Amy was always well turned out, had a handsome husband, two lovely daughters. Others looked up to her. However, haunted by events in her youth she is obsessive about keeping her family safe. Charlotte moved to the neighbourhood looking for a safe place to raise her daughter. She is a photographer. She dresses in what the other 'soccer moms' consider 'inappropriate'. Rachel regards Amy as her best friend, even though beside her she feels fat & frumpy. She has a husband who adores her, but that doesn't help. She also worries about her son, who is a bit of a loner.

When a rapist is on the loose in the neighbourhood Amy's fears take over. She also has taken a deep dislike to Charlotte especially after some photographs Charlotte had displayed seemed to present Amy as less than perfect. Amy's paranoia begins to be dangerous for all- especially for Charlotte.

I know Amy was mentally ill, but I found it difficult even sympathise with her. Rachel- who was probably a nice woman also annoyed me a great deal but I really felt for Charlotte.

This book was a slow starter & by the time the pace had moved up a gear I was really getting fed up with Amy, whilst wondering why her husband couldn't see how close to the edge she was. This was a bit of a marmite book. Thanks to Netgalley & the publisher for letting me read & review this book.

I want to thank Net Galley for an advanced copy of "The Good Mother" by Cathryn Grant. I truly enjoyed this book. I love a thriller about domestic issues.

My first book by Cathryn Grant . The idea of the trauma which not only the victim of a brutal violent attack suffers but also how it affects the person who happens to witness it, especially a child.

The book is about 4 close friends - Amy, Jane, Kit and Rachel. They all are perfect mothers and housewives with perfect husbands living in the best neighbourhood of San Francisco. Their world starts wavering when Charlotte enters their town with her daughter. Short chapters really made it a quick-read. The end of this domestic thriller does not disappoint at all.

I’ve finished this book in a couple of days, The story hooked me from the beginning and I couldn’t put it down. Amy is a woman that had a traumatic childhood and she caries her traumas and wounds with her to the adulthood, where her main goal make her children have a perfect and happy life, no matter what. It’s a gripping domestic psychological thriller with an unexpected twist..Thus is the first book I read from this author and can’t wait read the next one. .

The Good Mother was a fun one to pass the afternoon! As a 35 year old mom, I could relate to the "mean girls grown up" premise. Was it fluff? Was it kind of implausible? Yes, but it was still a deliciously fun read!

I really wanted to love this book because the premise was interesting. As a mom of 3 kids, one of whom is obsessed with soccer, so I can relate to the cliques and "mean girls" attitudes that come along with elementary and middle school PARENTS and their kids. I empathized with Amy's childhood trauma and understand how that made her obsess over giving her kids an easier life. However, I really couldn't stand her. She was such a mean person who reeked of insecurity and jealousy, and I didn't like her friends either. Pretty much the only likeable character was Charlotte, who is new in town after relocating for a better life for her daughter. I was waiting for a lot of action and thrilling moments, but unfortunately this one just fell flat for me.

3 out of 5 stars for The Good Mother by Cathryn Grant.

Thank you to the author and to Inkubator books for the opportunity to read and review The Good Mother. All comments and opinions are my own.

A big fan of Liane Moriarty and Sally Hepworth, I was very excited to receive a galley of The Good Mother by Cathryn Grant from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Unfortunately, this book fell flat for me and if it weren’t for the promised review, I most likely would have put it down at the halfway point if not earlier. I felt the writing was juvenile with step-by-step sentences of the characters' actions, lacking anything complex. The characters were immature and not fully developed. I couldn’t connect to any of them even though I am a total suburbia soccer mom. The plot was all over the place, wasn’t logical at points, and simply not believable. I was really hoping it would come together with a great twist at the end but I was disappointed with a very anticlimactic event and wrap-up in the last 3% of the book. The description made the book sound like a peek into the juicy, gossip-filled lives of a group of soccer moms, but instead it just felt like a bunch of unconfident crazies that no one would want to associate with upon meeting. I think my biggest issue is that there was no “unraveling” of the main character, Amy; she was unstable from the very start making her “queen bee” status far-fetched. MASSIVE TRIGGER WARNING as rape is a common theme in this story and towards the end is referred to on almost every page. Note: This book was previously released as "The Demise of the Soccer Moms" which brings the book down another notch in my book.

Charlotte is the mom in town, and poses a threat to the tranquility of Amy's home and social life. As Charlotte becomes more entangled in Amy's day to day life, Amy begins to unravel. She becomes paranoid, conniving, and even violent. Amy will go to drastic measures to keep her perfect life as picture perfect as it seems.

