Thank you to NetGalley and Harlequin Trade Publishing for providing me with an ARC in exchange for a review. Slow burn. Took some time to get into. However, the ending made it worth it. Great plot twists. Overall an enjoyable read and I enjoy this author.

I wanted this to be like Defending Jacob. This wasn't like that! It was messy and confusing and seemed to lack research into a lot of the topics this book dealt with. An interesting set-up but at the end of the day, not for me.

I received an advance copy of Amber’s book on NetGalley in exchange for my honest opinion of her work, and let me say THANKS SO MUCH! This was the first book in far too long that I opened, read the first paragraph and didn’t want to immediately put down. And honestly, that felt like a victory to me! But as I continued I only got more and more impressed. Amber is clearly a talented writer. The amount of detail in simple sentences makes you feel like you’re there with the characters from the first page. The book wasn't perfect… But it had an excellent plot and was a definite page turner for me. Amber does an amazing job not letting you know who to trust… and the characters ALL have so many levels. This book literally kept me on my toes the ENTIRE time… and dang you Amber Garza for making me stay up to almost 3am with a burning need to finish!

I really enjoyed this one! This book was a page turner! The main character kept discovering different things along the way, so it made me not want to stop reading. I thought I knew the main twist, but then I was surprised that it was going in a different way.

I enjoyed the author writing style, and the characters were well written. The only thing I did not like was the way the flashbacks were place in randomly. I would sometimes not catch it, and have to reread the part to fully understand.

I thought this was a quick, fun thriller to read.

The challenge with this novel is the structure, as it moves from first person narration by Valerie to first person narration by someone else who is not identified, it was easy to guess how the two linked up, but not confirmed for a long time. While it's a bit of a page turner, I also found it frustrating. And I never understood the point of the ghost in the house. Thanks to the publisher for the ARC. I'm sure others will enjoy this more than I did.

I'm sorry but this is a DNF for me. I just can't seem to get into it.
Maybe next time. I've read other books by this author and really enjoyed them.

Thank you #NetGalley for this ARC but it's just not for me.

This was another good read by Amber Garza, just not as gripping for me as her previous books. The characters just didn't hit for me and what kind of made it tough to read were the sudden POV changes. Thank you netgalley for this arc in exchange for my honest opinion.

This book built such a sense of foreboding that I really enjoyed. I didn't find it overly unpredictable although I didn't entirely work it out and I loved how it ended! I really enjoy when books surprise me!

It was a fairly quick read but sometimes I struggled to read more than a chapter or two in a sitting as it didn't always completely grab me. The writing was well done and there were plenty of breadcrumbs and red herrings to follow.

I liked that Garza tried to keep us guessing and I was never really sure who to trust. I also liked that there were multiple points of view and some various timelines which added to the suspense.

All in all, I definitely enjoyed this one and I would recommend.

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for the copy.

A Mother Would Know touches upon a question I’m sure most parents have asked themselves at least once: how well do we know our children? And it does it in the form of a twisty convoluted story of family lies and tension that will have one woman doubting her own sanity.

Valerie fears the memory issues she’s been having are signs of the early onset Alzheimer that took her mother’s life. Feeling lonely, she invites her son Hudson to come stay with her but, soon after his arrival, a woman is murdered in the neighborhood. His past involvement with another death when he was a teen and the neighbors’ accusations will make Valerie wonder…could he have done it?

A Mother Would Know was a hugely entertaining read, one of those where you think you have everything figured out for you to be proven wrong a few pages later, with several shocking twists that were absolutely perfect! I’ve now read Amber Garza’s three books and she has fooled me every singe time.

The suburban setting was fantastic. The apparently peaceful neighborhood turned much darker once we learn about Valerie’s house tragic past and the murder takes place. The ghostly tales about the house gave it a nice creepy vibe, even though they ended up having not much of an impact into the story.

The reader can really feel for Valerie and her situation. It must be terrifying to realize you’re starting to lose your memories, everything that makes you who you are. If you add her flailing memory and her doubts and insecurities about her and Hudson, the neighborhood gossip and all the talk about her back about her son, and the guilt she feels about having prioritized her music career over their children needs when they were young, you have the perfect mix for her to become a pretty complex unreliable narrator.

