Post-partum depression is real. I loved that it was brought up in this nerve-wracking read. Bravo to Nora Murphy for addressing this sensitive topic.

The Short of It:

Buy a copy and read it.

The Rest of It:

Natalie Fanning and her husband Tyler are two law professionals, living in a new house and neighborhood, when their first son Oliver is born. Everything should be golden. Both are partner material at their respective firms, but Natalie’s expectation of motherhood is not at all what she imagined.

Oliver is a hard baby to love. He cries non-stop. Wants only Natalie. Won’t sleep. Seems to know exactly when to push Natalie’s buttons. Natalie’s plan was to return to work after two months but how can she? She’s had zero sleep and Oliver rebels whenever she is not around. Punching the air in her absence, Oliver is anything but sweet and Nat’s husband Tyler, although sympathetic to Nat’s struggle, proves to be useless, always using the excuse that Oliver only wants Nat. Not him. He can’t do feedings because Nat nurses Oliver. He can’t take over night duty because the kid just screams and screams.

As Natalie hits her breaking point and realizes that she is not at all herself anymore, she meets Paul, the neighbor across the way who raised his own difficult child, who is now 10. Paul’s experience with this kind of difficulty gives Nat a sense of comfort and he’s always home, as the stay at home Dad for his family. His wife Erin, provides for the family. Nat immediately takes to Paul’s kindness and finds herself desperate for the brief breaks he provides during the day.

But all is not what it seems. Their pristine little neighborhood is filled with secrets and nosy bodies and what begins as a kind gesture quickly becomes something else.

Oh! This book. It’s so good. I plowed through it. The details of mothering a difficult child is spot on! My daughter did not sleep through the night until age 4! I was nearly hospitalized by my doctor for exhaustion, so I could relate to Nat’s struggle in a very personal way. But then a little something extra is added to keep it interesting and I gotta tell ya, I was riveted. I’ve not read anything else by Murphy but she is going straight to my list of must-read authors. Highly recommend.

The New Mother tackles the isolation and postpartum depression that many mothers feel after the birth of their child. It is a suspense novel. (Those are the trigger warnings)

Natalie is in love with her new son, but being a stay at home mom is really challenging. She meets her new neighbor, Paul and finds he is very helpful. But is he?

Well, of course he's helpful, he has a hidden agenda. The tension starts to build and the plot starts to twist as we get to know Paul and Natalie and the other characters.

I think author Nora Murphy does an amazing job of handling what it can be like for new moms and creating awareness of some of the issues that can be challenging. It is easiest to relate to if you've been a new mom and have struggled... but I encourage everyone to read it just to simply get a piece of what it is like.

The plot is slow paced and does build, creating a tension that winds inside the pages until the end. I enjoyed reading The New Mother and do recommend it! Suspense and tension, told from Paul and Natalie's perspectives engage the reader!

This was a great read. The neighbourhood / mother drama reminded me a lot of Ashley Audrain’s the push. But this book was unique and kept me guessing.

A thriller and more. Natalie is a successful lawyer who gives birth to a colicky baby and sees her life disintegrate. That in itself was a painfully realistic depiction, but then add in a manipulative neighbor and a murder and it takes the book to a whole new level. Unexpected and unpredictable. A good book. The afterward is well worth reading.

Nope nope nope. Don't read if you are a new mom. Woah this one triggered me and my youngest is 2.5. Sorry, this one just wasn't for me at all.

*Thank you @minotaur_books for the #gifted copy in exchange for an honest review. Review not posted to Amazon/Goodreads because rating 4 stars or less.*

This was so slow and wasn’t a thriller until basically the end. Tw for new mothers or anyone trying to get pregnant

Reading Between the Wines book review #88/115 for 2023:
Rating: 3 ½ 🍷 🍷 🍷
Book: The New Mother
Author: Nora Murphy
Available Now!

Sipping thoughts: Wow, new mothers beware. There is also a trigger warning for postpartum. Natalie only wanted the best for her child, which caused her to spiral. When she was at her lowest Paul, her neighbor, enters the picture. It is clear very soon what he wants and what he will do to get it. At first, I mistook his motive but when it became clear, I could not believe someone could be that maniacal.

Cheers and thank you to @NetGalley and @StMartinsPress for an advanced copy of @TheNewMother.

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Fast paced, keeps you engaged and has a great twist. Definitely will be recommending this one and will be looking forward to me from Nora Murphy.

Natalie is a new mother to a wonderful baby boy. A wonderful, loud, colicky baby boy. Her husband is back to work and she feels like she's drowning at home alone. That is, until she meets her new neighbor, Paul. Paul is great with the baby and Natalie feels like she can finally breathe for just a few minutes when Paul is holding him. There's nothing wrong with making friends with the neighbor, right? You'd think, but do you ever really know someone?

I did not see the twist in this coming. At all. However, the way it's laid out just works. It's well thought out and explained fully. I enjoyed the book even before the twist came up but after it came up, it just got even better! I would highly recommend this book to others, especially those who like big twists!

Spot on with the experience of a new mama! If people haven't experienced this life event, just reading this book will get readers in the mind set of losing their mind while their hearts explode. Awesome pacing, too.

