3.5 stars rounded down. "Mothered" is an interesting and contemporary premise, with an unemployed home-owner daughter and her elderly mother quarantined together due to COVID. But there's a lot to unpack here with family of origin issues and PTSD due to childhood trauma, which I personally can relate to. But for me the supernatural elements just made it a bit too over-the-top. I also had trouble following many of the "dream sequences" - too many - is it live or Memorex, LOL. Perhaps this author is just not for me, and that's okay. My sincere thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the complimentary advanced digital review copy. All opinions are my own

Not at all what I expected! Loved Baby Teeth but this one was a little much for me.

I was SO excited to read this intriguing new horror novel from the author of Baby Teeth (a fantastic book by the way). I don’t shy away from books set during the pandemic and this claustrophobic story kept me guessing right until the end.

Grace is certainly not a lovable protagonist and she is definitely an unreliable narrator! Once her mother Jackie moves in with her, things really start to get weird and Grace begins to have very strange dreams. This is a chilling psychological thriller with a very twisted ending. Reality is blurred and the truth is not clear. Overall, an uber-creepy story that will appeal to horror fans.

Thanks to Thomas Mercer @amazonpublishing for the advanced reading copy! All opinions are my own.

Another great story by Zoje Stage. From chapter one we are on Grace's side and wondering what's going to happen to get her. Always thinking her mother is hiding things from her, especially when it comes to her sister Hope.
Yes, this is another story set during the pandemic, which I honestly do enjoy reading books set during that time period.
I can't wait until Zoje Stages next book come out. I really love this author and get books.

In the prologue, a woman is admitted to a forensic psychiatric hospital for stabbing someone 91 times and living in the house with the body for 2 weeks until she turned herself in. From there we flashback and learn that Grace just bought her first house a week before the pandemic struck and she also lost her job as a hair stylist. Her estranged mom, Jackie, offered to stay with her to help afford the mortgage.

Grace and Jackie have a dysfunctional mother-daughter relationship and constantly get on each other's nerves, especially when they are forced to isolate for two weeks following an exposure. Grace is an unreliable narrator to the reader, with flashbacks to her childhood memories with her disabled twin sister who died when she was 11, and the lines between reality and dreams are blurred as Grace spirals mentally. As the dreaded ending nears, there is more chaos and the scenes get wilder and wilder. I couldn't stop turning the page but I also was like ⁉️ Some scenes were really descriptive and thrilling. In the end, I still had too many unanswered questions and I would have liked certain things explained more.

Thank you to NetGalley, Thomas Mercer, and the author for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

Stage started out with such promise with baby teeth, but never quite delivered after that. Mothered continues this trend of disappointing reads, but it does show some of the glimmers seen with the debut.

What works for this book is the claustrophobic atmosphere stage invokes, successfully using the early stages of the pandemic to maximum effect. Jackie and grace are forced back together due to the pandemic shut downs and anyone who remembers this early Covid days well will relate easily to the paranoia that seeps into the household and the relationship between these two.

Honestly though, aside from the masterful use of tone and atmosphere-not much else worked for me. The characters weren’t likable (I am not sure they were supposed to be though) and it takes a while for the plot to kick into gear. The twists are predictable and the plot is just…odd.

Some may enjoy this-I was not one unfortunately. I still thank the publisher for the arc via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This is set during the Covid pandemic. Grace moved into her first home and the pandemic struck and she lost her job. Fast forward and things are starting to reopen. She’s working part-time and her savings is dwindling. Her estranged mother Jackie becomes a widow and suggests she move in with Grace. They decide to give it a go and after her mother moves in Jackie starts having horrible nightmares. Is her mother’s presence bringing up a lot of bad memories from her past, especially about Grace’s disabled twin Hope, who passed away right before their 12th birthday. Plus Grace has a peculiar hobby of catfishing women online. Then Jackie lays out a bombshell which further spirals Grace into madness.

What I loved about this book was the claustrophobic feeling of lockdown it gave. I think we can all relate to being cooped up with someone for weeks and months on end. The nightmares Grace had were super creepy and I loved them. I loved the flashbacks to when Grace & Hope were children. Plus Grace is an unreliable narrator and that’s one of my favorite tropes. What I didn’t like was it started getting repetitive. Which is kind of expected with a book set during lockdown, but I thought it could have been done better. I expected the catfishing to be a major plot point in the book and I wish it had been. I’m honestly perplexed after reading the book why it was included at all. Overall I enjoyed this psychological thriller, just not as much as Baby Teeth.

