I really did not like this book at all. It's manipulative and not at all believable, and absolutely should come with trigger warnings regarding rape, imprisonment, and abuse. Not an enjoyable read.

Just Like Mother is a combination of familiar premises: an involuntary cult, a thirty-something struggling with relationships and her career, unsettling AI, and an attempt at redefining family. Maeve, the flawed but trying protagonist, escaped an all female cult centered around motherhood as a child, yet she continues to feel its effects 25 years later as she struggles to connect with those around her and form trusting relationships. She reconnects with Andrea, her cousin who grew up in the cult with her, trusting her childhood memories to rekindle their connection. Of course, nothing goes as Maeve planned.

Heltzel writes a successful suspense tale with plenty of twists and turns. The characters are believable and lively, though the women are much more developed than the men (likely intentionally). The prose flows well and the story is very readable both linguistically and how the story develops. Maeve is very relatable and likable, despite her shortcomings stemming from her childhood trauma, which the reader learns more details of as the novel progresses via short chapters that flash back to her time as an eight-year-old living with the cult.

My main difficulty with this text was the pacing. Maeve is a fiction editor, a profession she adores because it allows her to be very detailed, observant, and controlled when she feels very little of that in her personal life. How was it that she missed every single warning until her story is nearly finished? She usually doesn't even have suspicions to drop, but the foreshadowing of twisted events to come is so direct that I was able to guess every major plot point long before it was officially revealed. Granted, I spend a lot of time in the horror/thriller/sci-fi genre, so it is possible I am more tuned in to the trail breadcrumbs tend to leave.

In this case, it severely warped the pacing of the text and left me focusing on how long I'd slough through normalcy before I got to a scare. There were a few twists that were extra surprising or horrifying, but the overall plot was pretty easy to decipher from early on. That being said, it didn't detract terribly from my enjoyment of the novel. It was well written, suspenseful (even if oddly paced), and kept me chugging along through its conclusion. I'd certainly read Heltzel again, though I hope there are more surprises to find next time around.

The Mothers' commune/cult had me hooked early on. I loved the plot twists, but sometimes things got a bit predictable. The ending was well done and overall, it was a quick, good read. Thankful for the ARC.

Maeve endangered her life twenty years ago by fleeing the cult she was born and raised in. Maeve was quickly adopted by a loving couple after that, but the adjustment to life on the outside was challenging. Maeve was terrified of boys and men. She had never attended a public school or interacted with students of the other gender. Now an adult, Maeve has done her best to build a normal life for herself in NYC.

BUT......


An ending that felt distinctly frightening thrilled me. This tale also borrowed extensively from a horror classic that I like.

Thank you for this copy. I was very much looking forward to reading this and being able to hand sell the book in my store. This was a fairly quick read because it was so engaging. I think this would be a summer horror beach read for some people and for others a pretty chilling autumn spooky season read! Some parts of the book are not for the faint of heart both in graphic sex and gore, but that's also why I liked it!

Maeve was a young girl when she escaped a motherhood-focused cult by exposing its practices to the outside world. But since then she's been alone in the wider world, no family to speak of. That is, until her cousin, a fellow cult escapee, reaches out via an Ancestry-type site to reconnect for the first time in years. Maeve is overjoyed and learned that her cousin has been mega-successful, running a life coaching business and buying a mini-mansion in the Catskills. Maeve goes to visit, but soon things begin to get weird, as Maeve realizes her cousin still has a huge fixation on motherhood and feminity. But Maeve feels herself pulled into Andrea's world, and can't seem to let go.

I've mentioned it before, but I love cult books, and this was the best kind, because you're not sure if there even is one, there's just a weird vibe, so you're sitting there the whole time just observing as this creeping feeling of red gets bigger and bigger until it's practically slapping you in the face. I loved that pervasive sense of dread that just hangs over the entire novel. It's so creepy and just overwhelming.

