📖My Thoughts📖

First of all, I want to say how very impressed I am about how descriptive and accurate the author portrayed postpartum depression. Despite being a mystery, it showed exactly what it can be like for a new mother that has postpartum depression and even postpartum psychosis. It’s scary and unfortunately often pushed aside by some saying that it’s just a lack of sleep or getting used to having a new baby. That being said, this seemed like the perfect theme to weave the plot into. A new mom feeling alone and secluded, feeling like nobody cares or understands. The neighbor who happens to be there offering the support and comfort that nobody else seems to be doing, understanding everything the new mom is struggling with. The inattentive wife and mother, so consumed with her work, yet so intent about appearances. It’s the perfect scenario. I thought the book flowed well and was fast paced, keeping my attention. I really enjoyed this one. This was my first time reading anything by this author, but I will be on the look out for future books.
Thank you Netgalley, Nora Murphy and St. Martin’s Press for the opportunity to read and review this book. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

The New Mother by Nora Murphy is a slow burn suspense novel that takes a deep dive into postpartum depression. The story is one that is told by changing the point of view between the characters to give both sides of the mystery involved.

Natalie Fanning is a new mother who feels like she is failing extremely at taking care of her new baby. Constant crying and late night feedings have Natalie’s world turned upside down and her husband, Tyler, is no help as he returns to his job leaving Natalie alone to spiral further down her rabbit hole.

One day Natalie meets a very helpful neighbor, Paul. Paul is a stay at home father to a ten year old daughter who now putters his days away while his wife is working and his daughter attends school. Paul is a baby whisperer and immediately Natalie trusts Paul to help her sooth her new infant giving her those precious moments of peace she so desires but should she really be trusting this charming neighbor??

The New Mother by Nora Murphy is one of those novels that seems to be a hit or miss with the early readers and I found myself being one of the ones that enjoyed this one. The author didn’t miss a thing when it came to developing Natalie’s character and I felt I wanted to jump in and help her myself. The mystery takes a while to develop but I was invested the entire way and actually found I enjoyed the wrap up after all the slowly built suspense throughout. I’d definitely come back to this author again in the future when finished.

I received an advance copy from the publisher via NetGalley.

The title to this book is a giveaway about what it's about. It centers around Natalie Fanning, half of a power couple of lawyers, who just moved to an upscale neighborhood in the last trimester of her pregnancy. The book opens with Nat just giving birth. Her feeling of overwhelming, sometimes overpowering love for her new son, Oliver, dominates the story: she would do anything for him to keep him healthy and safe. At the same time, being an intelligent, high-powered lawyer, she wants to be successful with mothering as much as she had been successful so far as a lawyer. Unfortunately, Oliver is a colicky, "difficult", "needy" baby. To top it all off, Nat doesn't want to give him anything "artificial" like baby formula. She doesn't get any sleep at all, so that meant she is constantly tired; her mind is getting foggy, absent-minded, forgets stuff that she never would have prior to her pregnancy, and she seems to lose time, i.e., time passes without her being aware of it--all things that never happened to her prior to her giving birth to Oliver. It’s like her life is divided into pre-pregnancy Nat and post-pregnancy Nat. So she decides to take a sabbatical and becomes a full-time mom. Her situation becomes the perfect backdrop to Paul Riley, one of the Fannings' new neighbors. He seems to have all the answers and knew how to help Nat. Paul uses Nat and her growing dependence on him to put his plan in action: get rid of his wife. We're in the middle of the book when we find out this is Paul's plan. How he executes it is also not a secret. The "mystery" is, does he succeed in framing Natalie for the murder?

What I liked about this book is that it is fast-paced, has short chapters, and a relatable heroine. Any working mother is familiar with Nat's situation. The onus for women to be good mothers as well as working professionals takes its toll in all aspects of a woman's life: working, family, and social life. I didn't like the rest of the character development, though: Tyler, Nat's husband, seems such a shallow, unsympathetic, not-there-for-his-wife type of husband; there's your typical nosy neighbor; Paul could have been portrayed more strongly in his role as the bad guy; his wife, Erin, could have used a brief background on why she is such a shrew--her failing business notwithstanding; the detective investigating the case was so stereotypical of the unsuccessful, second-rate TV detective that maybe solves cases or maybe not; and what's with that neighbor suddenly coming forward and being chummy with Nat, and revealing info that she supposedly doesn't want to reveal?? I would classify this book as a mystery, but wouldn’t go so far as to call it a thriller. To me, a thriller has twists where you don't know what's coming up, you don't know who the murderer or what the crime is, you're kept on tenterhooks until you find out what the crime was or who the bad guy is. That being said, this was a good book. If you like fast-paced mysteries that read like a beach read, this book is for you.

