Thank you for the chance to read and review this book in exchange for my honest opinion. I give this book 3 solid stars. I am a long time Joshilyn Jackson fan back to Gods of Alabama! I am always excited when she releases a new book! I felt this one drug on a little. When the first dilemma was solved I thought what else could happen. So the ending seemed to continue a little longer than needed. But I still enjoyed this book and will look forward to many more novels by Jackson in the future!

Thank you to @bookclubgirl and @williammorrow for sponsoring our #ocbooksandbrunch April read. MOTHER MAY I by @joshilyn_jackson is well written and an exciting twisty-turny domestic suspense that will pull you quickly into the story. Themes of motherhood, revenge and secrets coming to light make this a “can’t miss” for thriller fans!

I had to keep reading to figure out how this was going to end. Jackson keeps you engaged and makes you think even as you just can’t stop turning pages.

Mother May I is an exciting thriller about consequences of your actions. Bree Cabbat is leading a charmed life. She has 2 daughters in school, and a brand new baby, Robbie. She is deeply in love with her husband, Trey. Early one morning, sleep deprived, she believes she sees a witch peeking in their bedroom window. Later, when going to the school to watch her daughter during play practice, she thinks she sees the witch again.
Then, the worst possible thing happens. Bree's son is stolen, while sleeping in his infant seat while Bree's op focus is on her daughter's performance. Bree is contacted and told what she must do to get her son back.
As Bree follows the rules, she realizes that she really doesn't know what might have happened before she met her husband, and what he and his business partner, Spencer Shaw, may have been involved in. These actions have serious consequences. Bree relies on her friend, Marshall to help her-but are they too late?
This was an interesting take on a kidnapping story. It kept my interest, and it was a quick read. However, I feel the story didn't finish as strongly as it could have.
Thanks to #NetGalley #BookClubGirls #SceneOfTheCrime #Edelweiss #WilliamMorrow #HarperCollins for the ARC of #MotherMayI
All opinions are my own and are freely given.

I really wanted to absolutely love this book, but it fell short for me. It took me a loooong time to get into it. I really enjoyed the middle...it moved fast and kept me guessing. However, the end really wasn't enjoyable for me. Overall, I thought it was good, but had hoped for so much more.

This involves the story of Bree Cabbott, a woman who grew up poor, but then married a successful lawyer. They have 3 kids. Life is perfect, until her infant son is taken from her! In its place is a note from the kidnapper giving her strict instructions on how to get her baby back.
Will Bree complete the task and will the kidnapper give her baby back?

For me I have such high expectations with this book after reading Never Have I Ever, however, it fell short for me. The beginning and end was thrilling, but the middle was a bit prolonged for me. Definitely recommend it though!

Thank you to HarperCollins and NetGalley for the gifted copy!

I love a Joshilyn Jackson book! Read this in one day and can't wait to recommend it. (This was posted awhile ago and my original, lengthier review seems to have been lost?)

Thank you to William Morrow and Custom House for the gifted e-ARC for review, however all opinions are my own and honest! Bree Cabbatt seems to have it all- married into a family with wealth, a loving husband, three beautiful children, and a beautiful home. But when her newborn son is kidnapped and held ransom by a mysterious old woman with a set of tasks for her complete, it is up to Bree to save her son and in the process discover what dark secrets led her to this harrowing fate.

Overall I thoroughly enjoyed this story and genuinely surprised by the constant twists and turns. I loved the main character, Bree, and I thought Jackson did an incredible job portraying Bree’s complexities and layers that made her feel incredibly real and human, and kept me rooting for her throughout. I did feel like the story was a little drawn-out at times, with an excess of exposition, but the action-packed sequences scattered throughout made up for those lags. Would definitely recommend to anyone who wants a complicated thriller with an unusual villain.

I had high hopes going into this as I loved her book Never Have I ever! It was a great storyline about a mom with a kidnapped baby and the kidnapper required her to drug her husband’s partner. I did kind of get lost and it didn’t hold my attention as much as I would have liked, but all in all I would recommend.