This book was thoroughly entertaining, but required minimal effort as it was pretty surface level reading. It reminded me of reading about a high school clique, but they were mothers. Some parts of it were pretty unrealistic, starting with the sheer amount of things the mothers get away with. Charlotte was a fairly likable character but I do wish she had more depth to her. Amy is highly unlikable, and the lack of consequences for her actions are infuriating. She also portrays mental health with the 'hysterical suburban mother' stigma. This is a good beach read, but it lacks the emotional depth to get the reader invested.

3.5 stars rounded down to 3

Amy is your typical 'mean girl' all grown up.
Shes a manipulative bully that readers will love to hate.
When free spirited Charlotte and her daughter Meadow move into Amy's quiet community, this budding psychopath will lose her mind. 

The beginning of this book was kind of all over the place, eventually everything falls into place, but it take a little while.
I really enjoy books with alternating perspectives, these chapters rotate between Amy, Charlotte, and Amy's "best friend" Rachel,  highlighting the dynamic between these women, showing you different views on the same story.

The ending while predictable and anti climactic, was still enjoyable. 
For the most part this is a 2.5 star book, but Amy was such a great character. Lately I have been reading books with no great villain, most characters sit on the fence between good and bad, and it was refreshing to have a true antihero.
Amy made this book one that I looked forward to picking up.

"The Good Mother" is the story of Amy, a suburban mother with twin girls, and Charlotte, the newcomer Amy finds a threat to her perfect life, for no real reason other than Charlotte is pretty and Amy insecure. 

While the story had promise and was well-written, it ultimately lacked believability for me. I'd have loved to have seen some more fleshing out of the central characters, as a lot of their actions were explained only by one key thing in their backstory, ie, Amy's witnessing of her mother's rape when she was a child, and there was no other nuance or development beyond that. This made me feel incredulous about some of the characters' responses and reactions at times as they just seemed completely disproportionate and over the top. 

There were some good twists, and I did like the ending, but I found Amy's snowballing from neurotic to psychotic too fast and too unbelievable, and I just would have liked a little more character development so that I could find a way of connecting with the characters a little more. 

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with a free ARC copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

The Good Mother by Cathryn Grant is the first book I have read from this author and I enjoyed it however, it did not grip me at first like other books I have read recently.
It's a domestic thriller about three friends, Amy, Rachel and Charlotte. Amy and Rachel have been best friends for years and Charlotte is new to the area.
This book is told from their points of view, by all three characters. However, some of the characters within the book were unlikeable and I just wanted a little more information about them.
The beginning of the book was a slow burner and not much happening. Then, all of a sudden the book woke up and became alive!

Big Thank You to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I liked this book a lot- more in the beginning though. A few too many plot twists for me andI felt the writing was a little juvenile. The main thing I don’t care for in a book is when too many different and disturbing things keep happening. All of them happened in The Good Mother. I feel some readers would enjoy it more than I. Thanks again to NetGalley for allowing me to read and review.

Thank you Netgalley and the Inkubator Books to give me an opportunity to review this book in exchange for an honest review.

My first book by Cathryn Grant and it didn’t disappoint at all. She has wittingly worked on the idea of the trauma which not only the victim of a brutal violent attack suffers but also how it affects the person who happens to witness it, especially a child. This book has been labelled as a psychological thriller but I find it closer to a domestic thriller.

The book is about 4 close friends - Amy, Jane, Kit and Rachel. They all are perfect mothers and housewives with perfect husbands living in the best neighbourhood of San Francisco. Their world starts wavering when Charlotte enters their town with her daughter. How is Charlotte affecting their lives and how some recent incidents in the neighbourhood affect their belief of their safe neighbourhood?

I loved reading this page-turner domestic thriller. I found some characters very unlikable but I still kept reading because I was interested to know what happened next. All the characters are written in such a way that they feel relatable.

Cathryn Grant’s writing has been non-complicated and very easy to read. Short chapters really made it a quick-read. The end of this domestic thriller does not disappoint at all.

If you like a short and engrossing domestic thriller, grab this one!
***Warning: Rape is discussed often in this book.

If Amy had to describe her life in one word, it would be 'perfect.' Her marriage, her home, twin daughters. She feels certain she's the envy of her close-knit circle of friends. Everything was just as she wished it to be—until that shameless woman moved into town and had the audacity to allow her to play soccer on their soccer team. And now her daughter wanted to be friends with that woman's child? Amy decided right then and there that Charlotte had to go... one way or another.

