become media fodder. Jillian is despicable.

The characters I found hardest to get a hold on were Ethan (Claire’s husband) and Robert. Ethan’s high handed morality at the expense of his wife (though she doesn’t communicate well with him either), causes destruction, and I really didn’t connect with, or entirely believe, his change of heart. Likewise, I didn't entirely buy Robert’s two personalities—the way he is with Jillian, and with Claire.

But overall, this one was great--it's really hard to put down.

Thank you to Crooked Lane Books and NetGalley for providing this review copy. I will also be posting a copy of this review on my blog, A Bookish Holiday, on August 19. I recommend this one as a quick read and a creative medical drama.

I loved this unputdownable book!
It was a thrilling, unnerving read. The characters were realistic. The plot was gripping and fast-paced. Run, do not walk, out to get this fab book.
Thank you NetGalley.

Mother Knows Best is a unique and fascinating psychological suspense thriller novel. The story is about a talented fertility doctor and his over-achieving assistant/scientist. Together they have come up with a secret procedure to help prevent unborn children from inheriting genetic mutations/diseases from the parents.

I found the storyline of Mother Knows Best enthralling. The multiple viewpoints provides the reader with the opportunity to understand the differing opinions and belief systems of each character.

Mother Knows Best was an exciting page-turner for me. And the cover is attractive and attention-getting as well. I will most definitely be on the lookout for more books written by author Kira Peikoff.

There is only room for one mother in this family...
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Combining events from the past and present, Mother Knows Best by Kira Peikoff is a really enjoyable book that you’re going to want to read this fall. Main character, Claire, finds out that she has a genetic mutation that can be passed onto any future children she has. She consults a fertility doctor, Robert Nash, and takes part in a fertility experiment that combines the egg of two women (removing the genetic mutation) - two women being Claire and Dr. Nash’s assistant Jillian. Problems arise when word of the controversial experiment gets out, forcing Claire and Dr. Nash to go into hiding and Jillian to go to prison. Ten years later, fired by anger and jealousy (and maybe a small amount of psychotic behavior), Jillian is using DNA mapping to track down Claire’s child that is also genetically part her own child. And she’s hell bent on taking the child that she feels should have been hers all along. I really enjoyed the multiple points of view and the story was strong and interesting.

Mother Knows Best by Kira Peikoff

The book is a psychological thriller with a scientific flavor, about the protagonist Claire, who loses her son due to a mitochondrial disease that she carries in her DNA. She is apprehensive to try again, fearing that the second child will also meet the same fate. Claire teams up with a fertility specialist, Robert Nash, and his research assistant Jillian to conceive the world’s first baby with three parents as Nash is at the forefront of research that eliminates gene markers for deadly diseases. However, his methods have not been approved yet but Claire offers herself as a first test patient for the clinical trial. She has nothing to lose and on the other hand she might get to be a mother to a healthy child.
Fast forward to ten years later where Claire is now living the life of a paranoid agoraphobic with her 10 year old daughter Abby who wonders why her mother behaves the way she does. Jillian tries to get back into Abby’s life after a chance encounter through a school science project on MapmyDNA.com that Abby undertook to discover any long lost relatives.
What follows is a game of cat and mouse where Claire’s condition borders on insanity and Jillian tries to claim rights.
The book has its moments of excitement and anticipation but sometimes the twists are too predictable. The plot also gets us thinking about the moral and ethical boundaries one crosses to get a child. Medically, it is an interesting subject to pursue but the readers fail to develop empathy for Claire because of her self-centered attitude. She goes through all the risk to get the child she wanted and now when she is mother to a beautiful girl, she has only time to think of her paranoia and her obsession that her past will catch up to her. In the process she is ruining her present and her future. Over all a well written interesting read.
Thank you to NetGalley for the advance copy.