New Mother Natalie Fanning is suffering from PPD, and overwhelmed with a wailing baby Oliver who seems as if he never sleeps and wants to nurse all the time.

When one day, while out for a walk she meets who she thinks is the "baby whisperer." A man named Paul who lives in her neighborhood

Paul has the magic touch when it comes down to baby Oliver and Natalie is overjoyed.

For once Natalie is able to get the rest she has been craving.

Meanwhile, Paul is all too willing to make sure to cause doubt and concern between his wife Erin and Natalie.

But why? Isn't Paul the friend that Natalie thinks that he is?

Nora Murphy does a great job of weaving a fine web of intrigue in this book.

This is one story you will read in one fall swoop.

Be prepared, because the ending is "PRICELESS!!!"



Thank you, NetGalley\Nora Murphy\St.Martin's Press.Minotaur Books\ For this eARC in advance for my honest review. My opinions are of my own volition.

I’m sure any mom can relate to Natalie and her struggles of being a new mom. It can be so exhausting that you start doubting yourself and wonder what is real and what’s not. No wonder she leans on her neighbor and perhaps trusts him just a little too much. A well written story with a plot twist you don’t see coming. Well done, Nora Murphy!

Thank you so much NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for my copy of The New Mother by Nora Murphy.

I really enjoyed this one, it was hard for me to get in to at first, being a mom of two young kids and reading this new mom’s struggles, having been there so recently myself. I enjoyed the different narrators throughout the story, Natalie, Paul and Detective West, hearing all sides of the story. I will definitely be checking out Nora’s other book!

This was a phenomenal read. It does contain heavy topics so tread lightly. Natalie, just giving birth to Oliver begins a journey she will never forget. She meets Paul, a new neighbor who seems to be a package deal. He is the only one that can calm the baby. Much to her husbands chagrin, she continues to see Paul. This is a fast pace thriller that will keep you on your toes.

4 stars....

Woah, this book, was HEAVY....

A couple things I can say:
1.) The first 50-70% of the book clearly portrays why I don’t have / want children… that was 100% terrifying what Natalie was going through personally, professionally, with her marriage, and with her baby. I’ve read numerous books depicting this postpartum depression, and postpartum psychosis, and it is truly frightening and chilling (I feel for anyone who is going thru this)
2.) I think the author did an incredible job showing the raw and real, emotions and feelings of Natalie as a new mother – also her author’s note at the end, was a kind sign off to mothers and non-mothers, alike
3.) I normally do NOT list trigger warnings for books (because I personally feel like it gives too much away/spoilers) however, if you are a new mother, if you want to soon become a mother, or if you are experiencing PPD or PPP, I would stay away from this one, as it can be HIGHLY triggering.

With all that said, I enjoyed this one, and I couldn’t put it down. The ending was a bit of a letdown, I was hoping for more of a twist, however the first 70% had me gripped the entire time.

The New Mom is a look into how postpartum depression, a colicky, demanding baby and lack of sleep affects a woman’s perceptions of reality. Natalie and her husband Tyler are successful attorneys. As they are preparing for the birth of their first child, they move into a new neighborhood. When their son Oliver is born he is very unsettled and cries constantly. Natalie and Tyler decide that Natalie should take a sabbatical to be home with Oliver. Being new in the neighborhood Natalie doesn’t know anyone and feels isolated until she meets Paul, a former professor and now a stay at home dad. Paul seems to have the magic touch when it comes to calming down Oliver. Natalie begins to seek parenting advice from Paul and forms a platonic relationship confiding in him about her personal life. Paul is empathetic, kind and welcoming. Natalie’s desperate need for friendship and her postpartum anxiety dull her senses to Paul’s manipulative nature. What’s motivating Paul to be the person Natalie most depends upon?

Absolutely enjoyed it! It was fast paced and a page turner. Kept me on my toes and I highly highly recommend!

Part One of The New Mother opens with Natalie Fanning in the hospital, drained after the birth of her first child, Oliver. She can’t sleep and resents the fact that her husband Tyler is snoring on the couch in her hospital room, their child in a bassinet between them. Though she realizes that she probably isn’t ready, she decides to use the bathroom unassisted. When she inevitably falls, her husband wakes and attempts to help her. Stubbornly, she bars him from the bathroom. He needs to look after their sleeping baby, is her reasoning, the kind of reasoning that will permeate the rest of this disorienting look into the mind of a woman clearly suffering from postpartum psychosis. And that’s even before she falls victim to someone determined to use her for his own nefarious ends.