The plot moves at a really nice pace, not allowing for a single boring moment. It deals with some other interesting topics such as sibling rivalry and regret over past mistakes, and how those could come back to haunt you years later.

All those doubtful memories and misleading led to a really enjoyable resolution in which all that double bluff will keep you on the edge of your seat, making the ending one to remember.

Thanks to NetGalley and MIRA for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

DNF

After trying to read When I Was You and reading Where I Left Her I am giving up on this author. I tried maybe 20 minutes of the audio and let go of this book and author.

***I received a complimentary copy of this ebook from the publisher through NetGalley. Opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own.***

The twists just kept coming with this book, and the ending left me in complete shock! The pacing of this book was good, giving me pieces of the story at just the right moment, but overall some parts felt like a bit of a stretch. I would recommend this book to those who enjoy a decent thriller.

A Mother would know is definitely... interesting. I'm pretty indifferent - there were parts I absolutely loved but other parts fell flat and I didn't really find myself shocked by any of the "shocking" parts of the stories. I did love the authors writing style and found the characters to be well written, but the construction of the book was a little confusing and made the story hard to follow.

This book sounds super creepy and depressing, a mother has to investigate her son.
I wish NetGalley would let me remove books from my shelf when I know I don't want to read them. Instead, I have to give a low rating to remove it.

Valerie lives alone in a thought to be haunted Victorian home. She has two adult children, Kendra and Hudson. She asks her son Hudson to move back home with her because she is starting to have memory loss, and feels lonely..The neighbors don't really welcome him. When a local woman is found murdered, everyone already pinpoints Hudson as the main suspect. Valerie defends her son, but starts to wonder if she really knows who her son is.

I had a few issues with this one. The plot was interesting enough, but there were many POVs and sometimes that was hard to keep track of. There were also things that were brought up in the story that really never went anywhere, and some parts were a little unbelievable. Also, we are supposed to be rooting for Valerie, but I didn't really like her as a character. I did see lots of good reviews for this one, that's why I requested it. So if you think it sounds good, I say you should still give it a try.

Thank you to the publisher and netgalley for the gifted copy. All opinions are my own. Out now.

Valerie is a mom with two older kids, Kendra and Hudson, who is suffering from memory lapses that she think may be the beginning of Alzheimer's, which her mother also suffered from. Hudson comes back home to stay awhile. A woman ends up murdered, and Hudson is one of the prime suspects. He was also the suspect in the previous murder of his girlfriend, Heather. The readers are kind of led to believe most of the story that Hudson is really the suspect, but spoiler alert, he's not actually guilty. I will say, I didn't understand the point of the backstory with Grace, a young girl who was supposedly murdered in their house many years ago. This story is like a suburban, domestic thriller. Valerie and her family are ostracized because of Hudson's connection to Heather. There are also some other subplots, like Valerie's affair with a guy named Mac, which I kind of understood but mostly it seemed unnecessary as well. Overall, this one kept my attention, but I did think the first part was drawn out and the second part was kind of abrupt in its ending. Thank you to the publisher for giving me a chance to read an early copy of this one.

I had so many issues during my reading of this book. The storylines are scattered all over the place, and some things are brought up and then abandoned, never to be seen again. Valerie was a terrible mother when her kids were growing up, and I didn't really care one bit about her, even though she was the one we are supposed to root for. She takes risks and does things that no one would do, and then she covers things up until it's impossible for her to do so anymore.

This chilling domestic thriller had me questioning everything I thought I knew was true in the story. Be prepared to clear your afternoon when you start this one, because if you love dark family thrillers that have you doubting everyone, you won’t be able to put this one down.

One Sentence Summary: Valerie is slowly developing dementia, but that doesn’t stop her from desperately trying to figure out who killed a woman in the neighborhood, especially if it means protecting her son who has just returned home.

My thoughts:

The thing I love best about Garza’s books is that they center on the complicated mother-child relationship, usually from the mother’s perspective. A Mother Would Know is no exception, focusing on a mother developing dementia and her two grown children. The twists don’t really hit until the second half and there’s a subplot that feels more thrown in to be thrown in, but I loved getting inside the mother’s head, especially as it gives a bird’s eye view into a woman slowly losing her mind.

