Juno lives deep in the woods within "Nordland". Juno lives with her mother, father, and younger brother "Boy". Their little cabin is separated from the rest of the world by water, so they live isolated from the mainland, and only receive notification from one man who arrives by boat weekly. Juno and Boy live their lives following the strict guidelines that Mother and Father have instilled to them for living on the island. All of this seems normal until one day Juno begins asking questions during a game of risk, and mother and father start acting oddly, causing more and more questions to arise.

The book starts immediately from the beginning... meaning there is no point in time to build up to the questions Juno has about her life, and her upbringing. This made the novel very easy to listen to quickly, but also caused me to immediately start looking for "what was wrong" in the story. The story was enjoyable, and the narration clear and easy to follow. Overall, it was an enjoyable audiobook, but lacked a little bit of base-setting, in my opinion.

What Mother Won’t Tell Me is a story told from Juno’s POV. A sixteen year old girl who lives on an island with her mother, father, and brother. Her curiosity begins to question their isolation. The more she learns the more confusing everything becomes. Who is telling the truth? Who can be trusted? Is there any hope of leaving the island?

I enjoyed listening to this audiobook. Most of the book is limited dialogue, which I struggle with in hard copies, but as an audiobook it helped to be fully immersed in Juno’s thoughts and inner dialogue. The book starts slow, but builds the characters and dynamics. The ending is fast paced and suspenseful.

Thank you NetGalley and Dreamscape Media for this audiobook ARC opportunity.

By Ivar Leon Menger
Narrated by Ella Lynch

Pub Date 09 Jan 2024

This is the kind of story that keeps you guessing, whenever I thought I understood where the story was going.
We start with our protagonist, Juno, a sixteen year old who lives on an island. Her only companions are Mother, Father, and her little brother, Boy. Juno doesn't question much, but when she does, we find out weird details about the family. For example, they do survival drills. Mother and Father are abusive at times. Juno has no dealings with the outside world.

There is much to read between the lines and I wish the action was faster. The writing wasn't great but that may be because much of the nuance was lost in translation.

There are many hints but not enough, in my opinion, blatant descriptions of abuse.

Thank you to NetGalley for my ARC.

This book as ok, but just ok. The first person narration from the point of view of Juno was an interesting choice. She has been so sheltered, and so out of touch with the world, that her POV is sometimes hard to understand. She refers to things in words that don't make sense, and some of her perceptions are very odd. I understand that this contributes to the atmosphere of the book, but it did cause more confusion than was maybe necessary.

The characters of Juno and Boy are fairly well developed considering what's going on in this story. I wish that we had more details on Mother and Father. I really wanted those pieces to fall into place and get some back story, but we never really did. That is one of my main complaints. I feel like the motivations for WHY Mother and Father did what they did are never really explored. I never really felt invested in the story. I really wanted to care more than I did. This just wasn't for me.

Thank you to NetGalley, Ivar Leon Menger & Dreamscape Media for an advance audiobook of What Mother Won't Tell Me.

I got some vibes of The Village by M. Night Shyamalan from this one, except it is just a single family.

June, Mother, Father and her brother Boy live on a remote island cutoff from the strangers from the other side. Father testified against the Italian mob and had to take his family into a witness protection type situation. The family follows seven strict rules to keep themselves safe from the strangers, even participating in drills to make sure they stay vigilant about what to do should strangers arrive. That is until Juno meets Luca one evening and everything she has ever known is now in question. She must decide whether to continue living as she has with her family or investigate what Luca has told her.

This story was on the shorter side, which lead to an extremely fast audio listen. I rather enjoyed most of the book. The pacing was quick & I really felt a connection to Juno. My heart was pumping right along with hers during several moments. The only thing that fell just a little short for me was the ending - like the very end. I wish it had been just a teeny bit better.

I would rate this 3.5 - 3.75 stars - rounded up to a 4. I do plan to recommend this to my IG following.

Juno is a young girl living only with her family on an isolated island. All her life she’s been told to fear outsiders, that they are after her parents, that they mean their family harm. But her whole world is turned upside down when she learns new information. I felt like it was pretty easy to predict what the reveals in this story were going to be. But I still enjoyed my time reading the book to see exactly how everything would play out. There were a lot of suspenseful moments that had me on the edge of my seat.