Thank you to Netgalley, and Thomas & Mercer for an advanced reader’s copy of this book.

Mothered by Zoje Stage is pretty indeed pretty "batshit crazy", as mentioned in the acknowledgments. That's not a bad thing, no. Certainly, definitely not. A lot of the books and movies I love are no less so. But here, in Mothered, we're being masterfully guided by Stage, walking the tightrope of that which is and that which never was. Delusional? Or, cunning? Which is she, Grace?

If you're looking for a book that keeps you on that tightrope, keeps you guessing, never really knowing the way out until you've made I through, well, Mothered is the book for you.

Having your judgmental, passive aggressive mother move in with you could be just about everyone’s nightmare. Add in the fact that Jackie and Grace have a tumultuous relationship at best and neither are what could pass as good people, it’s gonna make for an interesting story. We follow two time lines : the current where Jackie and Grace have moved in together and the past where Grace is left to care for her sister, Hope.

There are genuinely creepy scenes. Not knowing what’s real and what’s a dream will always remind me of when I struggled with severe night terrors. I also love when author’s are able to take their grief and turn it into something else. I firmly believe that horror and thrillers are the best genres to get one’s grief out into the world and truly explore it. There were moments that I didn’t enjoy or didn’t care for, but there were others that kept me intrigued and left me wanting to grab the book again and again. Definitely recommend if you’re already a fan of the author, find the pandemic lockdown stories intriguing, or genuinely enjoy a ‘batshit’ story - as the author describes it herself. Probably not meant for you if you like all of the answers at any given time or if Covid Lockdowns are still a touchy subject.

Oof this left such a creepy crawly vibe every time I read it, and it made me shiver with dread! Imagine yourself in a sensory deprivation tank and you may understand the feeling it gives you.

I found this book to be quite disturbing as well as confusing. Much of the narrative was in the form of the main character’s dreams and it was not always clear what was reality and what was a dream.

The story takes place in the early part of the Covid 19 pandemic and recreates that universal anxiety of those times. Grace, a hair stylist, loses her job and then her mother moves in with her. While parts of it were interesting, this just wasn’t the book for me.

Thanks to NetGalley, the author and Thomas & Mercer for an advanced digital copy of the book.

This one was a weird one for me. I thought the premise was wonderfully terrifying and I was super excited to start.

It fell a little flat for me. I was hoping for a bit more than I got. The writing was good, that wasn't the problem, it was the main character, She just didn't connect to her and that made me feel a little detached from the book.

I think it was likely just me with this book so please, give it a shot if this is the kind of book you enjoy

Mothered is set during a pandemic lockdown which many of us experienced firsthand, making this story feel more real.

I loved the concept of this book. I’m not very close with my own mother, so having her move in with me would probably be difficult for me. Though I doubt it would ever get as bad as this.

The only characters I liked were Miguel and his cat Coco.

Grace - the epitome of an unreliable narrator. The trope of not knowing if something is real or if it’s in your head - nah, it ain’t for me.

The first one or two times Grace had a vivid nightmare was unsettling and did well to shock me. But then she had another one, and another, and another. It became boring and a predictable schtick.

I kept wanting someone, maybe Miguel, to tell Grace to get her shit together. She’s worried about money but orders out for lunch every day she works?

Jackie is supposed to be despicable. She favored Hope, she sits on Grace’s preferred side of the couch, she let the cat outside, not to mention she went all Sleeping With The Enemy in Grace’s kitchen. Oooh that really un-hots my dog. You don’t mess with how the homeowner organizes their cereal or where they store their dishes. But drinking glasses belong in the cabinet next to the sink, and I will die on this hill.

So many things were brought up in this book that were left undeveloped. Why was Jackie eating flowers? What was the stench in her room? Why was Grace catfishing people? How did none of them ask to FaceTime with Grace? What did Jackie’s husband die from??

Rating: 2 (rounded down from 2.5)

Thank you to Netgalley and Thomas & Mercer (Amazon Publishing) for providing me with an eARC in exchange for my honest review.

Apron strings, hanging empty crazy things
My body tells me, I want someone
To tie to my apron strings. *



"I wasn't always there for you when you were little. I didn't mother you. And maybe you don't want my mothering now, but . . . I can try, Grace."

