I have mixed feelings about this one. I did enjoy it but, found it difficult as it dealt with loss and childbirth. I'm a softie when it comes to babies and children and losing a child is so hard to read about. The story was good but, hard to read. It really tugged at my heartstrings. My thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for giving me the opportunity to read this book in return for an honest review.

I have read and thoroughly enjoyed a couple of Claire Allan's previous books so didn't want to give up a chance to read her next outing and I wasn't disappointed.

Whilst this was a difficult book to read due to the subject matter of death in childbirth/stillbirth, it was still a riveting read that I was totally invested in. The characters are great and whilst the pace dropped off in the middle and became a little repetitive, it kept me reading so I finished it in double-quick time. I enjoyed the twists which I didn't see coming but the ending was a little disappointing and left some questions unanswered.

Overall though, a good quick read that is perfect to dive into on these dark, winter nights when there is little on the tv! Many thanks to the author, Boldwood Books and NetGalley for enabling me to read and share my thoughts of this difficult to read but riveting book.

Mel, a doula, befriends her new client Alice who is expecting her first baby. The day that should have Alice’s happiest goes horribly wrong and Alice lays the blame on Mel. She torments her online causing Mel to lose her business, develop anxiety and ultimately move away from the area.

A year on Mel is heavily pregnant on her second child and living on her nerves. The pressure is causing issues in her marriage and issues with her pregnancy.

Overall an ok read. It was very slow and page after page of Mel’s anxieties gets boring fast. It did pick up towards the end which it badly needed.

This was a really good book that took me hours to read. Unfortunately, Mel and Alice's friendship will be harshly tested. They will learn that things don't always go as planned.

The Perfect Mother by Claire Allan is a well thought out psychological thriller with suspense, drama and twists. This book does deal with the sensitive topic of stillbirth so keep that in mind. Mel has found that being a doula and helping give women support and advice for natural childbirth is her perfect job. Her first pregnancy was stressful and she felt completely out of control. When first time mom Alice and her husband enlist Mel's help with a completely natural home birth, Mel finds Alice becoming much more than a client but also a friend. But tragedy strikes as Alice goes well overdue for her due date. Wanting no medical care and with Mel not trained as a medical professional Alice's baby boy Jacob sadly does not survive. Wracked with grief Alice lashes out at Mel and begins a smear campaign online leading to Mel quitting her job. After a year of nasty rumors, dirty looks and phone calls Mel and her husband and their 4-year-old daughter move away to a new house. Now in the middle of nowhere, pregnant again and doing renovations on the house, Mel is stretched thin. But no matter how far they go, Mel and her family are not safe. How far would you go in your grief?
This book was a page-turner for sure. Fraught with tension and unease the plot had me hooked. I was feeling stressed right along with Mel. This was an easy read but it was also complex with the themes of grief and the broken friendship between Mel and Alice. And the ending.. sheesh. What a good read!
Thank you to NetGalley, Claire Allan, and Boldwood Books for this ARC. Expected release date is February 5th 2025.

The first thing I noticed in the opening pages of this book is that it is partially set in Carrickfergus, a town just out of Belfast I had not heard of before befriending a lovely Irish couple who emigrated here over 40 years ago (to Sydney not Melbourne as in the book) from which they also hail. It's not a place that is often mentioned but I did catch it referred to in the very first episode of "Grantchester" some years ago. I was quite chuffed to see it mentioned and find it peppered throughout the book that I can't wait to tell my friends when I see them next.

So...a year ago, Mel Davison had a thriving business as a doula who practiced hypnobirthing (I'm with Mel's mum on this one) which all came crashing down after the tragic loss of a child for which she was blamed. Mel had left her job as a teacher to follow her dream of becoming a doula and hypnobirthing after the traumatic birth of her daughter Tilly. She wanted to relieve other women of the trauma she'd endured.

Alice Munroe approached Mel and hired her to be her doula as the two women formed a close friendship which was then threatened after Alice's labour went wrong and Mel was left without her friend and ultimately her business. What ensued was a hate campaign directed at Mel both in person and online. She became a shadow of her former self, jumping at shadows and scared to let Tilly out of her sight. When her daughter's safety is threatened once again, she and her husband Ed move a hundred miles to Derry where they undertake the mammoth task of renovating a period farmhouse whilst living in an onsite caravan in the interim.

But Mel is heavily pregnant again and she hopes much of the renovating will be complete for them to move into the farmhouse before the baby arrives. And then strange things start to happen again. A funeral wreath designed for the loss of a baby is delivered to her parent's door and a memorial is erected on their own gatepost, all designed to unsettle Mel. And it's working. Is Alice behind this new hate campaign? Or is it one of her many followers?

