Okay, so you need a hefty dose of suspension of disbelief with this book, but it's worth it.

When Anna finds her birth mother, a whole new family opens up to her. But that family comes at a cost and Anna may not be willing to pay the price.

It's the ending that gets ridiculously over the top. There are plenty of holes you could drive trucks through. But the way it's written means you don't mind. The characters are engaging and the pacing breakneck, so you just want to continue reading to find out what happens next.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC without obligation.

I have to be honest to start with I found the book slow going and it didn’t really grab me, but then it really got going and turned into an amazing” what on Earth is going to happen next” Drama, thriller, bit of a love story all rolled into one and great characters that you could picture.

I really wanted to love this book but unfortunately it just was not my cup of tea. The dark and twisted elements were excellent. I had a hard time connecting to the characters and storyline.

I was super intrigued by the premise of this book however I'm not sure this one was for me unfortunately.

I can kind of see where the author was going in terms of it being a thriller but I felt it was a tad more contemporary. I also felt it was very long winded but then the last 20% or so it was like someone pressed fast forward and everything seemed to happen at once. I think if the twists were added more throughout the story that would have captured my attention a little bit more.

I can't really say much more but to please check content Warnings as there is quite a few throughout this book.

A domestic thriller that I won't be forgetting anytime soon.

Mother's Day follows Anna, a thirty-something temp worker navigating her past as an adoptee, her complex relationships and her pressing future as a new mother - all while getting to know the mother who abandoned her as a baby.

I found this a very slick, fast-paced and well-written book that I read late into the night; while some may think this reads too much as a screenwriter's script, I personally found Burdess's writing style helped bring the vividly gruesome and dark elements to life. There was a surreal tone to the entire novel, starting subtly before descending to pure pandemonium at the end. It may be a domestic thriller, but there's nothing domestic about the story and the skill that Burdess brings to the table.

I found certain plot points a bit less engaging than others, and found the ending a bit too abruptly neat. Otherwise, this is a solid 4.5 and I'll definitely be eyeing up the rest of this author's repertoire.

Thank you to Net Galley for the ARC!

Thank you Netgalley and Wildfire for giving me the chance to read Mother's Day. Despite the compelling, witty and intimate style of the writing, this wasn't a book for my taste. I was happy to enter Anna's hectic, messy world with Dermot and her colleague/potty-mouthed friend Layla, and to feel as concerned and confused as Anna was about whether or not she was pregnant, but once 'Ma' entered the picture, I just couldn't suspend my disbelief any more.

I was intrigued to read a book about a mother as an antagonist, but I just couldn't believe anything about Ma/Marlene, and as the story disintegrated into the horror of Anna's enslavement and the gothic misery of the birth of the baby, I just kept skipping pages and got completely disengaged. To me, this book didn't deliver on its 'promise' - or 'premise' - and was a muddle because of the whole business of Anna's pregnancy in the context of the malign, mysterious, and wholly unaccounted for vileness of Marlene. Was Anna the Mother who was going to take the child's life back? Oh no, it was this Marlene person.

Sorry, this doesn't get my vote.

This book was so shocking at times but at the same time you almost knew that this would always end on one of two ways. It was also a crazy and confusing ride at time. Even though I have read the final chapters twice, I still feel that there is a hole that has not been filled in. We have Anna who is in her 30s who lives with Dermott and finds herself unexpectedly pregnant. Dermott is a mess - a heavy drinker with no real prospects. Anna herself has no permanent employment having been a temp for a charity that deals with refugees for the past 8 years. As a child she was found abandoned in a handbag but was adopted by a loving couple so had a happy childhood until her mother was killed in a tragic accident which prompted her father to send her to boarding school. Therefore now that she is pregnant she decides to find her birth mother. Lilith Marlene - call me Ma - is everything Anna hoped she would be -pleased to find her long lost daughter, wealthy and influential. She also finds she has a step brother and sister - Ben and Hebe. But everything begins, very quickly to get very weird and Ma turns into a bit of a monster. There are some graphic and unpleasant scenes and all sorts of trigger warnings. You feel so angry because Anna is so passive but given her background, maybe that can be explained, she is wanting her mother to love her her but ... As the book nears the end, the craziness escalates and you question some of the actions of the characters. For me, I was hoping for more of a psychological thriller. However, if you enjoy dark novels where every action makes you gasp - this is for you.

A good story although it was hard to keep the focus as at times the writing was some what long winded and, at times, unnecessary.