This is pure psychological horror with a claustrophobic vibe as the Covid-19 lockdown forces a troubled daughter and her estranged (and strange) mother together in a small Pittsburgh dwelling. It's a bit slow moving, but the tension is almost nerve-racking at times, and though the ending was expected, it still packs a punch.

I'd consider this the perfect read for anyone who's ever been forced to share living quarters with someone they don't completely trust.


*by Tracey Anne Thorn and Ben Watt

Many thanks to NetGalley and Thomas & Mercer for gifting me a digital ARC of the latest book by Zoje Stage - 5 stars!

In the time of the pandemic, Grace is adrift. She had just bought a new home before lockdown hit and now she has lost her job as a hair stylist. Then her mother moves in. The two have a complicated relationship because Grace's twin, Hope, was born with cerebral palsy and died when they were kids. Grace always had to be the responsible one and help take care of Hope. Those old wounds between mother and daughter haven't healed and their new living arrangement is making things worse.

While I feel like this will be one of those books that people either love or hate, put me squarely in the love department! I really liked this author's debut, Baby Teeth, and this one has the same creepy vibes. The pandemic adds another layer of horror in the plot - we all know the feelings we went through of feeling trapped, alone, and in a never-ending nightmare where even good relationships were put to the test. Parts of this book are Grace's dreams and while it takes a minute to process the difference between reality and her dreams, this is an effective way of getting into Grace's thoughts. That end was spot on perfect!

Zoje Stage takes on the creeps of motherhood and children. If you read her book Baby Teeth then you know exactly how creepy her children are.

Grace is just like everyone else, trying to navigate the world after the pandemic, when her very elderly mother asks to move in with her. They really don’t have the best relationship and living with her mother wasn’t the brightest idea she had. Her mother is completed judgmental and every little action sends Grace spiraling deeper.

We go back and forth from modern time to Grace’s childhood where we learn disturbing things that Grace has gone through. There’s definitely the added creep that makes this book devour-able. There's tension and pounding claustrophobia. It also took a big jump into the topic of toxic mother/daughter relationships.

I really love how Zoje writes her family dynamic stories with horror that feels so real!

Mothered is an unpleasantly claustrophobic psychological suspense novel, set during the early months of the pandemic, about a woman who is forced by circumstance to let her estranged mother move in with her. The author wrote the highly polarising Baby Teeth, which I enjoyed, so I was looking forward to another unusual but clever story about toxic mother-daughter relationships. Unfortunately a large part of this is chapters and chapters of increasingly demented dream sequences - one of my pet hates, so after a promising start, I didn’t enjoy this, although I did finish it.

Grace is a 37 year old single hairdresser from Pittsburgh who has finally managed to buy her own home, but then lost her job due to the Covid lockdown so is struggling to pay the mortgage. When her Jackie, whose husband has just died, begs her to let her move in, despite their difficult previous relationship, Grace sees no other solution, but the longer she’s around her difficult, controlling mother, the less sure she is of her sanity. With nights overtaken by terrifying dreams of her long dead twin sister, and stuck in isolation together, old resentments will take a horrific turn…

What did I like? Stage is a gifted writer, and the first third of the book had me sympathising with Grace - up to a point - for someone worried about her financial situation, Grace sure wastes a lot of money. I went off her fairly quickly once her nasty little hobby is revealed, although I loved her charming gay best friend Miguel and his gorgeously aloof ginger cat Coco; don’t worry - while it is briefly teased, nothing bad happens to her - the author is clearly a Cat Mother too. She also wins points for writing in traditional past tense, a novelty in contemporary domestic suspense! She loses them, however, for spoiling the outcome with the completely unnecessary prologue, and failing to reveal exactly what was going on with an attempt at a twist ending that fell flat for me because it made no sense medically. Other reviewers have complained about the full-on pandemic setting - I can see why some would find it triggering. I didn’t mind those aspects, probably because we had a very different experience of lockdown here and I haven’t read much American fiction dealing with that particular time.

Overall, if you want a tense examination of the disintegration of an already fragile mother-daughter situation, you might like this better than I did - although John Marrs did it much better in What Lies Between Us, without the crazy dream scenes. Thanks to NetGalley and Thomas & Mercer for the ARC. I am posting this honest review voluntarily. Mothered is published on March 1st.