As she comes home from the hospital and learns to cope with her new child, Natalie discovers that motherhood is nothing like she expected. She loves Oliver with every fiber of her being but his constant colic only fuels her desperation to soothe him. As she grows more and more obsessed with keeping him from crying, she finds herself losing her grip on time and responsibilities. She becomes paranoid and resentful, viewing the good news of others as a personal slight against her for being unable to pull herself together and “have it all”:

QUOTE
And here I was. On a sabbatical, with stinging nipples at the ends of drained and sagging breasts[,] my seven years of higher education useless and inconvenient, like a persistent mosquito buzzing around my face. <i>Unfair</i> felt a callously inadequate descriptor for this place where we found ourselves, but it captured the general idea. And <i>why?</i> Why were we here? Because I could feed our child with my body, while Tyler could not? Because, as an educated person, capable of understanding the benefits of breastfeeding, that was what I was expected to do?
END QUOTE

Having succumbed both to the cult of exclusive breastfeeding and to the worst parts of her own nature, she’s easy prey for another stay-at-home parent in the neighborhood she and Tyler moved to right before Oliver was born. Paul quit his job as a poorly paid college professor to take care of his daughter Petra, while his wife Erin’s financial consulting business was on the rise. Ten years on, he feels that Erin despises him and his lack of ambition, never mind the fact that he’s devoted his life to building a wonderful, nurturing home for both her and Petra.

When the Fannings move in, Paul goes out of his way to be kind to his new neighbor. It’s clear that Natalie is flailing both emotionally and physically, as she dazedly pushes Oliver in his stroller past their houses. Paul offers her sympathy, assistance and his experience as a parent:

QUOTE
It truly wasn’t that difficult–he couldn’t see what Natalie found so impossible about putting her baby to sleep. He suspected the issue was that she was so insecure, so anxious all the time. She feared nothing more than being a bad mother, being incompetent. Babies were so intuitive. They drank that anxiety up. They needed a calm and confident presence. He’d always been that.
END QUOTE

But this seeming godsend of a neighbor has an ulterior motive. Will Natalie be able to escape her own storm of negative emotions to discover this, before the worst happens and she’s separated from her beloved Oliver for good?

In all honesty, I found myself rooting for Paul through large chunks of this book. Nora Murphy writes of him at home so sympathetically that it’s hard not to be on his side, his absurd insistence on Erin continuing to pay for Petra’s expensive private school notwithstanding. And I truly felt sorry for Natalie thinking that if she didn’t exclusively breastfeed Oliver then she was failing him as a parent. The pressure on new mothers to exclusively breastfeed is both very strong and very wrong. Baby formula is not rat poison, and it’s deplorable how new mothers (like myself, once upon a time) are shamed away from something purposefully designed to give babies the nutrients they need.

I do wish that the book had started a little sooner in Natalie’s life, so that we readers could get to know her pre-psychosis. Her self-confessed Type A personality – that her husband acidly but not incorrectly labels a martyr complex at one point in the book – combines with the overwhelming onslaught of hormone-induced poor decisions to make her very difficult to sympathize with. Nothing is ever her fault, not her choice not to ask her loved ones for help, nor her constant bleating over why they won’t just read her mind already. It would have been intriguing to see if she’d always been this passive-aggressive.

Even so, this is a bluntly honest look into the mind of a deeply flawed woman whose pursuit of perfection in parenting causes her to risk losing everything. If this book persuades even one new mom to be less hard on herself, to swallow her pride and ask for help when she needs it, then it will have done great good in the world.

Portraying the rarely talked about underbelly of new motherhood, The New Mother provides eye opening insight into how easily a sleep deprived, self conscious, struggling woman can be manipulated as a pawn in a sadistic plot without her knowledge. Although most new mothers don’t have to worry about this extreme of a situation, the insight of the experience of postpartum depression and psychosis is important for new families to be aware of and watch out for. The New Mother is an edge of your seat read, and the reader feels pulled into the sleep deprived, hazy world of a first time mom.

The New Mother is the experience of Nat, a new mother struggling with postpartum depression, living in a new neighborhood, and her return to work. Nat makes a friend in the neighborhood, a stay at home dad down the street, Paul. Paul is the perfect friend in every way - he shows up anytime she needs anything, and always is able to calm her baby and provide a listening ear. Is Paul a true friend, or does he have other motivations?

