The Stay At Home Mother – ARC Book Review

Her chest tightens, her heart speeding up. The kitchen is chaos. She steps on something hard, and looks down. Toy dinosaurs are scattered everywhere. But her son is nowhere – her baby boy is gone.

The police arrive. She can’t look at her husband. Instead, she studies the network of lines on her shaking hands.

Then her phone beeps with a voice message. ‘Listen to it on speaker,’ says the detective.

A woman’s voice fills the air.

‘I’m assuming this is the Andrea Gately listed as a contact on the Missing Children of the World website. I’m calling to let you know that I’ve given your details to the police. Why are you using a picture of my son on a missing children’s website? Why are you using it and where did you get it?’

Nicole Trope has become one of my favorite psychological thriller authors and this must be the seventh book I have read from this author.

The story starts with a picture of a young boy named Jack posted on the missing children’s website by his mother named Andrea and a woman is demanding to know how Andrea got a picture of her own son. Andrea Gately is pregnant with her second child and is a loving mother to Jack although she is dealing with her gambling husband, Terry. She meets a woman named Gabby, who lives next door to Andrea’s house. Gabby’s husband had recently divorced from her and is now living in US and she has a son named Flynn. The two women become friends until Andrea gives Gabby to babysit Jack. Then Jack goes missing with Gabby.

I feel this was a fast paced thriller with some twists and turns along the way. The story is told in Andrea’s and Gabby’s POV and we do have an unreliable narrator The ending was what actually blew me away and there’s a slight cliff hanger, as to what is going to happen next. Overall, if you are looking for an unputdownable thriller, then this book is worth the hype–worth five stars!

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