I would not call this a thriller. It is a slow burn drama.But it's worth the wait.
I loved the way it was written, and the depths in some parts were touching.
Overall I really enjoyed this book and I would recommend it - it's a little different from the norm and I found that it really worked and held my interest well.
Thanks to NetGalley, author and publisher for an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

This book tells the tale of Julie Weathers, a woman who has just dealt with a series of devastating events in her life that lead her to take on a job as a schoolteacher in a one room school-house. But nothing is as it seems. The creepy setup and in depth characters made for an enjoyable read. The twists and turns kept me guessing, and it wasn't who I thought it was in the end. I would recommend this book for anyone who likes a solid thriller

In the Second Mother, a young woman drops her shattered life and moves to a small island to teach progenies of the island's elite. I guess this sounds like it could be a growing up book, or maybe even a comedy, but it's neither of these. Weird s*it keeps happening to the main character and her dog, and her new house. Maybe it's the residents doing weird things, or maybe it's the island itself.



Parts of the book were a little creepy, and some were a little disturbing. Mostly I liked it.



4/5 Stars

I struggled with this book. I could not find a good strong connection towards the characters in the book. This in turn made it hard for me to stay focused on the story as a whole. I tried and tried to stick with the book. Yet, my reading was more of a stop and go pacing. It took me a long time to get to almost the half way point. Sadly, my feelings did not improve as I got further into the book that I could not continue on reading.

Julie is totally broken by tragedy and barely surviving day to day. When she plans to escape the confines of her small New York town, she finds an ad on Opportunity.com for a teacher in a one room school house on a very small remote island in Maine. Julie jumps at the chance to start over. When Julie arrives on the isolated island with her dog Depot, she soon falls in love with it, that is until things start to turn a bit creepy. What are the secrets the island is holding? Why has someone been in her house? As she tries to figure things out she is also trying to help a couple of students that she feels need her help. Could it all be connected and what’s up with the wealthy Grandma and her Captain husband? After enjoying this story until the final pages, I was rather disappointed with the abrupt ending.

Julie is seeking out a new life after the death of her daughter and pending divorce from her husband. After being a recluse for a year, she takes a leap of faith and takes a job as a teacher in a one room schoolhouse. Mercy Island is in Maine and miles off the coast with hardly any wifi or cell service. She learns that the island and its inhabitants are controlled by the grandmother of the wealthiest family on the island. She begins receiving threats after butting heads with the matriarch after insisting that her grandson (one of Julie’s pupils) needs help.

The blurb of this book reads like a thriller. It is not a thriller. It is more like a dark drama with moments that make you feel uncomfortable. Julie is one of the few things I liked about this book. Her character is fully developed and her grief is tangible throughout the story. That being said, I had problems with many other aspects of this novel. The secondary characters were very weak which contributed to the plot being boring and the length (almost 400 pages) much too long. I enjoyed the description of Mercy Island and the atmosphere that Milchman wove but it wasn’t enough to carry the story. I was really leaning towards 3 stars because I did enjoy the first half of the book but then I read the ending. Some characters meet their demise with no follow-up and it was just very unrealistic. So for those reasons, I settled on a 2.5 (which is rare for me).

Julie Weathers has been stuck in a life she never thought she would be leading and is in desperate need of a new beginning. When she finds an ad for an opportunity to be a teacher in a one-room schoolhouse on a remote island in Maine, she knows she has found her chance to flee her old life. The island is home to a close-knit community filled with lobster fisherman. As Julie starts her position as teacher she comes to suspect that life may not be so idyllic on this remote island. There are secrets here that may just put Julie’s life in danger.

THE SECOND MOTHER is an atmospheric, slow burn mystery that transports the reader to an island filled with intrigue and deception. I absolutely adore the way that Milchman was able to bring this community to life and turn the island into the perfect setting. I was completely swept away with the claustrophobic feelings I felt while reading this story both in terms of the island as a whole and the isolated house Julie has taken residence in.

In addition to a fantastic setting, THE SECOND MOTHER offers up a great cast of characters. Our main character is Julie, who has quite a few horrible things in her life that she needs to overcome. It was refreshing to see a narrator who was working to better their lives instead of someone who was simply portrayed as unreliable because of their life events. In addition to Julie, the island has some fantastic, multilayered characters that help to build the tension of this story. Shortly after Julie’s arrival it becomes clear that there are a lot of secrets being hidden on this island, but it’s not clear what they are. Oh and did I mention there’s a creepy kid who could possibly be terrorizing Julie? Yep! One of my favorite ways to be creeped out are weird child characters in crime fiction.

