When Patrick Walsh's dementia gets too debilitating for him to live alone, his children relocate him to a nursing home.  Since she's on maternity leave, child psychologist Beth Evans volunteers to clean out her father's house.  The place has always been spic-and-span, so she's stunned when she discovers that a padlocked room holds a chaotic mess of Patrick's paintings, papers, and assorted junk.  Among the detritus, she discovers loose pages from a journal that seems to have been written by her mother.  Patrick always told his kids that their mother died in a car accident when they were small.  The diary entries tell a different story.  Beth reads about her mother's struggles with postpartum depression—which mirror her own—as well as descriptions of a Patrick Beth doesn't recognize at all.  Who are her parents, really?  What was their marriage truly like?  And why is Patrick hiding dark secrets from his own children?

I'm always up for a tantalizing family secrets novel, so I was intrigued by the premise of Kelly Rimmer's newest, Truths I Never Told You.  While the book is definitely about secrets, they're not all that tantalizing.  Plus, the plot crawls along at such a glacial pace that I struggled to stay invested in the story.  While I empathized with Beth, I found her to be a difficult MC to care about.  She's whiny, self-centered, and victimy—my least favorite kind of heroine.  Add in about 100 pages of unnecessary text and, yeah, this novel is just ... putdownable.  It took me a few days, but I did finish it.  Unfortunately, I didn't really enjoy it.  Bummer. 

(Readalikes:  Hm, I can't think of anything.  Can you?)

(Image from Barnes & Noble)

After her babysitter cancels at the last minute, Anne Conti reluctantly decides to leave her 6-month-old daughter at home and join her husband, Marco, at a dinner party next door.  Plagued by guilt and anxiety, Anne can't relax, even though she checks on the infant repeatedly.  During one of these drop-ins, the couple make a horrifying discovery—Cora is gone.  Who would kidnap a baby right out of its crib?  And why?  

With no real evidence of a break-in, police suspect the Contis of abducting their own child.  Anne suffers from post-partum depression and Marco's software design business is in trouble.  Did one of them snap under the added pressure of new parenthood?  As Detective Rasbach investigates, he uncovers a whole web of lies weaved between the Contis and their enigmatic next door neighbors, the Stillwells.  No one is telling the entire truth, so what really happened to Cora?  Can Rasbach wade through all the deceit and find out? 

I dig psychological thrillers with intriguing premises, so The Couple Next Door by Shari Lapena seemed like a right-up-my-alley kind of novel.  While the story is intriguing enough that I wanted to keep reading, the characters in this story are a total turn-off.  The cast is almost wholly unlikable.  They're a desperate, selfish, cruel, and greedy lot, which made it impossible to care about them.  Add to this irritant a predictable plot and a depressing-as-all-get-out vibe, and The Couple Next Door becomes only a so-so read.  While I definitely wanted to know what happened to the baby, all in all this one didn't do a lot for me.

(Readalikes:  Reminds me of Our House by Louise Candlish)

Grade:

If this were a movie, it would be rated:

for language, sexual content, violence, and disturbing subject matter

To the FTC, with love:  Another library fine find

(Image from Barnes & Noble)

Desperate for a new start away from her controlling husband, Daphne Marist applies for her dream job as a live-in archivist for her favorite novelist—and gets it.  Not only does she know nothing about how to actually perform her duties, but she's also presenting herself with a false name and credentials that do not belong to her.  Sure she can fake it well enough to fool her elderly employer, Daphne heads to the Catskills with her six-month-old daughter, Chloe, in tow.  Waiting for her is a beautiful stone mansion surrounded by a lush landscape that makes the whole scene seem like something out of a fairy tale.  The lovely refuge is exactly what Daphne needs, even if the insane asylum that lurks behind the home sends shivers down her spine.  

As Daphne starts organizing papers for Schuyler Bennett, she becomes immersed in the author's story, especially her connection with the asylum.  In doing so, she's trying to forget her own troubles, the reason why she fled her home in the first place.  Yes, Daphne was diagnosed with Postpartum Mood Disorder after Chloe's birth and yes, it made her forgetful, clingy, even obsessive.  It didn't, however, make her a danger to her infant daughter.  No matter what, Daphne refuses to believe her husband's accusations—she would never hurt Chloe.  Never.  She doesn't know how to interpret the disturbing memory fragments tormenting her mind, but they can't be what they seem to be.  They can't be evidence that she put her own child at risk.  That would be impossible, wouldn't it? 

The longer Daphne is in the Catskills, the more she comes to realize that something did happen before she left.  Something awful.  It's up to her to mine her troubling memory for the truth before she finds herself the newest resident in an asylum that is conveniently close to her new home ...

Just in time for Mother's Day comes a heartwarming novel about the joys of motherhood ... oh, wait,  this is not that book!  As is indicated by its title, The Other Mother—the newest Gothic thriller by Carol Goodman—is indeed about motherhood.  It's about all the uncertainty, guilt, anxiety, fear, and fierce, mind-warping love that comes along with bearing a child, especially for the first time.  While all of those emotions are perfectly natural, this wouldn't be a Goodman book if those feelings weren't twisted into something decidedly more sinister than just a new mother's paranoia.  Goodman uses these heightened emotions to create a story that is chilling and can't-look-away compelling.  It's the kind of novel that keeps the reader constantly off-kilter, never knowing what is real and what isn't.  In doing so, however, the plot gets confusing and a bit contrived.  Still, it's a tense, twisty thriller that will keep you engrossed until the very end.  The Other Mother isn't my favorite novel by this author, but it's definitely another enthralling story that kept me turning pages long past bedtime.

(Readalikes:  Reminds me a bit of Remember Mia by Alexandra Burt)

Grade:

If this were a movie, it would be rated:

for language (a half dozen or so F-bombs, plus milder expletives), violence, blood/gore, and disturbing subject matter

To the FTC, with love:  I received an ARC of The Other Mother from the generous folks at HarperCollins.  Thank you!