And there's a bunch if really great twists that just kept me on my toes the whole time. And they go all the way until the very end. It's really amazing. I don't want to give anything away, but I was like "Holy crap! What was that!" all the way up until the very end. It's was jaw dropping. That's how I would describe the whole novel. Just each turn was jaw dropping.

If you like suspenseful, horror-filled, cult novels, you'll love this one. I did.

📖 I love when you discover a book, think you know what’s happening every step of the way and then the ending still surprises you a bit. For me, I recognize the fact I read a lot of thrillers so I pretty much expect them to follow the same formulaic method, and I’m pretty used to congratulating myself on seeing what is coming along the way. This one definitely had enough of that, where you’re like ok main character, you aren’t thinking this is a little weird or coincidental? But I stayed along for the ride and felt like this was a well-written, nicely developed story that still managed to reward the reader with a 1-2 punch at the end and really isn’t that the best kind of thriller? 

I went in blind and I would recommend you do the same, but here’s a brief background for those who like to have some idea of what they are getting into– 

👩 Maeve lives a reclusive life, mainly due to trauma she endured as a child. She grew up with her cousin Andrea, as part of a cult (female empowerment group gone over the top) up until her escape at 8 years old, when the two were separated. 

“we were so much alike, she and I. It was hard to tell, sometimes, where one of us ended and the other began.” 

Much of her life, Maeve has been grieving the loss of her cousin, searching for her, wondering where she is, if she was ok. This prevents Maeve from having healthy relationships of her own, but she is doing her best as an editor in New York City. One day, the two cousins find each other. Desperate to reconnect, Maeve is swept up in Andrea’s orbit and off to her historic mansion in upstate New York (complete with hidden passageways). Andrea has a loss of her own, which leads her to create a business that offers workshops and uses life-like babies to support mothers (grieving and soon-to-be). 
Told in alternating timelines, Heltzel gives some background on the girls’ upbringing in the cult with present timeline. I absolutely loved the eerie vibe, damaged characters and overall WEIRDNESS of this book.  

🎧 The audio was fantastic! Narrated by Elizabeth Evans, she captured the suspenseful tone of the book perfectly. 

🌟 Thanks to @tornightfire  and @netgalley for the early digital copy and @macmillanaudio for the audio narration.

Out now! This book was WILD! Seriously crazy and a fun ride.

Maeve and Andrea grow up together in a misandrist, women-led cult. They manage to escape, but lose track of each other in the process. Thanks to the wonders of DNA sites, the cousins find each other again and try to reconnect. But not everything is as it seems in the plush, moneyed world of Andrea and her company.

I enjoyed the craziness of this novel, especially in the latter half. I found the foreshadowing a little heavy-handed - there was no real mystery about whether bad things would happen and who was behind them, but I was intrigued to see how it would all play out and more importantly, WHY. I found some of the timelines a bit confusing as well - at one point Maeve says she's been dating a guy for two months and then a page later, "it's only been a week."

I would have loved more about the original cult - the piece of info about Maeve dressing up like one of the Mothers to go out and how they lured victims was more intriguing to me than the current day plot line. That said, this is a super creepy quick read and pulls no punches!

3/5 stars. Thank you to Netgalley for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Don't you just HATE when you see things coming from a mile away? You're all like c'mon girl... I know you're not that stupid and clueless. Wake up. Wake Uuuuuuppppp!

Girl grows up in a cult run by Mothers. Girl escapes cult. Girl pines for her best friend. Best friend finds Girl twenty years later. Best friend and Girl begin to hang out and it's like old times but they don't talk about old times. Bad things start to happen in Girl's life. Best friend invites Girl to stay with her till she gets back on her feet. Girl gratefully takes her up on the offer because Girl is a dumb stupid Girl.

If this had been a print copy, I totally would have wall-chucked it a handful of times.

That said, the book was highly engaging and messed up on so many levels, so I forgave it for being so blantantly obvious. If you're into cult fiction, you may really dig this one.