Well this was certainly an unexpected read !
Anna was adopted after being abandoned as a baby, now in her 30s she has been diagnosed as having PTSD after the traumatic loss of her adoptive mum when she was seven. Unexpectedly pregnant she reconnects with her birth mother in this wildly over the top and unbelievable dark comedy. Sadly I couldn't connect with this novel, I didn't get the humour or the characters and felt that the plot was disconnected and moved along at a brain spinning speed. Unfortunately not for me but other reviewers have enjoyed this debut.
Many thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this digital ARC.
2.5 stars.

This was everything you need for a thriller and crime story. It is not as black and white as you first think and like most typical thrillers, is full of twists.

The E-Book could be improved and more user-friendly, such as links to the chapters, no significant gaps between words some text written has been typed in red and a cover for the book would be better. It is very document-like instead of a book. A star has been deducted because of this.

This is a first for me by the author and one I enjoyed and I would read more of their work. The book cover is eye-catching and appealing and would spark my interest if in a bookshop. Thank you very much to the author, publisher and Netgalley for this ARC.

Great book. Loved how the two mothers are represented and how very different they both are. A mother's love that you should be able to trust and rely upon.
Really enjoyed it.

This book was well written but if I'm honest I struggled to get into it and didn't find the story held my attenti9n. Not as dark or twisty as I was expecting but a fairly decent read.

What a read such a twisty and dark read I really loved this book , I just never wanted it to end or out the the book down , I will be reading more from this author as she is brilliant .

Amazing book such a fantastic read I havemt quite read anything like this one such a good author and a very captivating book to read !!loved every minute of it thanks!!!!

If this book could be compared to anything it would be a wildly unconformist metal riff. The book is unrelentlessly funny and at times heartwrenching, a little here and there of people you may know. Really excellent first novel I defy you to not enjoy it.

To start off with I really wasn’t sure what to expect from this book. I felt like it started off really strongly and I was gripped…. But then it felt like it’d gone off the boil. Anna as a character seemed well rounded and grounded, she was likeable until she got mugged.
Marlene Mather was just overbearing and overboard. It wasn’t fully explained how she was so rich.
To be frank, it felt like an Eastenders on acid AND speed. Which kind of works but then didn’t.
I felt like there were too many plot holes and many unanswered questions.
I hope Abigail Burdess and Michelle Frances don’t get too disheartened and disappointed but it didn’t move me like I thought it would.
Perhaps I should get better at managing my expectations. I like my books to still have an element and an edge of believability which sadly Mother’s Day did not.
My thanks to the author and publisher for granting me access to the book.

"Yes, she was afraid of her. But something more powerful than fear kept her in thrall. She still wanted her mother to love her."

Anna, who lost her loving adoptive mother in highly traumatic circumstances as a young child, finds herself unexpectedly pregnant in her thirties and simultaneously reconnects with both her birth mother, the appalling, dangerously narcissistic Marlene, and vulnerable half-sister Hebe. (Marlene abandoned baby Anna in a handbag - something which adult Anna never seems to hold against her.)

An unplanned pregnancy throws a spanner into Anna's already fairly chaotic life. Enormous musician/barman boyfriend Dermot is well-meaning but useless, descending further into alcoholism, Anna's job at a charity supporting refugees is neither secure nor well-paid, and her adoptive father is caring but not particularly helpful.

Marlene, wealthy, influential and delighted to meet her long lost daughter, seems like a bit of a godsend. Well, actually, she doesn't, she seems like deranged trouble from the start, but Anna is perhaps understandably keen to make the relationship work. Things get very weird very quickly.

I really wasn't sure about this at first - the beginning is shockingly disturbing and the characters are mainly fairly weird. Marlene is a monster, "so disappointed by reality, she simply denied its existence", forcing it to bend to her will by any means necessary.

However, once I got used to how totally mad everything was, it became a gripping read. Be warned, though, this story is graphically, viscerally unpleasant at times. I do think some of the content is just there for shock value and to live up to the "dark" label - at which it succeeds.

Anna is frustratingly passive for much of the story - a violent mugging ends with her apologising to and helping the mugger - although it's possible to understand her, given the trauma she suffered as a child. She's more complex than most people around her probably give her credit for, and it seems there's only one person who actually understands her. Her work with refugees who have survived war and torture provides a telling backdrop to the story.

Marlene is a total nightmare, and how she's managed to make it to her late fifties without ever being apprehended for any of the awful things she's strongly implied to have done is anybody's guess. It's no coincidence that her real first name is Lilith, a demonic female figure in Jewish mythology (and a threat to children). She also has something to do with owls, which is a motif in the story. Other names seem significant, too - Hebe is a handmaiden to her mother, Rampion (Anna's surname) is associated with Rapunzel, a princess held captive. Tristan is from the French for "sad", which seems appropriate.