The cover caught my attention and the blurb sounded different and original which made me want to read this book. This was my first time reading this author and I was pleasantly surprised. I liked certain characters and loathe other characters as I read. I was able to see the twists early on which made the book a little predictable but it was still an enjoyable read for me. I loved how refreshing this plot was as this has been a tough reading year for me and I seem to be dnfing a lot of books. This was a fast paced thriller that held my interest and I will also be checking out other books from this author as well.

Wow! I started Kira Piekoff's novel "Mother Knows Best " last night and literally could not put it down. The novel is filled with ethical and moral quandaries that made me wonder how far I would go to be a mother and to protect my children.

I really liked the varying perspectives which allowed me to know and understand the characters. These characters were well-crafted and relatable yet flawed, and I found myself loving and hating them at different parts of the book.

Overall, I loved this book enough to add all of Piekoff's books to my "Want to Read" list on Goodreads. The writing style was fantastic and fast-paced. I literally did not want to put this book down. I highly recommend this book!

Very interesting premise. The author throws in a sci-fi twist to the infertility subject. It does not bog you down with the science, so it is easily understood, but may leave some wanting more. The ending was wrapped up a little too tidily for me but overall an enjoyable read.

This compelling page-turner jumps straight in with the action and tension not missing a beat before the reader is drawn into the strange, mysterious and reclusive world of Claire, Michael and Abigail Burke. Today is their annual outing into the city to commemorate Claire’s late son Coltn’s birthday. It’s the only time they venture into the city, and one of the few times Claire will leave the house, for fear of being recognised after a decade-old scandal saw Claire thrust into the spotlight. All she cares about is protecting her daughter, even though ten-year-old Abby has no idea about the true circumstances surrounding her birth, or that her parents are in hiding and in fear of discovery from not only the law, but a woman who is determined to have her revenge.

But they weren’t counting on a school project that would lead to Abby asking questions they aren’t prepared to answer, or her secretly looking for answers when she is sure her parents are lying to her about something. She has no idea that she’s the world’s first child of three parents, illegally created to avoid inheriting Claire’s mitochondrial DNA that carries the disease that killed her first child. What will happen if she learns the truth? And can her parents keep her safe from the third parent out for vengeance?

What a spectacular book! Full of tension it had me reading with bated breath in anticipation of what would happen next. I loved the use of dual timelines told in parallel and the choice to have the story narrated by Claire, Jillian and Abigail. Giving a voice to three very different characters increased the atmosphere and helped the reader bond to what each of them is going through and their motivations for actions that otherwise might have seemed to not make any sense.

Claire is a Mama Bear. She'll do anything to protect her child. She's been through the agony of losing a child after watching them suffer from illness and went to extraordinary lengths to protect her next child suffering the same fate. She then commits to a life in hiding so that her daughter doesn't become a freak show and can live a normal life. As a mother I always understood her motivations, even if I didn't agree with them.

Abby doesn't know how she was created so all she sees is an agoraphobic, anxious, panicky, over-protective mum who won't go to her games or let her have a smartphone. She can tell she's being lied too but understandably wants to know what they're hiding from her. I worried for Abby, for how she'd handle the truth, especially as it was possible she'd not find out in a calm way with her parents explaining things to her. She's only ten so I didn't blame Claire and Michael for not having told her yet, although I did think it might have been wise to do so when they learned of the school project.

Jillian was a great villain and was so much fun to read. She's highly intelligent, ambitious, manipulative, delusional and certifiably insane. She is one of those people you're very glad are a work of fiction and that you love to hate. Her obsession with Dr Nash and venom towards Claire were both scary and it was no wonder Claire was terrified of her tracking them down. I loved the scenes with Jillian in part three and four most of all as it's when we see her at her most crazy.

While this is at its heart a story about family it is also a story about a controversial topic. While I can say that I don't think I'll ever be comfortable with the idea of three parents, I do understand the desire to remove the chance of a child possibly inheriting a disease that causes immense suffering and death. As explored in the book this isn't a simple issue, but as someone with a non-fatal illness that causes pain daily that is now thought to be hereditary, I don't know if I'd have chosen to have a child if I had known. I would certainly have jumped at the chance to remove that risk if it had been available. Taking into account how Claire's first child suffered before succumbing to his illness makes me completely understand everything she did, even if I am uncomfortable with the idea of three parents.