This book grabbed me with the cover and promise of a cult story! But the unbelievable circumstances and super easy to guess twists made it fall flat for me. This book was not for me. Down to the epilogue when I was almost at peace with the book, and then just furious.

3.5/5

I'm not going to lie to you, Just Like Mother by Anne Heltzel is a very strange book, and I'm still not sure how I feel about it. The cover grabbed me immediately since it is just so dang creepy, and I loved the remote setting and overall creepy vibes. This is a cult-based book that is on both the side of a bit of a miss and the side of a bit of a win for me. The cult itself was a unique and weird one, and there are some great gothic elements as well. I really enjoyed Heltzel's decision to mix Maeve's present-day with back when she was a little girl in the cult, and I also loved how everything ended up tying together, even if it was a little heartbreaking at times. I totally understood Maeve's wish not to have children and her fear of men once she was placed in another home, so I did feel like I had a bit of a connection with her.

Elizabeth Evans was an incredible narrator for the audiobook, and I think it is a great option for reading this. I was able to speed through Just Like Mother on audio and I thought Evans was a great pick for not only Maeve as a character but the overall feel of the story as well. I would have enjoyed a bit more focus on the cult itself in the past tense, and I feel like we really only got a taste of what that was like for our MC. She was also rather frustrating as a character since it seemed really obvious to me what was happening, but she basically just refused to come to terms with it and stay as oblivious as she could. I was a HUGE fan of the ending, but I just wanted a bit more from the story overall. I will definitely be here for whatever Heltzel writes next!

I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

Wow what a wild and infuriating read! As a married woman who has chosen not to have children, this story elevated A LOT of emotions within me.

I thought Maeve was a fantastic character, and I love that she had no problem standing up to Emily when she kept pushing the issue of motherhood on her. For years, society has led us to believe that it is a woman’s duty to procreate and raise a family, but now women are taking charge of their lives and no longer feeling obligated to have children (which I love!).

I do have to note that I felt horrible for what Maeve had to go through, first with The Mother Collective and then when she was reunited with her cousin, Andrea. As soon as she came back into Maeve’s life, I knew there was something off about her; it was just too good to be true. But Maeve was such a strong character, and I was so proud of her throughout this story.

Highly recommend this book!

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4721177783

Just Like Mother is a creepy crawly plot-heavy gothic tale featuring two girls born into a cult.

Maeve and her cousin Andrea are part of The Mother Collective, which reveres motherhood above all else. At a young age, the girls are separated when the cult is broken up by law enforcement.

Twenty years later, Maeve is still looking for Andrea. Eventually, a DNA site reunites them. Andrea is a successful CEO of a tech company that creates lifelike baby dolls. She and her husband Rob have a spooky old mansion in upstate New York. Maeve, who is barely making ends meets in her editor job with her rundown studio apartment in NYC, jumps at the chance to visit. Has Maeve finally found her family again? Or has twenty years of life irrevocably changed the relationship between the two cousins?

Just Like Mother is a genuinely scary read. You never know where the author is heading. It’s like being blindfolded on a rollercoaster! The ending was great too. If you want to read an updated and cinematic gothic mystery, this book is a must read. 4.5 stars rounded up to 5 stars!

Thanks to Tor Nightfire and NetGalley for a digital review copy of the book.

THIS BOOK YALLLLL. A cult about motherhood? What could be more timely? I was thoroughly creeped out in a way I wasn’t expecting and even though some of the things were predictable, the execution was 10/10. Highly recommend.

Happy Pub Week Book Review

Just Like Mother by Anne Heltzel
@AnneHeltzel
Pub date: May 17th
4 stars

I’m so late on my review for this chilling story that I read MONTHS ago and is still with me even now. I’m ashamed that it took me this long to put my review together!