This book was a decent read. It didn’t hook me and reel me in like I thought it would, but it was beautifully written.

I received this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

The book is a fast paced, fun thriller, and among the pages, my heart broke a little for Natalie for her struggles with breast feeding, separation anxiety, and sleep deprivation adapting into her role as a new mother.

I personally thought the final ending was a bit wrapped too neatly, it was so easy to convict the culprit once she reversed the situation, but didn't affect my enjoyment of the book.

Bravo.

Nora Murphy is becoming one of my favorite thriller authors. This book accurately depicts how isolating and depressing new motherhood can be. Sleepless nights and the constant strain of exclusively breastfeeding, puts so much strain on the mind and body. Natalie is a new mother and new to her neighborhood. When neighbor Paul starts helping her out, she thinks he’s there out of the kindness of his heart. Slowly his true intentions start to unfold. This book was so tense. I highly recommend.

For anyone who has ever had a newborn in your home..... remember the exhaustion? Not just feeling tired, but so tired you can't think, can't remember, can't put the child down and all you want to do is crawl into a bed and stay there forever?

Here we have a new mom in a new home so nothing is familiar. She gave up a busy attorney job, but hubby still has his so she sees daily what she is missing. How could one small person insist on being held and fed all day and night play such havoc with her life? To go days without sleep is enough to make the average person into a zombie when it comes to having to make decisions, but what about weeks or months?

When a man in the neighborhood sees her struggling, he steps in and calms the baby. How can he do that and she can't even calm her own child? Hubby gets more involved with his job at just the wrong time. She needs support and the neighbor is the one to provide it. But all is not well at his home, either and his problems become her problems in spite of the exhaustion, in spite of the questions hubby and the police are asking.

A very real look at what it is like for some women post partum. Thank you NetGalley for an advance copy in exchange for an honest opinion.

This book was a roller coaster of emotions. Natalie is a new mother who is experiencing undiagnosed postpartum depression. She begins to rely on her neighbor Paul, instead of her husband. Bad choice.
I enjoyed the story but I think it went too in-depth about the nursing and sleep deprivation instead of focusing on the mystery. Many thanks to the author, St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for a complimentary copy of the book. The opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own.

Natalie and Tyler have moved to a new, idyllic neighborhood, seemingly the perfect location to raise a family. Baby Oliver is adorable but a difficult sleeper and sleep deprivation and undiagnosed PPD make Natalie a target by neighbor Paul. Paul is in a rocky marriage and seems to want something from Natalie. But what is it?

The book starts with detective Jill West visiting their neighborhood to investigate a murder. There are POV - Natalie, Paul, and occasionally detective Jill West. It’s less of a thriller/mystery, more women’s fiction with a fairly abrupt ending. However, the representation of PPD and parent sleep deprivation is one of the most accurate representations I’ve seen in a book - I definitely felt seen. 3.5 stars rounded up.
I received an advanced reading copy, receipt of which did not impact my review.

If you know me at all, you know that I absolutely love reading about motherhood, and all of the complexities that come along with it. As soon as I read the title of The New Mother by Nora Murphy, I knew that I had to read it. I didn’t even care about skimming the synopsis, I just dove right in. This novel is labeled as a thriller, but it’s not very thrilling at all until way past the halfway point. The majority of this novel is focused on exactly what the title suggests—a new mother navigating a major life change. You can’t help but sympathize with her over the sleep deprivation, isolation, breastfeeding struggles, constant anxiety, spousal resentment, and a demanding colicky baby. This novel brought me right back to the throes of new motherhood. I will say that the entire plot was completely predictable, and perhaps even a little overdone, but I still enjoyed listening to this novel—mostly for the motherhood aspect alone. I truly appreciated the focus on postpartum depression, anxiety, and the early stages of caring for a newborn. Overall, this was an enjoyable listening experience. It’s exactly what I look for in an audiobook—slow-moving, character-driven, and easy to follow. I definitely recommend going the audio route if you decide to pick this one up. The New Mother is out now, and I give it 3.5/5 stars!

This is a story about the new mom on the block.

This one was not for me. It felt like borderline horror that would really speak to you if you were a mother, potentially- but I found the narrative & experiences really off putting, especially the overly descriptive elements. I don't generally think I need to relate to a character to enjoy a book, but I think in this case perhaps it would've helped. All that being said I'll definitely check out other works by the author!

Thank you so much Minotaur Books and Netgalley.