With a title like that you just know it’s going to have something to do with a very specific, obsessive kind of love. The kind a mother might, though really shouldn’t, have for her child. And there it is. Love. Obsession. Motherhood. The pillars of estrogen based modern psychological suspense thriller. Split narrative model of storytelling, but the main protagonist gets the most page time, because, of course, it’s pretty fun to watch a psychologist go insane. Or, at least, have everyone think she is. With a good reason, though, she thinks she’s just met her daughter, the one that disappeared as a baby 21 years ago, the one declared dead. So for most of the book it’s the is she or isn’t she sort of thing and I do wish the author made that plot angle more of a challenge to figure out, there were some misdirections, but mostly you pretty much knew what was going on. And there are too many formulas being used, easily recognizable genre tricks and also Munchhausen by Proxy comes across as overused by now, don’t you think? Come up with a new disorder to exploit, already. The psychological aspect of the novel was handled much more ably and watching the lead character spiral out of control, questioning her very reality, that was done exceedingly well. And the writing’s quite good too, very Scandinavian in its sparseness and economy as far as basic sentence structures go, although ironically (or is it irony) it seemed like the book might have been easily slimmed down. The narrative’s dynamic though, you get into it and the pages just turn and turn, ended up being almost a one sitting (not counting food) read for me straight through to the predictable, though logical ending. Decent thriller, plenty of excitement, nothing original really, but an entertaining fun read. Thanks Netgalley.

Tell Me You’re Mine caught my eye as a suspenseful story about a child that went missing 22 years ago and a mother who believes that the woman who walked into her therapy office is that daughter.

Stella’s daughter Alice went missing when she was a year old and her body was never found. She eventually went on to marry and has a 13 year old son. She became a psychologist. One day, a woman named Isabelle comes into her office and Stella becomes convinced that Isabelle is her missing daughter. Stella goes to extensive means, basically stalking Isabelle, to figure out her past.

This novel, told in the perspectives of Isabelle, Stella and Isabelle’s mother, Kerstin, is interesting. I found myself flying through it, eager to figure out the truth. There were some parts that I thought they could do without, but overall, I enjoyed the book.

It’s been over twenty years since Stella Widstrand’s baby, Alice, disappeared from a beach and was presumed drowned, but that doesn’t mean Stella has forgotten her lost child. She has a new life and a thirteen year old son, but when a young woman walks into Stella’s practice, Stella is sure the girl, Isabelle, is really her lost infant. Told from the perspective of three women, one who wants to find her missing child, another who’s afraid to lose her daughter, and the young woman who wants to know the truth – who she really is. A gut wrenching read that new mothers might want to avoid