This is the kind of thriller that I love - I couldn't put it down even when I didn't want to keep reading! Bree is a relatable protagonist who you root for even when she has to do terrible things to get her kidnapped son back. There were twists I never saw coming and the fast-pace kept me turning the pages until the very end. This was my first Joshilyn Jackson book and I can't wait to read some of her others!

Thanks to William Morrow, Custom House and NetGalley for a copy to review.

This was a great read.....every mother’s nightmare of losing a child. I stayed up till way past my bedtime so that I could finish this book. The question is how well do you know the person you are close to and how the past can come back to haunt you.

Ok so Mother May I by Joshilyn Jackson . Real talk, I haven't read any of her other books. I hear there are lots. My friend raved about this one so much that I went to see it out. I was not disappointed. This thriller is for real. I loved it. I was all in from the beginning. I was drawn in and kept there.

You know those memes that say mess with my kids and you better run for your life because my normal nice self will turn mama bear and kill you, yeah that is this story. There was so much going on and Bree is just trying to protect her child the whole time. I loved it.

This will 100% be in my top thrillers for the year and yay for finding a new to me author.

This book could come with so many trigger warnings, it's like a nuke. But the story is so well crafted, you can't help but push through to the end, just to see where you end up.

The twists were just right, even if the very end was a bit heavy handed. After an almost traumatizing reading experience, I kind of needed it. Good lord. I want to recommend this book to everyone and no one at the same time.

Jackson has a good sense of when the pressure needs to be applied and released in her books. I've read other books where it felt like we were aimlessly shooting into the distance with the brake pedal ripped out, just to "get somewhere".

....


Spoiler without actual spoiler, but still, don't read the next part if you plan to read the book:


...

About halfway through, a short story came to mind and just stuck. "Button, Button" by Richard Matheson. The gist is that a couple receives a button in a box and a man tells them that if they press the button, they will receive $50,000 but the catch is that someone they don't know will die. Well, the wife presses the button. The hospital calls and tells the woman her husband was killed by a train. His life insurance left her $50,000. The button man calls her and she's angry saying he had told them someone they didn't know would die, so why was her husband the one to die? And the man says, "My dear lady, do you really think you knew your husband?"

We circle back with Bree, almost ad nauseum, to the fact that she "knows" people. She's convinced of her ability to understand people, to be able to tell everything about them, from what they say to their facial expressions when they say it. It's her fatal flaw. All of the people in this book do that, actually. Do you know the people you love? Or do you only know the story you've told yourself about them, over and over until they have no choice but to become that person?

NetGallery uncorrected e-proof ebook

Thank you to NetGallery and William Marrow/HarperCollins for the ARC.

This is a gripping page turner, a thriller mystery centered around a kidnapped baby and retribution for an injustice of the past. Themes include- the multifaceted nature of our personality, a mother’s love, and injustice wheedled by power and money. It wasn’t predictable, and the mystery and set ups made sense and were well planned and executed. But the final climactic scene and its explanation felt rushed or incomplete to me. The facts made sense, I’m just not sure it was explained or written well. Maybe it was just me. And I’m also not sure if I was just rushing to find out what happened, but some themes seemed repetitive and overwrought.

Something about the writing in this one made me want to stick to the mystery facts and skip past the many different side and background storylines that kept interjecting (her friend Betsy, her daughter’s relationship to Marshall’s daughter, her mother’s history, her drama background, Marshall’s complicated feelings, etc). It all contributed to the story and made sense, but it’s was too scattered and distracting for me. It’s a good mystery that kept me engaged and furiously reading, but I preferred the writing in Never Have I Ever.

I will definitely keep reading Joshilyn Jackson, this might have just been a one-off for me, or bad timing for when I read it. It’s a solid thriller mystery, fun for quick read.

Triggers: rape, college rape culture (not explicit), death of a child (not explicit)- and not a spoiler alert.