This fast-paced book was full of twists, some I predicted, others that took me by surprise. But all of them were revealed in a way that brought the storylines together perfectly as the tension built to a crescendo. And that conclusion! Wow! My jaw was on the floor and I couldn't read fast enough. Mother Knows Best is a thought-provoking, compelling, sharp and electrifying thriller that I highly recommend.

Thank you to NetGalley, Crooked Lane Books and Kira Peikoff for a copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

Clair and Ethan had the perfect marriage until a genetic condition takes the life of their son Colton. Claire knows she can never have another child without fearing for the child's health, or can she? Dr. Rob Nash and his assistant Jillian offer Claire hope. By manipulating DNA, IVF for Claire means having a healthy baby. Of course, the procedure isn't exactly legal, and when the truth comes out, Rob and Claire take off, leaving Jillian alone with the consequences.
The story is told from multiple POVs(Claire, Jillian, and Abigail), and this was a huge assist in understanding the different motivations of the characters. There were enough twists and turns to keep the pages flipping on my Kindle, and as I was reading, I was very doubtful that this could end well for anyone involved. A good beach read and quite a few moral and ethical dilemmas to ponder. I am looking forward to seeing what Kira Peikoff writes next.
I received a DRC from Crooked Lane Books through NetGalley.

A book that could come right from the headlines genetic mutations.mothers desire for a healthy baby taking science into your own hands.The author draws us in to this medical dilemma a question of ethics of mothers love told from different points of view multilayered chilling an author to follow.#netgalley#crookedlanebooks,

Mother Knows Best puts us in the perpetual conflict that exists in the striving for motherhood. How far is too far? What would you be willing to do for a healthy, breathing, living child of your own? It is an easy question for our protagonist Claire: everything. After losing her son Connor to genetic issues he inherited from her, she seeks out a doctor who might be able to let her have her own biological child. The problem is that it is experimental, illegal and also introduces the dilemma we usually encounter when thinking about scientific progress – just because we can, does that mean we should? Tampering with the embryo, creating a child that naturally should not exist, feels fairly close to hubris.

The narrative moves between the here and now, with all the female characters taking on the narrator role. That makes sense, since it is a story about female identity just as much as motherhood. Both our main female characters thrive in their respective careers and have differing reactions when they lose it. What I didn’t like was the villainising of Jillian and the obvious display of the virgin/whore dichotomy. Jillian is shown to be hyper sexual, manipulative, deceptive – it’s just a very long list of horrid behaviour. Initially I assumed she was ambitious and could understand that, but then she devolves into this crazy, obsessed woman. Maybe there are people like that, but everyone seems a bit bonkers in this world.

Peikoff’s novel is a page-turner, and the narrative executes the mystery quite well. If you are looking for a decent thriller and a quick read, this is the book for you. What ruins it for me is how easily the numerous conflicts resolve themselves, where years of lies and resentment are so quickly forgotten and forgiven. Mother Knows Best sets up two camps on the perspective of genetic modification, but eventually, the side that is against it just caves in conveniently and proceeds to convince the rest of the Scientific community that this is okay because other countries are doing it now. This outcome just feels too tidy for a thriller. There were no consequences or repercussions; everything is just hunky dory and packaged in a cute little bow.

Peikoff was also so focused on the mystery that she didn’t really think about her characters. These women don’t sound real, and the men are just spinning in the periphery with no sense of agency. They are manipulated and deceived by the women throughout the entire novel. Motherhood is complicated and life changing, but Peikoff’s portrayal feels almost certifiable.

Peikoff’s novel reminds me a tad of Paula Hawkins’ Girl On The Train, where we have more fun whirling around in the mystery than developing any fondness for the characters. But maybe that’s okay. Sometimes the whole point of fiction is the madcap escapism it offers, and Mother Knows Best is exactly that.