Charlotte is a photographer, forced to raise her daughter alone after a terrible mistake in judgement stole the little girl's father away from them. Returning to her hometown was the last thing she wanted to do, but she had nowhere else to go. Everything would be fine. Or so she thought until Amy tries to rally her soccer-mom friends to help drive Charlotte out of town. When Amy's single-minded mission to get rid of her go from being a mere annoyance to overtly threatening, Charlotte begins to fear how far Amy is willing to go in order to get it done.

The Good Mother was the antithesis of the last book I read—it was SO good! I wish I'd been able to read it from start to finish in one sitting, but the time to do so was a luxury I didn't have. Instead, I read as much as I possibly could whenever I had a chance to get some reading done, and moaned and groaned more than usual whenever I was forced to stop.

Most of the adult characters in this book aren't very likable, with the exception of Charlotte. I felt so badly for her, being so ostracized practically from the moment she steps foot into town. Amy took one look at the way she dressed, the way she carried herself, made a snap judgement about what sort of woman Charlotte "had" to be, and proceeded to make her life a living hell. It infuriated me, and I wanted so badly to leap into the book and smack Amy upside the head and tell her to leave that poor woman alone!

There was a pivotal event in Amy's childhood that shaped the woman she was to become—and tied directly into why she was so outraged by Charlotte's appearance. The fallout from that terrible event drove everything she did from the moment she met Charlotte, as well as being the reason why she did everything in her life. There were times I felt sympathy for her, only to have it disappear when she did the next vindictive thing.

There's a subplot that contributes to the overall story, and it's something all the major characters are aware of, though each of them react to it in vastly different ways. I won't get into what it's about, since it isn't mentioned in the book description. It does tie in to another crucial event in the story in a way that took me by surprise. It perfectly illustrated the mindset of a certain character at that moment in time, adding a greater sense of trepidation to the reader moving forward. I was definitely reading with bated breath from that moment on!

I had an idea of how the story might end, and I'm glad it didn't end that way because it was something I considered for more than half the book. The way Grant chose to wrap it up wasn't at all what I suspected, but it was still very satisfying. Hooray for unpredictability!

This is my first book by Cathryn Grant, but it won't be my last. This was a great introduction to a new-to-me author.

I received an advance reading copy of this book courtesy of Inkubator Books via Netgalley.

Thank you NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book as an ARC. This book was one that I read so quickly . I enjoyed the various viewpoints from the main characters perspectives (Amy, Charlotte, and Rachel). The book describes any suburban town where the mothers are very involved in their children's lives through PTA, soccer. There is much competition to display a perfect life but no one truly knows what goes on behind closed doors. Kinda reminded me of Big LIttle Lies in that sense. The character of Amy was a bit over the top but overall a good read that I would definitely recommend. Don't want to give specifics to give away any spoilers. Just read it!

I thought that this was a well written domestic thriller.

I liked the way that the author told the story from the points of view of the three main female characters, Amy, Rachel and Charlotte – this has to be my favourite style at the moment and I thought that the author did a great job with this, the pace was slow and it crept along really well to build up the suspense and the writing style was spot on!

The author has created some great complex characters that show that for what people portray on the surface there is often a lot going on under the surface and behind the scenes – do you really know what is going on in the lives of friends and neighbours too – this book gives you food for thought

It is 4 stars from me for this one – I really enjoyed the suspense and seeing the different plot lines come together and the different characters start to unravel too

This book sounded like it was going to be a good read but I found the characters to be unlikable and I didn't finish it. Sorry this one isn't for me

BOOK REVIEW⠀
BOOK: The Good Mother
AUTHOR: Cathryn Grant
@cathryngrant_fiction

At first this book feels to me like one mom being catty about another mom, almost irrationally. But it’s so much more. It’s the effect of trauma on your life, and the importance (ultimately) of dealing with it and healing.

This book was such a good ride. There were parts I felt myself skimming just because it seemed like the same conversation. But in the end, the payoff was good and I felt satisfied with the outcome. Definitely recommend!


Short Synopsis (from Goodreads):

Amy’s life is picture perfect. Mess with that picture – you’re going to pay.

Amy’s life is close to perfect – two lovely daughters, a wonderful husband and she’s queen bee in her circle of soccer moms. She feels content, like she’s finally put some distance between herself and the terrible events of long ago.

