Her First Child – ARC Book Review

A perfect mother. A loving daughter. A secret that could destroy them both.

New mother Eve is overwhelmed with love for her baby son, Kai. As she swaddles him in a fluffy white blanket, she shudders at a memory of her own childhood. She hasn’t seen her heartless mother Lydia in years, and she hasn’t told a soul about what really happened the night her baby brother died in the squalid little house she grew up in…

When the phone rings in the dead of night, Eve’s heart pounds as she hears the voice at the other end. ‘Hello Mother’, she replies, an ice-cold chill creeping down her spine. She grips her son’s tiny frame close to her trembling chest as she reluctantly agrees to let her mother visit.

But when Eve has to make an emergency call from Kai’s bedroom early one morning, she curses herself for allowing her mother back into her perfect little family.

‘Kai was fine when I checked on him a few hours ago.’ Her mother says, breathlessly as she watches her daughter’s face change from fear to rage.

Why was Lydia in Kai’s bedroom during the night? And as Lydia pleads her innocence, could it be that she’s not the most dangerous mother in this family?

This is one of those psychological thrillers, where nearly every character are unreliable and unpredictable and never know who is telling the truth.

The story begins with Eve, who is the mother of a new born baby Kai. She has a dark secret–she hasn’t seen her mother Lydia, with whom she is not getting along and the night her brother, Jacob died, Eve knew what really happened that night. So when Lydia comes back into the life, she was worried if the history might repeat itself again.

This was a mind blowing thriller, divided between the present and past, when Eve was a kid. Her only support was her friend Chloe who knew about her history and her husband Dom. But as the story dwells deeper, we see that neither of these characters are trustworthy and as a reader, you don’t know which character you would believe in. The story is packed with twists and turns, the author doing a good job of drawing the reader into the story. The ending was unpredictable and a bit confusing to me in the end, which loweredmy rating slightly but nonetheless this was a gripping and unputdownable thriller that will keep you up all night–worth 4.5 stars.

Many thanks to Netgalley and Bookouture for the ARC. The review is based on my honest opinion only.