This book showed real promise and started off steady but then slowed down to a mud crawl. It picks up again but it's like being stuck behind a slow driver - pace picks up then slows then picks up then slows. And there is quite a bit of repetition. To be honest, I skimmed a lot of the repetition and wordiness, finding more answers in dialogue. I didn't warm to Mel at all and found it difficult to sympathise with her. She constantly complained about what was happening and yet continued to make things worse for herself. I did suspect who was behind it from early on but didn't work out the entire endgame until just before it happened.

At 291 pages, this is a relatively quick read, though slow in parts, making it a slow quick read...or a quick slow read? The premise was promising but I'm not sure it completely delivered though the ending was satisfactory. Not one of Allan's best but still OK.

I would like to thank #ClaireAllan, #Netgalley, #BoldwoodBooks and #RachelsRandomResources for an ARC of #ThePerfectMother in exchange for an honest review.

This review appears on my blog at https://stinathebookaholic.blogspot.com/.

The Perfect Mother by Claire Allan is a heart-pounding psychological thriller of broken dreams and trusted hopes.
We follow two timelines to understand the tension and drama and it's easy to follow the story as mainly told from Mel's point of view. This is not an easy story and there is a good amount of grief to process.

When Alice chose Mel as her birth Dula she was positive everything would be perfect.
Mel is passionate about her job and she loves every second of it but sometimes she struggles to express her true worries.
Unfortunitelly each child's birth is a risk no matter where and who you are with. It's a risk every mother is taking.
When things go terribly wrong Alice is after revenge so Mel's only option is to run to keep her pregnancy safe. "You can run but can't hide" becomes Mel's new nightmare.

The ending was really intense and stressful but a good one.
This was definitely an easy read so highly recommend it.

Thank you Netgalley for this copy!

The Perfect Mother - Claire Allan 📖
•Publication date: February 5th 2025
•Publisher: Boldwood Books
I was so lucky to get my hands on an early release from a favourite author of mine!

*content warning: pregnancy and stillbirth*

The Perfect Mother is, in true Claire Allan style, full of twists and drama.

Former teacher, Mel, decided to follow a new career path as a doula in a bid to help women be better represented and heard during pregnancy.

This dream comes crashing down when her client and friend, Alice, tragically loses her baby.

Mel and her family decide it would be better to relocate and start over but Alice’s online hate has spiralled…is it too late to move forward?

A gripping ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ read I would highly recommend getting a copy this Wednesday 🤩

Thanks to the author the publisher and Netgalley for an early release of this book.

Mel is a doula, and takes on first time mom, Alice, and her husband Thomas as clients. They are planning a free home birth and intervention happens too late during a wrong turn, and the birth ends in a stillbirth. Mel is not a midwife, and she clearly laid out her role, and had contracts to back her up- but Alice and Thomas have to blame someone and channel their grief and anger- and they pick Mel, the obvious choice. They smear her, run her out of town and torment her. Once she’s out of town, mystery things keep happening.

This was meant to be a twisty reveal, but I found myself going “oh, ok”.

I was happy to see mention of Hyperemesis Gravidarum (HG) mentioned. As a HG survivor, it’s thrilling to see it in media.

Thanks to Netgalley and Boldwood for the ARC of this book.
This book was good to start with then settled to a slow repetitive read and then a reasonably fast end and then nothing, no real ending.
The characters were well described but the plot line was lacking in my opinion.

3.5 strs rounded up

One year ago, Alice Monroe hired Mel to be her doula, and they quickly became friends. But things didn't go quite to plan during the birth of Alice's baby, and it had a damaging effect on Mel's business. Mel and her husband Ed, and heir daughter Tilly decide to move away. They buy an old farmhouse that needs some renovating, and they hope it will be completed before their new baby arrives.

The pace is steady, then it slows down a little, but then pace is back to being steady again. Mel had been a teacher before she became a doula. But a hate campaign. made Mel and her husband move house. There was quite a bit of repetition. The characters are flawed. Someone is not telling the truth. I did feel that the ending let this story down a little. There were qite a few loose ends that still needed tied up. But overall, I quite enjoyed this book.

I would like to thank #NetGalley #BoldwoodBooks and he author #ClaireAllan for my ARC of #ThePerfectMother in exchange for an honest review/

The Perfect Mother was a read full of red herrings and twists.
Mel is a birth doula and has a good business providing pregnant women support through alternative ways. She has to give her business up when the unthinkable happens and what should have been Alice’s happiest day becomes the worst. The death of a baby is an awful tragedy but Mel is adamant she has done nothing wrong but Alice is set to ruin her. Mel and Alice had become best friends but all that ended when Alice lost everything. Alice then sets about making Mel’s life as awful as possible, posting hate messages online, whipping up forums into a frenzy so Mel can go nowhere without people knowing who she is and judging her. Mel is pregnant and her family have moved away from the area Alice lives in to start a new life but things are happening and Mel doesn’t feel quite as safe as she should.
This was a good psychological thriller that had an ending I didn’t see coming at all. The more I read of this book the better it got, I liked Mel and her family and how realistic the author made it with the tensions of being pregnant, moving house, renovating a house and living in a caravan, never mind the stress from Alice.
I would like to thank NetGalley and Boldwood Books for this ARC I received in exchange for an honest review.