Mothered by Zoje Stage starts out with the worst of the pandemic. Grace decides to let her elderly mother come live with her to help out with bills and possibly, the mortgage, since she had finally bought a house months before the pandemic started. Jackie moves in and they have to learn how to live with one another. Grace’s best gay friend, Miguel, comes over for a social distanced meal. He learns more about Grace from the mother and he gets to see a picture of Hope, Grace’s deceased sister. Miguel had attended his sister’s wedding recently and some of the wedding party becomes sick. Grace ends up driving him to the hospital and agrees to look after his cat, Coco. At this point, Grace and her mom start their quarantine together and soon get sick of each other. The past can come back to haunt you. Thanks to NetGalley and Thomas & Mercer for the ARC.

This was a really tough read personally. A lot of the fear and anxiety of the early pandemic was very skilfully integrated into this story. The inclusion of so many dreams made the storyline choppy and difficult to follow. Which I suspect is intentional. I’m not sure enjoyed is the right word but I was certainly engaged with this book!

⭐️⭐️

𝘼 𝙘𝙡𝙖𝙪𝙨𝙩𝙧𝙤𝙥𝙝𝙤𝙗𝙞𝙘 𝙥𝙨𝙮𝙘𝙝𝙤𝙡𝙤𝙜𝙞𝙘𝙖𝙡 𝙩𝙝𝙧𝙞𝙡𝙡𝙚𝙧 𝙖𝙗𝙤𝙪𝙩 𝙤𝙣𝙚 𝙬𝙤𝙢𝙖𝙣’𝙨 𝙣𝙞𝙜𝙝𝙩𝙢𝙖𝙧𝙞𝙨𝙝 𝙨𝙥𝙞𝙧𝙖𝙡 𝙬𝙝𝙞𝙡𝙚 𝙦𝙪𝙖𝙧𝙖𝙣𝙩𝙞𝙣𝙚𝙙 𝙬𝙞𝙩𝙝 𝙝𝙚𝙧 𝙢𝙤𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙧.

This was such a confusing book and I struggled so much to get into the storyline.

The book was written back in 2020 so it does mention a covid lockdown - it plays a major part in the story. I don’t mind reading about the pandemic, but I feel like this book didn’t really have any meaning to it.

We follow Grace and her mother, Jackie, who has just moved in with her. Grace isn’t particularly happy to have Jackie there, but they both get stuck in the house with the pandemic going on. There’s part of the book that goes to the past with Grace’s childhood memories.

Neither Grace nor Jackie has a strong connection with each other and I feel like both characters were unlikable in their own way. Most of the time they didn’t even know what was going on… and frankly I didn’t either.

The story itself wasn’t super entertaining. The story was short, but the book dragged out so much. And it didn’t help that these characters were mean and unlikable.

I didn’t really get anything out of this book. I wish I would’ve enjoyed it more, but with a pandemic setting, I felt like I didn’t care. There weren’t many thrills and these characters were annoying to read about. Also, the book was so slow and dragged a few times. In the end, I had myself questioning the entire story.

Muwahahahahahaha! Zoje Stage has done it again with this twisted and creepy pandemic-rooted psychological horror tale! This book isn't going to be for everyone. If you are traumatized by the COVID-19 lockdown, then choose another book. COVID-19 is just too engrained throughout the story for you as a reader. If you are intrigued by the psychological response we all had to the pandemic, then read on.

I've always been a vivid dreamer, but since the initial stay-at-home orders, my entire sleep pattern has changed, and my dreams have been on a whole other level. So, in many ways, I relate to some of the main character's (Grace's) bizarre sleep experiences. But, wow, this just takes weird dreams to the extreme. With a sense of haunting claustrophobia, Mothered tells a story of an estranged mother moving in with her daughter during lockdown, further testing their dysfunctional mother-daughter relationship during a time of fear, immediate societal change, and confusing uncertainty. As their brittle relationship erodes, how much is real and how much is imagined by both? Is the COVID-19 virus the only infectious thing to worry about? What else is spreading? In classic Zoje Stage style, you have to read to the very end.

Major props to Zoje Stage for having the courage to write this story during the pandemic and while dealing with her own mother's death from COVID-19. The care with which she incorporated COVID-19 throughout was clearly evident.

Thank you to Thomas & Mercer and #NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this ARC.