Mother Knows Best by Kira Peikoff
This book grabbed me from the beginning and kept me turning the pages till I was done! Thought provoking, told from multiple views and twists! What more could you want? Thanks to Netgalley and the Publishers for this book and letting me leave my opinion.

What a tangled web we weave. I was thrilled from the first page to the last, captured by the tale of a family whose only wish is to have a happy and healthy child. Claire is a mother who would do anything not to pass on her genetic disorder to her child. Her first child Colton passed away from a rare disease, and she thought she’d never be able to have children again. After meeting innovative genetic specialists, Rob Nash and his assistant Jillian, they all embark on a risky experiment to alter Claire’s genes to produce a healthy child.

The story flashes to different perspectives, and you learn more and more about what Claire had to do to get her perfect child. The story is full of challenges and suspense and is thrilling until the very end. Some of the characters were the type you love to hate, and I changed my mind about the book every few chapters. I loved the wrap-up end the end of the book, but I did feel that after such a suspenseful and interesting story, it ended abruptly with everything just happening to work out for the characters. Of course, this is fiction, so I can understand that there would be a happily ever after.

I was first attracted to Mother Knows Best from the gorgeous cover art. I’m so thankful to Netgalley and Crooked Lane Books that I had the chance to read and review this book. It was an exciting read that I couldn’t put down until the very last page!

I thank you for the opportunity to read and review this book. This author was new to me and I was not let down. It was a great story and very well written. The characters were easy to relate to and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I highly recommend this to everyone!!

Claire and Ethan were heartbroken when they lost their little boy. Unfortunately Claire has a genetic mutation that can either lie dormant, or cause serious issues as it did with their sweet baby. Ethan wants to try again, but Claire knows she can’t watch another child go through the illness. She has a plan though. Insert Dr Rob Nash. He and Jillian have found a way to do IVF but remove the mitochondrial DNA that causes the mutation, and replace it with the mitochondrial DNA from Jillians egg. If they pull it off, it is amazing research, but also highly illegal. When they get found out, Claire and Rob go on the run and start a fresh life with their new baby, while Jillian ends up serving time in jail. Now that Jillian has been released, she wants her life with Rob back, and will stop at nothing to get it.

I could not put this book down. I loved that the book was told from multiple points of view and I honestly felt for everyone involved in the story. A baby with three parents, while amazing scientifically, also sounds like it can only end badly, when the three parents don’t get along. This was a fast and exciting read, with a concept that is totally unique. I loved it!

This is a crazy science concept that may or may not be too far off. But is it ethical?
Claire wanted so desperately to have another (this time healthy) child after her son's death that she really didn't think about the consequences or ethics of what she asked Dr. Rob to do. She barely knew him or Jillian, his postdoc! Myself, I didn't agree with this methid to get a healthy child. I would have just tried again the natural way and see what happened. I did admire Rob though (except for the skipping the trial and having an arrest water)
I figured a few things out along the way, but that didn't stop me from enjoying the book. I'm surprised it took so long for Jillian to find them.... All because of Abby and her school project. A good thriller and very satisfying ending I thought!

Oh where do I start?! There’s the beautiful cover, the fascinating premise, the heart-pounding suspense… I loved it!. The story is told in alternating viewpoints and the pace never once slows down. The characters were realistic, but not necessarily likable, which did affect me at points when I felt annoyed with them or bothered by something that didn’t particularly make sense. But that’s just a personal preference and I would still highly recommend this suspenseful book! Although the ending was predictable, I still enjoyed the satisfying close of the story and the crazy journey to get there. “Mother Knows Best” is an addicting book that will keep you turning pages from the very beginning! Thank you to Bookish First, NetGalley, and Crooked Lane Books for the free advanced copy in exchange for an honest review! Publish date 9/10/19

(Review will be published on Instagram on book's release date)