The Perfect Mother is an intense thriller about a woman named Mel who has been blamed for the death of a baby when she worked as a doula. She and her family move to try to escape their past only to find that it seems to follow them to their new home. This is a gripping novel full of twists and turns that keeps the reader engaged. I highly recommend reading this book!!

Thank you NetGalley and Boldwood Books for allowing me to read this ebook early. A worthwhile read for those who enjoy psychological drama with a dose of suspense.

Thank you Netgalley and Boldwood Books for this ARC. When Mel decides to be a birthing doula she never expected the outcome of Alice’s labor to be the worst possible outcomes. Almost a year later Mel is pregnant herself and is contending with a barrage of hate after Alice slanders her for why the baby was lost to the point Mel and her family move away. Things certainly don’t get better after their move and all Mel wants is to protect her family. Tho having figured out the ending to the story early on there is a twist to it at the end. This would have been a great novella by cutting out a lot of repetitiveness.

My thanks to Boldwood Books and NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read ‘The Perfect Mother’ written by Claire Allan in exchange for my honest and unbiased review.

Mel has her perfect job, supporting mothers and helping them to have a natural birth by practising hypnobirthing. She meets Alice Munroe who insists on no medical intervention, but through no fault of Mel’s she develops complications and her baby Jacob dies. Alice blames Mel and proceeds to make the next year a living nightmare for her by spreading malicious rumours on social media. Mel and her husband Ed have no choice but to move away with four-year-old Tilly to a place where Alice can’t find them but then Mel becomes pregnant and they soon realise that nowhere is safe.

‘The Perfect Mother’ is a chilling psychological family drama where a mother fears for her own safety plus that of her four-year-old daughter and unborn baby. The story is well-thought-out with perfectly described characters, a hefty dose of suspense, drama and twists, and a highly suspicious neighbour who manages to inveigle herself into the household. This novel has had me involved from the first page to the last, and the final chapters were so disturbing I couldn’t begin to guess how it was all going to end. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed this novel that’s compulsive reading and I have no hesitation in recommending it.

First off, thank you to NetGalley for the ARC!

This was a fast-paced read, and while I guessed about half of the plot correctly, it still managed to surprise me at the very end. Even though some parts were predictable, the story kept me hooked.

As a mom to a one-year-old, I genuinely felt the suspense creeping up on me—it was stressful in the best way, making me deeply connect with the main character. The book is suspenseful, emotional, and an easy read with no overly complicated characters or plots, yet it remains gripping from start to finish.

I’ve read many psychological thrillers with jaw-dropping twists, and while this one doesn’t quite reach that level, it still holds a special place in my heart. I loved the experience it gave me, and I’ll definitely be getting a physical copy as a trophy to remember it.

This was a tense, action-packed psychological thriller that had me doubting everyone! The characters are all believable and I didn’t guess the ending. I highly recommend this book for thriller fans.

"Life doesn't always turn out the way we'd like, does it?"

The story delves into the life of a former teacher, Mel, who changes her career to become a lifetime doula. However, a tragic incident occurs during the birth of one of her clients, Alice Monroe, leading to the death of the overdue baby, which changes Mel's life completely.

The death of Monroe's son, Jacob, turns Mel's life upside down. She and her family face tremendous hatred from the public and receive all kinds of threats from Alice and her husband, Thomas, which ruin her life.

Due to this, Mel and her husband, Ed, decide to move away from the small town Carrickfergus in Northern Ireland, to start a new life, as Mel is also expecting their second baby. Unfortunately, their relief is short-lived, as the threats continue. Will they have a bright future or will the nightmare continues?

The appearance of Sheila, who introduces herself as their neighbor up the hill, is very suspicious. Her nosy nature, frequent uninvited visits, and constant interrogations about their lives make me wonder how this character will shape the story.

Although it is a thriller, it has not many plot twists and for me, you will not find much suspense. The story starts at a good pace but drags somewhat with Mel's trauma. Yet, the ending feels quite rushed.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for allowing me to read this arc. This went a little slow for me. I did get confused sometimes at certain parts, but overall, it was a scary plot to imagine happening to someone.