Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a Kindle ARC of A Good Enough Mother.

Ruth Hartland is a therapist who is mourning the sudden disappearance of her son nearly a year ago.

When a patient arrives for counseling, who looks surprisingly like her son, Tom, their relationship crosses professional boundaries, putting Ruth's job in jeopardy.

A Good Enough Mother is more of a character study of a woman who is unable, rightly so, to cope with the loss of her son, a troubled young man.

There is no suspense, plenty of drama, but not the kind I was hoping for.

We get plenty of psychological insight into Ruth's work, her staff, and her capability as a therapist.

Not surprisingly, when it comes to her personal life, she is clueless.

The story is made up of flashbacks and recaps of Ruth and her twin children, and her relationship with Tom, and his struggles with life, in general.

I found it hard to like Ruth, mostly because her fixation on her son sounded too Oedipal and Freudian. But, then I'm a Freudian so I'm biased.

I understood her worry and concern over her son, but her indifference and not so subtle neglect of her well rounded twin daughter, made me unsympathetic toward Ruth, though I didn't blame her for acting this way.

Mothers worry about their children, especially one who may have difficult socializing and adapting to society's norms.

Tom is a sympathetic and very real character; I empathized with him, his struggles to cope with a society that does not understand people like him. We are all human but in many respects, we are not the same.

I did like the hopeful ending, not corny happy but open with possibility.

Great page turner and plot by Bev Thomas. A Good Enough Mother is a well-developed read worth the time.

The writing of A Good Enough Mother by Bev Thomas is fantastic. I loved the plot which is something we haven’t seen a million times before. I really understood the main character, Ruth, and how she felt throughout the story. You could really see it all happening in real life!

Ruth Hartland is the director of a trauma therapy unit in London. A psychotherapist with years of experience, she is highly respected in her field and in her office. But her family life tells another story: her marriage has fractured; her daughter has moved far, far away to Australia; and Tom, her teenage son, after years of struggling with being a child who never fit in, has disappeared and has had no contact with anyone for two years. Ruth’s fragile son has always been sensitive and anxious, the opposite of his cheerful and resilient sister. Is he hiding? Is he dead? How did she fail him, and how can she find him after all this time?

Then Ruth is assigned a new patient, a young man who bears a striking resemblance to her own son. Ruth is determined to help Dan, but her own complicated feelings and family history cloud her judgment–and professional boundaries, once inviolable, are crossed. When events spiral out of control, Ruth will have to accept the unacceptable and reckon with those who truly matter in her life.

If you enjoy books that are deep, thought-provoking, emotionally gripping then you will have to get your hands on this one.

I tried really hard to read this book. The way it's told was too hard to follow and make sense of. I just couldn't do it.