The pacing of THE SECOND MOTHER is on the slower side, but something I felt matched perfectly with the actual plot. This isn’t a thriller, but more of an atmospheric suspense story. I do think knowing this going into the book helps to set expectations. There are also a few parts that felt repetitive at times, but overall I felt the story flowed and progressed quite smoothly. THE SECOND MOTHER is perfect for fans of atmospheric crime fiction!

A huge thank you to Books Forward PR and Sourcebooks for my gifted copy!

Full of suspense. Very engrossing. Must keep reading because you have to know what is going on. Enjoy thrillers? Check it out. Happy reading!

The Second Mother is a slow burn drama, but I wouldn’t consider it a thriller so know that going in! I thought the parts about grief and dealing with loss were written beautifully, and my heart went out to Julie. The character development and emotional connections were amazing, but the suspense was lacking up until the end. This one ended up right in the middle for me since it was well-written but lost my interest at times. Thank you so much to Books Forward PR and Netgalley for my gifted copy of this new release!

So. I picked this one up because the premise sounds really intriguing. A woman starting over somewhere else, haven't we all wanted to do that? Plus this is marketed as a thriller, which I love, so bonus points. But, unfortunately, I didn't really enjoy this one.

This is a very, very, VERY slow burn. And for being 400+ pages, nothing really happens in this book. The ~thriller aspect doesn't really come into play until the end. And by then I was so bored that I wasn't impressed and ultimately just wanted to be done.

However, I did love the island setting and that was the part I connected with most. I felt like I was there and the descriptions of the island itself were amazing. But that was really the only thing I felt connected to in this story? There are waaaaay too many characters (and all of them pretty much undeveloped and one dimensional; to the point where I couldn't keep the main character and her best friend straight and at times couldn't remember which one we'd followed to the island).

This also has way too much filler? Honestly, most of the book felt like filler. It did not need to be so long. And it was just overly descriptive? Like I don't need to know every single time she fed the dog or everything that entailed. And let's also talk about the dog. Because he played WAAAAY too big of a role in this book???? The entire time it had me thinking he was going to be a plot device. But nope. Just always there. It felt more like this book was about the dog than Julie.

Also. Weird thing to be annoyed about but the main antagonist was referred to as "the grandmother" for most of the book. Even though we all knew her name. It felt almost like this was the rough draft where she hadn't been named yet but it was too much work to go back and change all of those instances to Maryanne. But calling her "the grandmother" took me out of the story and also made a character who is supposed to be ~evil feel far less so. Plus even the characters referred to her as "the grandmother" and she wasn't even their grandmother???? WHO TALKS LIKE THAT? No one. That's who. (And this was not an isolated incident. There was a seventh grade boy who suffered the same treatment.)

So. All of that being said. I didn't really connect with this book or really even enjoy it. There was too much fluff for not enough payoff. Even when I reached the "twist" and the bits that apparently made this a thriller, I wasn't thrilled. I don't think this should've been a thriller. I think it should've been a story about grief and called it a day at that. And it should've been waaaaay shorter. To invest in such a long book and keep your audience interested the whole thing, stuff needs to happen. And unfortunately, that was not the case in this book. So I'm mostly just glad to be done and moving on to other things.

Thank you to Books Forward, NetGalley and Sourcebooks for allowing me the chance to read this one in exchange for an honest review.

The Second Mother appealed to me a great deal when I saw the synopsis. It read, “Opportunity: Teacher needed in one-room classroom schoolhouse on remote. Island in Maine. Certification in grades K-8 a must.” After experiencing the loss of a child and a failed marriage, Julie weathers thinks this teaching position is her chance at a fresh start.
The setting is a remote island with no cars allowed, spotty cell service and wi-fi limited to the area around the library. The people on Mercy Island seem to enjoy a simpler way of life that appeals to Julie. The setting is isolated, rustic, full of cliffs, rocks, rain and thick fog. I was fully prepared for this setting to be the perfect backdrop for a creepy thriller.
I loved Julie, though flawed she recognizes her faults but truly wanted to improve herself and help the children of mercy. I was really cheering Julie on as she worked through the mysteries and secrecy that surrounded the Hempstead family that seem to run the island through some nefarious means.
This book had a lot of potential to blow me away. I felt like it was too long and didn’t have quite the action or tension I expect from a thriller. I feel like it ultimately was more of a slow burn mystery. The author spent a great deal of time building the setting and less on continuing suspenseful moments and plot twists. I think if I had been expecting more mystery and slow burn I would have enjoyed it more.
Overall I give this one 3.5/5 stars., if you enjoy atmospheric slow burns you will lovvve this book! It is worth a read! Thank you to Sourcebooks and @booksforwardpr for an advanced digital copy to review.

2.5 stars rounded up.

It was just too long and drawn out, not much happened. Also, I didn't feel the characters, and their connections were developed enough.