I had an Advanced Reader's Copy of this book and took a bit longer to get it read than I would have liked. This was a mistake on my part. Once I finally started, it only took a few days. I enjoyed this book. I was thrilled to read a novel with a modern setting. So much of what I have read lately has been historical fiction; set in current day, this book was a good change.

I enjoy reading suspense novels and this one did not disappoint. There is kidnapping, murder and questionable pasts interwoven through this story. What seems initially like a Cinderella - poor girl marries old and lives happily ever after changes when a baby is kidnapped and his mother will do anything to insure his safe return. In working to ensure his safe return, there are several murders and the discovery that past bad behavior can still impact today.

I loved "Never Have I Ever" by this author, and the blurb of this one sounded really good.

Bree is at a routine rehearsal of her daughter's play when her baby boy gets kidnapped. She is left only a note to go home and not to tell anyone, including her husband. She races home, leaving her daughters with her mother, finding a cell phone. The kidnapper reaches out and gives her instructions: she is to drug a close friend of her husband. She does, only to be given even more instructions if she wants to ever see her son again. Bree embarks on a quest to discover who the kidnapper is, why she was targeted, and what happened in the past that led to this moment.

I was pretty well invested in this book. Jackson is great at writing page-turning, edge of your seat novels, and this one was the same.

I did feel a bit let down by the ending of the novel. The last two chapters just didn't quite have the same impact on me as the rest of the novel. I felt like things got tied up a little too nicely for the characters as they didn't have to face up to the challenges that were presented.

I do still recommend this book as it was really enjoyable! I just would have liked a bit of a different, less neat ending.

I haven’t read other books by this author, although I have several I want to read. I read an ARC for this book from The Bookclub Girls and Net Galley, so it wasn’t the final version and I don’t know if things changed that bothered me.

First, I wasn’t convinced at any of the plot. I felt like a lot of it was just too convenient or easy. Everything seemed to work out nice and tidy. Bree seemed like a person who never made mistakes, her biggest oddity was that she was born poor, which was frequently repeated.

Warnings for people pregnant or with young children or sexual abuse/rape. Parts of this book were very graphic and difficult to read. I just wanted a few chapters of it over.

There were parts by the end that were good - when you see what the story was really about. I think the motivation behind it was good.

“People justified their actions, and the more shame they felt about a memory, the more they chewed it over, fretting and defending and editing, until they could live with it.” Chapter 19

Joshilyn Jackson has done it again! This was a fantastic, suspenseful tale that shows the lengths that a mother will go to for her family...for her child.
This story had just the right amounts of twists and turns to keep me engaged and guessing. I was interested and intrigued to the very end. I’ll definitely be reading more from this author.

This one was a doozy. I cannot imagine having my child as a baby, teen or an adult go missing. I would go completely bezerk. It seems like the abduction in the book can be quite contrived but in today’s world I wouldn’t place bets against what some of these nut jobs may do in order to seek revenge. The Author, brilliantly schemed an abduction & plan for retribution that had me chewing my lip almost to pieces. I never wanted to jump into a book & throttle an old woman before but embarrassingly I now can say that I have. You feel so close to the main protagonist, Bree & get so agitated on her holding back & not confiding in anyone. But again, in her shoes, if probably do the same if it meant my child’s life. I felt as if I was on a treasure hunt trying to get to the bottom of things & that’s the power & seductiveness that Jackson holds over you, waiting to thrill you, time & time again. A master of Authors, Joshilyn Jackson will always give you tenfold of your money’s worth & a book to look forward to reading.

I'm sure I am the unpopular opinion, but Mother May I missed the mark for me.

The first half of the book had me intrigued. I was invested in the story and wanted to know why Bree's baby was taken and what she would have to do to get him back. As the story continued and the reason for the blackmail was revealed, I was completely let down because it was not very original at that point.

I will say this is a fast read. I was behind on ARCs, so I grabbed the audiobook from Scribd and highly recommend it as the author narrates the story herself. Her voice acting was amazing, especially for the old woman. But overall, I doubt I will remember much about the plot in a week.