There are so many things that stuck with me about Just Like Mother and while I felt an overwhelming sense of dread throughout - thanks to the authors ability to create an absolutely tangible atmosphere - it is the characters of Maeve and her cousin, Andrea that linger the most. I think most of us have a childhood memory of a friend or family member that we trusted above all others. In Maeve’s case, it was her cousin Andrea. The two girls survived a murderous cult upbringing and were separated while still quite young. Andrea never knew what happened to Andrea after a fateful night, only that it was her fault and she’s carried the guilt of that night close to her heart all these years. Now in her 30’s, Maeve longs for that closeness she had with Andrea and has never stopped looking for her.

When they reconnect by chance, it’s more than Maeve could hope for but before long, cracks begin to show in what was, at first, a dream relationship. Andrea’s done well for herself and in of all things, the fertility industry and as a life coach for women. Staying with her cousin in her country mansion in the Catskills, things start to get confusing for Maeve. People begin to die and soon, she’s not sure who she can trust. There are some disturbing doll situations in this book – that’s a big nope from me and a spider situation that had me lifting my feet off the floor and gave me the heebs for a while.

And because I’m absolute crap at who to trust, too, I was blindsided by the ending. Totally. Blindsided.
I’d recommend this to any fan of the horror/thriller genre and have already started listening to the authors backlist books.

My thanks to @TorNightfire for this gifted DRC

Are there any big nopes for you? Things that irrationally scare you? For me it’s clowns and dolls. Gah!
Stay bookish, my friends!

In Just Like Mother, Anne Heltzel brings a lot of popular horror subgenres to the table. You’ve got your cult, your secluded location, your “just wants a new life” protagonist, your social commentary. But do all these elements add up to a satisfying horror feast?

In this reader’s opinion…not so much.

Just Like Mother has an intriguing premise – Maeve, years after exposing and escaping from the cult she was born into, is able to reconnect with the cousin she grew up with. Andrea is now a successful businesswoman worth millions, thriving off her lifestyle coaching business that also features a line of creepy, hyper-realistic dolls intended to help women prepare for motherhood. Having lost her only daughter, Andrea looks to Maeve as her only remaining relative for that close family bond…allegedly.

The novel moves at a brisk clip, which certainly helps things, but it isn’t enough to keep the middle section from dragging. Things feel overly long and a bit repetitive, especially when the one-dimensional characters are factored in.

Maeve is by far the worst offender. She’s meant to be this character who hasn’t been able to trust anyone in decades, someone who won’t get close to anyone, with no romantic or platonic attachments beyond her FWB and her boss. But the second Andrea enters the picture, all walls are immediately demolished (and common sense with them) as Maeve looks to her cousin for validation. She becomes this doe-eyed idiot with zero critical thinking skills, and it’s infuriating to read. It’s so blindingly obvious from early on exactly where the novel is headed, not just generally but right down to the specific sequence of events, yet the author seems to expect the reader to be shocked by these big reveal moments in the last half of the book.

There are some creepy moments, and the general premise of motherhood as a cult is definitely terrifying, but it really didn’t read as horror. The author was also clearly looking to incorporate some elements of social commentary, but it didn’t land as the plot was too thin and surface level. Any one of these things would have maybe been easy enough to look past, but with all of it together, it made for a less-than-stellar read.

Real Rating: 3.5* of five, rounded down because Maeve is so irritating to me

The opening scene...Maeve, locked in a closet (!), hearing hideous screams of agony and being quietly comforted by her cousin Andrea as they go on and on, had me riveted. And that is that! No more folk-horror goodness.

All the momentum drained out of the story for me as we went from following her child-self to the chase narrative laid on for adult Maeve. The reason? I don't like adult Maeve. She's either a bit simple or she's got The Most Trusting nature ever plopped in a human being. Either way I want to shout at her, shake her until the missing connections in her brain click together, until she sees the simplest manipulations are being used on her with appalling regularity and success.

In the story universe, Maeve is one of the girl children in The Mother Collective whose purpose is to control matrilineally all the money and power that men have always controlled. They're using that power and wealth as men always have, to oppress and abuse their opposite numbers. Maeve's rescued/kidnapped by the Patriarchy at the ripe old age of eight and, unsurprisingly, is a Survivor and PTSD sufferer for the rest of her life.