Thank you Sourcebooks Landmark and NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

The book had so much potential to wow me, but for a thriller to be this long, I need there to be a lot of captivating action, and this book was much more of a slow thriller that focused heavily on building the setting. Most of the times when something suspenseful or creepy was happening, the author immediately moved onto something else instead of continuing to build up the suspense.

I did really enjoy the ending to this story, but the story really dragged for me in the middle. I don't know if I would have finished this if not for my desire to know what happens at the end. There were some deaths happening left and right towards the end that I'm not sure how I feel about, but I did enjoy the big twist that happened as I didn't see it coming at all. There were so many suspicious elements dropped in the beginning of the book that intrigued me, but it took till almost the end of the book for them to really start playing a part in the story. Also, I think the dog Depot played too large of a role in this story. He added to parts of the mystery and plot, but there were times where I lost interest in hearing about every time Julie was going to feed him or take him on a walk. I liked how the author wrote Julie's character though as she was too blinded by grief to see a lot of red flags in the beginning, but she started putting things together as her time on the island increased and she found another sense of purpose.

I really liked Callum and his relationship with Julie and wish we could have seen more of their interactions in this. Also, I enjoyed trying to figure out Peter and if he was actually troubled or if there was something else going on under the surface.

Overall, I think this is a good book for people who like slow, character-driven thrillers that leave you wondering what's going to happen next at every turn.

This book kept me up late reading! This slow burn thriller had creepy vibes and an easy style of writing to follow. I do feel like the ending was abrupt, and I wanted to have more closure in the conclusion. I still recommend you pick this one up, especially with the impending fall season upon us, it has all the feels

It took me a little while to get into this book but once I made it to around 30% I was pulled in. I would not describe this as a thriller, there were no edge of your seat/nail biting moments, you knew what was going on. I will say though, there are bits of mystery and a surprise revelation. I did enjoy Milchman’s vivid descriptions of the island. I give this 3.5 stars rounded up to 4.

SPOILER-FREE REVIEW: The Second Mother is a mystery/thriller novel set to be released by Sourcebooks Landmark on August 18, 2020. It was written by award-winning novelist Jenny Milchman, who has written three previous bestsellers that received acclaim by the New York Times and USA Today, among others. The tagline of the novel reads, “Opportunity: Teacher needed in one-room schoolhouse on remote island in Maine. Certification in grades K-8 a must.” (7/10 stars)

PLOT RUNDOWN/BASICS: Julie Mason is living a gray, dreary existence in the remote Adirondack mountains, where it feels as if time has ceased to have any meaning. She rarely eats, and barely ever leaves her own house, until something compels her to answer an ad on Opportunity.com for a teaching position on an even-more remote island off the coast of Maine. She’s spent a year grieving the sudden loss of her young daughter, Hedley, helped along by a generous serving of scotch every night...but she knows that it’s time she starts trying to really live again.

But Julie’s about to get more change than she bargained for, when her husband suddenly announces that he’s filing for divorce. Shocked, Julie realizes that she’ll be moving to Mercy Island alone, for a complete and total life do-over. The island is cut off from the mainland by a choppy and sometimes unforgiving sea, and the islanders are just as secretive and protective about Mercy Island as Julie expected. But she has Depot, her loyal dog, and a gorgeous new home on a cliff high above the sea.

The Mercy Island community is tight-knit and somewhat reserved to strangers and newcomers, but Julie works hard to make friends and settle into a new routine. As her teaching position starts, and she meets the island families who’ve lived on Mercy for generations, Julie begins to suspect that there’s much more beneath the surface of the island than she originally thought. There’s the troubled young boy who sneaks into her house when she’s not at home, and the sinister messages and warnings that show up on her doorstep...not to mention the dark and mysterious woods that line her path into town.

Julie begins to realize that there are people on the island who aren’t quite happy she’s arrived, and who want nothing more than to keep their “sacred” island secrets and traditions. The more involved she becomes in their lives, and the more she tries to help, the more danger she realizes she’s in. It’s starting to seem as if there’s no way out, and no way off of the island for her - and as if the islanders themselves truly have no mercy for Julie.

MY THOUGHTS: This was my first read by Milchman, and I did enjoy it, even though it’s not typically my favorite type of mystery/thriller. I tend to go for a twisty, unpredictable whodunit (like Alice Feeney), or mysteries that involve friendships/competition between women (like Lianne Moriarty or Sally Hepworth).

The Second Mother is instead an atmospheric thriller that relies heavily on the location as its own dark and mysterious entity. If you’re familiar with Tana French’s Dublin murder series (and who isn’t?), you’ll know exactly what I mean. It begins in the remote Adirondack mountains, where Julie lives with her bland and boring husband (really - you won’t miss him), and ends on the isolated and distant Mercy Island. There are cliffs over crumbling beaches, large and dangerous rocks, and dark, shadowy woods with hard-to-follow paths. There’s barely any cell signal, with reception only available near the tiny town library...and the wi-fi connection is spotty and can go down with any storm or downpour.