A Mother Would Know follows Valerie, a mother whose daughter is a new mother herself and is training to be a nurse so she takes a great deal of interest in Valerie’s declining memory, and a son who was driven from the neighborhood after his girlfriend’s mysterious death. While Kendra desperately tries to care for her own family and keep things together, she also pushes and prods at her mother to do things that will get her the help she needs, with her by her side, of course. Hudson, on the other hand, is back in town, but only Valerie is thrilled to have her little boy back. And that’s before a young woman a few houses down is murdered and suspicion turns to him, but Valerie will do anything to protect her son.

My favorite part of this one was the characters. Told in three different time lines, it highlights the present, Valerie’s years as a member of a band while her children were young, and a mysterious third perspective that tells a terrifying tale of two children. It wasn’t difficult to keep up with all three, and I loved a sudden realization about one of them halfway through the book as it completely threw everything in a new light and my brain had to scramble to keep up, not to mention all was not as it seemed with Valerie. But I loved the characters. They were all deeply flawed, with some being more manipulative than others. It kept me wondering if all this could have been avoided if Valerie hadn’t pursued her musical dream. Her grown kids kept me on edge and she herself made me think she was really losing her mind. It was an interesting experience not knowing what was really happening. Added to it is the idea that Valerie thinks there’s the ghost of a young girl haunting her house, making me wonder about her a little since she’s kind of obsessed and her isolation in her house made me feel a little jumpy for her.

It was a little disappointing that the first half wasn’t really twisty. Most of the story felt clearly laid out, focusing instead on developing the relationships Valerie has with her children. The only elements that really had me on edge were the fact that Valerie seemed to be having serious memory lapses and it was really, really hard to pin down Hudson. But then the second half hit and suddenly I didn’t know where in the woods I was. The past and present started to blend together, revelations about the characters were made, and all their flaws were put on center stage. While some things were a little predictable, I did love how it all wrapped up together. The only thing that left me dissatisfied was the ghost part, but at least it made things interesting during the first half, even if it was left out quite a bit.

A Mother Would Know is set in a small neighborhood where Valerie and her family have lived for years. It was nice to get Valerie’s reflections on what it was like before the death of Hudson’s girlfriend, who also happened to be a neighbor’s daughter. While it felt more or less close knit with neighbors looking out for each other, it also highlighted what can happen when things go wrong. It was interesting to get the past and present kind of side by side to see how drastically things had changed, especially for Valerie as more and more of her past comes to light. On the surface, it seemed like a typical suburban neighborhood, but, as typical of this genre, there’s much more under the surface, and little of it innocuous.

A Mother Would Know was a thrilling story of a mother and her two grown children. I liked feeling like I was losing my mind alongside Valerie, and I liked feeling like I couldn’t trust any of them, but Valerie choosing to trust them made me feel a little off balance about everything going on. The triple story lines kept things interesting and I was pleased that it wasn’t as confusing as it could have been. I loved that Valerie knew just how flawed she was, and that all the characters were not quite what they seemed. I wish the first half had been a little more thrilling, but, as a whole, I was fully drawn into the story and the lives of the characters and had a great time reading this one.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for a review copy. All opinions expressed are my own.

Although I wasn’t really shocked by the twists, I enjoyed the story! I really liked the writing style and the characters were well done. My only complaint is the format - that the past / other POV should’ve had its own chapters. Can’t wait to see what she writes next!

A Mother Would Know by Amber Garza tells the story of how far mothers go to protect their kids. Valerie is a widow and lives in a huge old house by herself. Her son Hudson, in his 20s, moves back home and she is thrilled. Hudson and Valerie had grown apart in his earlier life because of her career. Valerie was the lead singer for a popular band and toured a lot. She was not home much. Her husband took care of Hudson and his older sister Kendra most of the time. It seems that both her kids hold that against her.
Not long after Hudson moves home. A woman in the neighborhood is found dead and suspicion.l falls squarely on Hudson. There is something that happened in his past that is revealed little by little as the book goes on. Add to that the fact that Valerie is having memory issues and you have a great unreliable narrator.
I like the way the book was structured with chapters from the past and present intertwined. Some of the choices Valerie made were unbelievable, but that only added to the thrills and chills in this book. I have enjoyed all of this author‘s books and can’t wait for more. Thank you to Net Galley and the publisher for the advanced copy of this book. All opinions are my own.