Realistically terrifying. Natalie and her husband Tyler are new parents, living in a new home in a safe and quiet subdivision. Nothing can go wrong here, right? Unfortunately, Oliver seems to be a difficult baby, and Natalie is seriously starting to feel the toll. Enter Paul, a friendly neighbor who happens to be a stay at home dad; a godsend to Natalie in her time of need. She finally feels like she has someone to talk to, someone who understands. But Paul's intentions are murky... and the results could be deadly.

This was not an easy read for me, as someone planning on starting a family soon. Poor Natalie. The majority of this novel is from her point of view, and you can so clearly see her struggles with postpartum depression. (So much sympathy to anyone who has experienced this.) She obviously needs help, but the only person to see it is looking to take advantage of her. There's not too much of a mystery in this novel, but the emotions are definitely visceral. It will stick with me for that reason alone.

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

Thank you to Nora and St. Martin’s for an advance copy of The New Mother.

Being a new mom is one of the hardest things in the world. Natalie is deep in the trenches of postpartum life, head over heels for her son, but still feeling as though something is missing. She’s exhausted, she feels unheard and unseen by her husband, her best friend just doesn’t understand. She is all alone in suburban stay-at-home mom hell.

Then she meets Paul, the new neighbor. A single dad who has it all together. He helps her figure out the troubles of her colicky son, offers guidance and support when she’s at her wits end. Natalie feels like he’s been sent from heaven. Unfortunately, she couldn’t be more wrong. Paul has his sights set specifically on Natalie and if she does not realize there’s a sinister reason behind Paul’s friendship.

The guts of this book revolves around postpartum issues - depression, anxiety, rage - those are the things that are pretty commonplace (and thank god, more heavily discussed now than ever before, but with still a ways to go). There are also lesser known postpartum issues such as psychosis which causes disorientation, confusion, time lapses, etc. Those issues on top of the normal changes, like you’re entire world being turned upside down, an entire new normal, no sleep, a whole new person in your life (that you’re in charge of keeping alive, by the way). New parenthood is no joke and not for the faint of heart, and new motherhood is a whole other level of hard. That being said, if you’re not a mother or new parent life is not an interest of yours, then this book is not going to be for you. It’s definitely a niche book for people who have experienced that.

The main focus is on Natalie, there are side characters of course, but Natalie is the core character. She is tough to swallow sometimes, but when you step back and remember how easy it is to snap or feel insane under those circumstances, it was easy to reel those thoughts back in and relate or sympathize with her. Paul was enigmatic, but not overly so. Just enough in a way that would make him appear as a saint to a tired and struggling new mom.

The plot was slow burn, as many 2023 thrillers have been, but it didn’t feel slow. There was a creeping unsettling that gradually overtook the entire book leading up to the third act. It was full of tropes I enjoyed - isolated character, suburban stuffiness, and domestic mistrust.

Also, just want to shout out a Maryland setting and Baltimore author. I always love to look for things that make someone or something uniquely Maryland, and there were some instances throughout this one.

This book had a bit of a slow start but it still had me very intrigued and was very well written. Such a good book!

This is the second novel I have read by Murphy, and it was hard to put down. The plot twists until it finally unravels, kept me guessing and was a satisfying finish. I look forward to Murphy’s next thriller.
Thank you to NetGalley, and St. Martin's Press for the opportunity to receive this ARC.

If you've ever been a new mother, Natalie will resonate with you. I could feel her struggles all over again when her son doesn't want to calm and you get no sleep. What's the point of sleeping if you're only going to get 30 minutes to maybe 2 hours?

Paul is a stay-at-home dad and seems to be a godsend to Natalie, but nothing is ever that simple.

Great character, great writing, and highly recommended. Nora Murphy has not disappointed yet.

Great book by Nora Murphy. The New Mother kept me on the edge of my seat. I was completely invested almost from the start. I recommend this book to others and thank NetGalley for allowing me to read this book.

I want to start by saying that this book is very trigger heavy. It deals heavily and is almost completely focussed on post partum depression and post partum psychosis. It goes into detail about becoming a new mother - the feelings, the fears, the anxiety, but also the love - but the worries of the main character were discussed frequently and with detail. And it seemed as though nobody in her life, including her husband, was pickin up on her need for help. Be wary of this before reading if this would be triggering for you. It got quite dark at times.

That being said, I did enjoy it. It was a page turner and an extremely quick read for me, which was exactly what my mood wanted. I flew through it. I was mildly disappointed with the ending, which didn't have a big twist like I was anticipating. It ended up being mildly predictable but I found it entertaining enough to keep the star rating up. I was hoping for more twists and turns throughout the story, something to really throw me off track, but it's OK.

This book was very long and repetitive for me. The new mother obviously had post partum depression and I love that it focused on that. But it just kept repeating over and over how she wasn’t getting sleep and was cranky. That was over half the book. The interesting plot of the murder didn’t even start til closer to the end and then it was just super fast. I got bored reading about a tired mom for 150 pages.

Since this book is already out I will not do a summary I would just say in the beginning I got tired of all the breast-feeding talk and I thought Paul was way too good to be true but as far as Nora Murphy’s books go once I got into it I thoroughly enjoyed it I just couldn’t believe I was almost halfway through and didn’t want to finish but I stayed the course and I’m glad I did because the last 40% of the book was really good so if you can get to that point then it is a book you will enjoy or maybe you’ll enjoy the whole thing as I am usually not part of the main stream opinion. I want to thank net galley and Saint martins press for my free arc copy please forgive any mistakes as I am blind and dictate my review.