When we rejoin her first person narrative, she's a never-was in her thirties, making her meager crusts of bread as a fiction editor. She's naturally quite wary of relationships, having very few...until Andrea comes back into her life. Andrea, her cousin from childhood, is fabulously wealthy and living a dream life as the big boss of a fertility start-up.

If you've read horror novels, you pretty much know what's coming.

It occurs, over the course of some thirty chapters. I'd say if you don't already have a grasp on the end of the book it will come as a shock to you. It did not do so to me. I was along for the ride, though, because I started to want this idiot woman Maeve to suffer some more right here in front of me as Andrea manipulates and sets her up.

The actual ending of the book was pretty clearly telegraphed from the start. I kept hollering at Maeve, "just <I>LOOK AT ANDREA</i> for ten seconds and you will see it!" But she didn't, and I began to suspect her intelligence truly was subnormal.

When, at around the half-way mark, Maeve's friend-with-benefits pays one hell of a price for her vague, unconnected relationship to life, I was ready to say "sayonara." I decided to do something I don't usually do: I read the epilogue. There was another vile w-bomb aimed by Maeve, there was a moment of clarity for Maeve, and there was something so deeply schadenfreude-inducing that I had to get there step by step.

This is a horror novel for those, like me, who aren't in the Cult of Mother, and whose belief in the goodness of Woman is so frayed and chopped that it can no longer be discerned from a streak of extra-dark dirt etched on my skin. I think Author Heltzel has created a dark, dreadful mirror of the life men have forced, and continue to force, women to lead. There is nothing innate in the desire to Mother someone for many women. Uteruses are not always the only important organ in a woman's body, and her existence should never be presumed to revolve around that organ's use in any way.

If you can read this book and not see that the nightmare is very real, and that its fictionalization is merely cosmetic, then you're at Maeve's level. I don't think I know many folk like that. But if one reads this: Go back and look carefully at every decision Maeve makes. What that will tell you is all you need to know.

This is going to be a great beach read for people who like things a little on the creepy side.

We start out on a cult compound with two young girls and then jump ahead to them as adults out in the real world reconnecting and discovering who's bad and who's innocent... if anyone actually is. Complete with creepy babies and more than a few murders.

It's a bit predictable but still a fun read or listen.

Just Like Mother is a creepy tale with a twisty ending.

Maeve and Andrea grew up in a cult. They were as close as sisters until Maeve was 11 and the girls were rescued and split up. Maeve has worked hard to build a normal life in New York City. Her normal life includes an ugly little apartment, a sex buddy, and a job that doesn't appreciate her. When she's not editing books, she is looking for her long-lost cousin. When Andrea pops up on a genealogy site, Maeve regains the only true friend she’s ever had. Soon she’s spending more time at Andrea’s remote Catskills estate than in her own cramped apartment which is good because bad things slowly begin to happen to her. Is Maeve's life cursed or is something else going on here?

There is a lot here that reminds me of Rosemary's Baby. While there is nothing supernatural, the people who follow Andrea and her co-worker remind me of that cult. NewLife is about babies and sorrow. It's about following the human prerogative to propagate itself pushing its agenda on others when the members have a chance. They have their eye on Maeve, still fractured from her youth in a cult that put value only on women.

This builds up to the ending. I saw every beat of the book before it happens except for the ending. I loved that I was shocked by it. Not only was I shocked, but I had fear for the character. I was truly creeped out! I was very impressed with how Anne Heltzel finesses the horror.

Just Like Mother is creepy, traumatic, and not recommended for casual horror readers. For my horror fans, the payoff is worth it.

This was a creepy and wild book, but I enjoyed the overall message of this book and it was like no other book. Like an even more horrific version of the Handmaid's Tale. There’s a lot of pressure and expectation of women surrounding life choices and I can appreciate the feminist undertones and message it delivers. There are some gory parts of this book as well. I did thoroughly enjoy reading this one though and would recommend.