The only fly in the ointment is Charlotte, a recent arrival to this affluent suburban community. The shameless way she dresses, the way the men look at her… it’s not right, she’s just not the kind of person they want around here.

Amy spearheads a drive to exclude Charlotte, to make it clear to her that she’s not welcome here. Infuriatingly, Charlotte doesn’t seem to care… And when her daughter joins the soccer team there’s just no getting away from her.

But Amy knows from bitter experience the kind of trouble a woman like Charlotte can bring. And there is no way on earth that her girls are ever going to be exposed to anything like that. The solution is clear - Charlotte has to go. No matter what it takes.


I received this book for review purposes from NetGalley. ⠀
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I read the synopsis for 'The Good Mother' and it certainly sounded like just my kind of read. I love psychological thrillers that have a surprise or two within the pages of the book. So I grabbed a cup of tea, secured my comfy spot on the couch and started to read. Oh my word, 'The Good Mother' was certainly a read and a half, which I did enjoy but more about that in a bit.
I can honestly say that I didn't take to the character of Amy at all and by the end of the book I literally couldn't stand her. Amy is a bit of a complex character. She suffered significant trauma as a child having witnessed her mother being raped by a stranger. I also get the impression that Amy's parents didn't have the easiest of relationships and they could be quite volatile. I wasn't too surprised when Amy's mother took her own life. It's not surprising that Amy has issues and I did wonder if she was suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Amy strives for perfection and her adult life seems perfect. She has the husband, the kids, the money and the house. Amy is also popular with the other mothers. In fact Amy and the other mothers reminded me of witches round a cauldron in a sense. They are a tight bunch and they are rather snooty and judgemental of those who don't fit in. However the atmosphere changes for the worst once Charlotte and her daughter Meadow turn up. My first impression of Charlotte was that she was fleeing something and she wanted to make a fresh start. Charlotte is 'different' to Amy and the other mothers. She wears different clothes, she has different ideas and she has different attitudes to bring up her child. I think that Amy perceives Charlotte to be a threat to her 'perfect' life for reasons which are initially unclear. Amy is determined to make sure that Charlotte 'goes away' and I don't think she cares how she does it. She sees Charlotte as trouble an she needs to be dealt with. What happens? Well for the answers to that question and more you are just going to have to read the book for yourselves to find out as I am not going to tell you.
It took me no time at all to get into this book. In fact the book seemed to develop a hold over me from the moment I picked it up until the moment I finished reading. I realised that Amy was a complex character and I was interested in how her character was going to develop as the story unfurled. The pages turned increasingly quickly as my desperation to find out what happened steadily grew and grew. At one point the pages were turning that quickly that it was almost as if they were turning themselves. I seemed to reach the end of the story far quicker than I had wanted to, which I was disappointed about. That's disappointed in myself for reading it so quickly and not disappointed in the quality of the writing or the story.
'The Good Mother' is extremely well written. The story begins in a way that is going to stay fresh in my mind for a long time to come. Cathryn describes what initially happens in a brutally honest way. Cathryn grabbed my attention from the start and then she kept it throughout the story. The book is written from the points of view of the different mothers. This way of telling the story gives a real insight into their individual mindsets and helps to explain why they are the way they are. I did wonder if I would get confused by the different chapters but I needn't have worried because this way of telling the story worked well and the story flowed seamlessly as a result. Cathryn has created multi layered and complex characters that seemed as real as you and I. The author uses such powerful and vivid descriptions that I really did feel as though I was part of the story myself.
In short, I thoroughly enjoyed reading 'The Good Mother' and I would recommend it to other readers. Just a word of caution though, the matter of rape is discussed in quite graphic detail which might be distressing for certain people. I will definitely be reading more of Cathryn's work in the future. The score on the Ginger Book Geek board is a very well deserved 5* out of 5*.

I was drawn to this book because of the cover. And for me the cover is the best part. I have never read a book before with a cast of characters that are completely unlikable. I wanted to love Charlotte but I ended up wanting to shake her. Many will enjoy this book, unfortunately I didn't.

This book is about a woman named Amy. Amy is married and has twin daughters. She has her own group of friends in her town. All their children play on the same soccer team so they are pretty close friends. When Amy sees a new comer in the town she isn't happy. She doesn't like how the woman dresses and how she acts. As time goes on they have their run ins with each other. Amy isn't happy and she makes sure the new comer knows she isn't happy. Amy will do anything to protect her family.