These elements aren’t nearly as terrifying as the people on Mercy Island, however. Milchman weaves a deadly spider web of corruption, control, and classism that has its own vernacular and caste system. The Second Mother seems like a treatise on “old” generational power and money, and how those who possess these things - and thus, often control entire economic and political systems - are often willing to do ANYTHING to keep hold of their position of power. The children themselves “bear the burden” of their parents’ socioeconomic status; in one particularly sinister scene, the young children mock and deride the child of one of the poorest fishermen, as they simultaneously defer to the child of the island’s wealthiest elite.

This makes the story feel like an observation of real life in so many ways...and Julie herself is the young newcomer, ready to usher in unwanted change and reform. We’ve all felt like the outsider at some point in our lives (...haven’t we?), and this allows us to empathize as Julie struggles to understand the strange customs and habits of the native families. In addition, Julie herself battles a dependence on alcohol that has allowed her to cope with the devastating losses of her child and, now, her marriage. She approaches her new job and new home as a fresh start, so even as she falls deeper into the mysteries of Mercy and its children - including one difficult and frightening little boy, in particular - she struggles to do so while becoming sober and with a clean slate.

This book is a good story about resilience, determination, and the desire to do what’s right. Julie works hard to become a better teacher, a better friend, and a better person, even as the dark forces behind the scenes at Mercy Island are hell-bent to keep her from accomplishing anything that could topple their tightly-controlled house of cards. The ending provides us a resolution of sorts to many of the open questions of the novel; while the story itself is (just maybe) slightly too-long, I definitely would have enjoyed a more detailed ending/epilogue that focused on what would happen for Julie and the other main characters moving forward.

This is a book about grief.

A woman, who recently lost a child and is going through a surprise divorce, answers an ad to be a teacher in a one room schoolhouse on an island in Maine.

And that's just the first part of the book.

The second half of the book explores the relationship of student and teacher, and the island full of secrets and politics. This is a book about what a family is and of grief and healing.

It's a good book, which does tend to get a little boring at time, but overall leaves a reader with hope.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the opportunity to read and review this book.

Mercy Island, Maine, is meant to be a place of healing for Julie and her dog Depot. Her daughter died, her husband filed for divorce, and the small Adirondack town where they lived felt suffocating. Sure it will be a challenge to teach grade k-8 in a one room school house but she figures it will help her to be busy. What she didn't expect and what she finds is that all small towns are the same and that there's a problem on the Island that's unique to fishing towns. The kids don't feel like they have a future and this is where she runs into trouble. Peter, a teen with issues, keeps visiting her, the Hempstead family matriarch is a real pain, her new friend Ellie is not really her friend. and there's something creepy going on. Don't worry- it's not a horror story or even really a thriller but more a story of grief and changing tides. Milchman has a way of capturing characters and she's done a good job here. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. A very good read.

Julie had been barely holding it together since the death of her infant daughter Hedley. Her marriage is failing and she can’t move past the massive amount of guilt she is feeling. That is until she finds a job posting for a one room school house teaching position on a remote island called Mercy. Everything on the island looks normal at first but Julie soon finds out that the island is hiding some dark secrets.

*Sigh* I wish I could say that I loved this book but honestly it was just ok. The book was extremely slow moving and though it had moments where it picked up, all the action happen in the last 100 pages of the book. Which is fine but then the ending was so abrupt. I don’t know it just felt for me a lot of things happened all at once and the then the book was over.

I liked the main character Julie and how she started to put her life back together through out the book. Also the dog lover in me loved that her dog Depot was a huge part of the book. I kinda wish that Callum (Julie’s love interest in the book) was in the book a little more then he was.

Overall I liked the book…i just didn’t love it.

Thank you to Books Forward, NetGalley and the publisher for the eARC of this book!
*I received an advance reader copy in exchange for a honest review*

After getting a divorce Julie accepts a teaching post in a remote town in Maine. Julie is continuously warned that it is a very isolating town and hard to fit in at, which is the wicked truth of small town life. Small towns can be spooky and this book really embraces how eerie they can be. The first few moments that she is in the house alone start to play out how creepy it is to live alone in an isolated house. I love how atmospheric the story is as excellent descriptions of the island play into the isolationism.

Accommodating to being in a new small community plays a huge role in the progression of the plot. A backstory of the loss of a child makes the isolationism in the story even more eerie.

I won't give away any crucial plot points, but I can say that the island setting and realities she faces as a teacher are central to the story's plot. I really love how the characters and the setting really build the tension in this thriller. It is definitely a good read for a slow Sunday afternoon.

Thanks to Netgalley for an advanced copy of this book.