However, I was left wanting more from the end of the book. I was hoping that the tiny section of an epilogue at the end would’ve been expanded. I wanted to see how the characters adjusted to a different life after the climax of the story. But it ended up feeling a bit anticlimactic to me.

This was a creepy, gripping story that had a ton of potential in a really high-stakes build, but the ending required some unbelievable too-stupid-to-live out choices from Interpol that knocked me out of the narrative.

Premise - a criminally insane German couple kidnaps a British girl, a Swiss girl, and a Swedish boy in response to their own infertility. They raise the children as their own on a remote Swedish island, teaching them to hide from the Strangers, but after the British girl is sighted by a delivery man the fourteen year charade is up. Told from the perspective of the British girl, now a teenager, the story keeps you guessing about what’s true and what’s a lie for a while.

The first two-thirds was really captivating and creepy in the most engaging way. I loved not knowing who to trust and whether anyone was telling Juno the complete truth.

Unfortunately, the last third felt like too much tension had been built up and there wasn’t a way to pay it off well, so we had to buy interpol acting in super irrational ways - both the agency overall and the agent, Luca, who goes rogue to rescue the kids.

<spoiler> some TSTL moments:
- interpol makes the children meet them by the edge of the lake at 11pm, which requires them to put themselves in big risk, for the rescue
- Luca, an Interpol officer, hides that he’s communicating with the girl. For what purpose? Literally why?
- Interpol then ghosts their rescue because there’s a storm?? But clearly not bad enough to prevent a piddly little rowboated (piloted by an untrained child) to have no problem clearing the lake solo. What was Interpol trying to come on that couldn’t handle it? Pool floaties?
- Luca stops mid-rescue to go grab a photo album because it’s evidence… but almost gets both remaining live children killed in the process. WT actual F.

The only redeeming moment there is that Luca’s TSTL moment does become a literal TSTL moment, as he wins the Darwin award in the creepy couple’s kitchen. But I don’t think we were supposed to be like ‘uh, duh’ about it, so I’m mixed in that.

Anyway, this story had so much potential and was so well executed for the first 2/3, it just needed a developmental edit to make the finale make sense.

Thanks, NetGalley and Poisoned Press, for the gifted ARC in exchange for an honest review.

First, I am so thankful to Poisoned Pen Press, Dreamscape Media, Netgalley, and Ivar Leon Menger for granting me advanced digital, physical, and audio access to this twisty, translated thriller before it's set to publish on January 9, 2024.

What Mother Won't Tell Me is a story about two young kids who live on Northland, an island cast away from everything else and the rest of the world, but Boy and Juno don't know that. All they know is that they live on the island with their mother and father, who are protecting them from strangers who are planning to attack their island and take them away, but ultimately, that is just not true. What we have here is an excellent old-fashioned kidnapping/abducting tale, where the children have been gaslit for YEARS as they are raised by complete and utter strangers, hidden away from the rest of the world, and trapped.

When our book opens up, it's not long before Juno begins to find bizarre occurrences that distract her from her normal duties, cluing her in that something is amiss on their now-not-so-cozy island. Turns out the Italian government has been looking for her for years and they've sent one of their operatives abroad to gain intel and a plan on excavating these children from their imposters of parents.

I was on the edge of my seat as this tale was unfolding and almost lost my appetite at how realistic this story felt, for I feel we're always hearing of similar stories in the media when it comes to long-lost children.

This book is Everything that These silent woods failed to be

This little book is super tense and atmospheric, at times i caught myself holding my breath anticipating what's going to happen next
I got emotionally attached to the main character and her brother and was anxious to know about their fate and was rooting for them throughout
This could be categorized as a young adult thriller and i thought i was over the genre but this book made me rethink my statement, haha
Also i loved the narrator, Ella Lynch! She's the reason i requested the Arc!

Thanks to Netgalley, Dreamscape media and the author for my gifted review copy

This was a riveting psychological thriller in which our protagonist, a young girl named Juno, defies her secretive parents’ orders and is spotted by someone who isn’t supposed to see her.

All Juno knows is her island home. With only her mother, father and brother, Boy as company, they are supposed to remain hidden from the rest of the world, from those who wish to do them harm. When Juno is spotted, she does her best to rectify her predicament, only further making trouble for herself.

I could see pretty early on where this was going and I absolutely loved it! I found the way that Juno thinks to be interesting, and realistic, considering her isolated life. The horrors that she endures are scary, and made for a fantastic read!