Although it's clear things are going to escalate dangerously, putting Anna and her baby at risk, there are a few surprises along the way - looking at you, Dermot - and I didn't guess how certain plot strands were going to turn out. I'm still not completely sure what happened at the end, though, or what I'm meant to have concluded about the handbags and the priest's hole, etc. Perhaps I need to read that part again.

Ultimately this was a great, if over the top and not for the faint hearted, read about motherhood, belonging, the effects of trauma, mental disorder and, indeed, a mother like no other. Thankfully.

An interesting blurb and an even more interesting character and very entertaining if a bit too crazy maybe for some readers??,none the less it kept reading and reading quick as as well as being shocked I had to see what would happen next

Mother's Day had the most original premise I've read in a while - abandoned baby grows up to find that she's pregnant herself, finally meets her birth mother, who wants to make up for the thirty five years they missed out on, but there's an undercurrent of darkness in their burgeoning relationship....domestic thrillers are my favourite, and this one sounded right up my alley.

Had this been a little more restrained, I would have loved it - it's inarguably well written, the dark family drama element is there from the beginning, and I related to the central protagonist, Anna, who seemed fairly likeable. But once it got going, it spiralled into full blown crazy pretty quickly, and left me questioning every single character's choices and behaviours. Would anyone really have tolerated Marlene for so long, even before it gets so ludicrously out of control that I had to suspend every ounce of disbelief in my body? I hope not. And Anna's response to her mugging had me completely frustrated. There are also several instances where it seems that part of the story may have been overly edited because we just skip onto the next bit before something is resolved, or something changes but we don't know why - for instance, Samyra, the mugger, suddenly becomes "Sammy" to Anna, despite the two of them having no relationship whatsoever.

I actually think this one will be like Marmite. Some people will revel in the absolutely demented twists the plot takes later on, and others, like me, will think it too much. I find my villains much scarier when they are calculating, cruel but understated; Marlene was too much of a caricature for me to take seriously.

Thank you to NetGalley, and to the publisher, for granting me a free ARC copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

This book was an interesting read and definitely a lot different to what I was expecting as I was not expecting it to focus so heavily on Anna's pregnancy. There are a lot of heavy topics in this book so definitely check out content warnings (I have included them below) before thinking about reading this book. The whole time I was reading this book I kept thinking that it was not a thriller, it was more of a contemporary tale - there were definitely moments where it felt like it was a play or theatre performance as it just seemed like Anna was living through a nightmare.

Within the last 20%, it felt like it was a mad craze where everything seemed to be happening all at once which I think was just too much. There were definitely scenarios in this book that could have been taken out and it would have still packed just as much of a punch. A lot of things felt like they were just added in for the shock factor.

The chapters at the end are very short. It jumps to multiple narratives which feels like it is trying to tie up lose ends very fast and not in a way that makes total sense. There feels like there is quite a few plot holes as things have been left to be ambiguous or have not been concluded. It is weird how there is a wrap up at the end of what some of the characters are doing a year later but it does not include all of the characters, which I think would have answered some questions I still had left.

I did not feel like there any twists within this book as it felt kind of predictable in terms of what was going to happen - from the start, it was only going to end one way or another. However, I did enjoy this book and I struggled to put the book down as I wanted to see what dark route this book was going to take. This book does contain representation for Jewish characters (Nicholas; Sarah; Anna; baby Sarah), deaf characters (Charmaine and her father) and bisexual characters (Neil and Dermot).

⚠️ Content warnings: blood, pregnancy, sexual situations, vomiting, alcohol and drug use, profanity, derogatory language, fertility issues, mentions terrorists, torture and organised violence, survivor's guilt, slavery, scars, child soldier, cancer, post-natal depression, miscarriage and suicide, physical assault, adoption, fatphobia, death, murder, vehicle accident, sexual harassment, mental health illness (PTSD; antidepressants; antipsychotics; dissociation), cycling accident, cheating, intrusive thoughts, intoxication, masturbation, rape (also attempted and resulting in pregnancy), underage pregnancy, self harm, alcoholism, car crash, passive bystander to sexual harassment, indecent exposure, sexual violence, imprisonment, fat shaming, domestic abuse, drugging, racism and sexism ⚠️

Thank you very much to NetGalley and the publisher Headline, Wildfire for the opportunity to read this book!

I have posted this review to my NetGalley and Goodreads accounts. I will also post a review on my Instagram and Tiktok a week before the publication date (2nd March 2023). This book will be available to purchase as an hardback for £16.99, audiobook for £19.24 or an e-book for £7.99.