A Mother Always Knows
A Novel
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- $189.00
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- $189.00
Descripción editorial
"Cults and childhood trauma lead to real suspense...Fans of Freida McFadden and Jeneva Rose will enjoy." —Library Journal
The beloved, award-winning author of Do I Know You? and We Love To Entertain returns with an electrifying novel of psychological suspense that explores the way our pasts shape our futures in so many unexpected ways.
Stella O'Neill is just your average millennial, working at a public library and worrying about making rent. No one would suspect she's been living under an assumed name or that she was raised in a Vermont commune of "diviners" where, and as a ten-year-old, she witnessed her mother’s brutal murder—a crime that has gone unsolved for years.
But her quiet, anonymous existence is upended when a true-crime obsessive posts her current name and location on the internet. Now, Stella has to get out of Boston before her mother’s killer can find her and finish the job he started all those years ago. Fed up with living in fear, she heads to the off-the-grid retreat of her childhood to confront her mother’s unhinged guru who controlled their lives for so long--the infamous Radcliffe MacBeath.
Stella has two powerful assets: determination and a supernatural gift. Relying on her mother’s beloved rose quartz pendulum, Stella will have to outwit the charismatic leader who’s ruined so many lives and discover once and for all the true identity of her mother's killer—before becoming his next victim.
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This overstuffed supernatural suspense novel from Strohmeyer (We Love to Entertain) follows mild-mannered 30-year-old Stella O'Neill, who works as a library archivist in Cambridge, Mass. Twenty years ago, Stella witnessed the murder of her mother, Rose, while the two were members of a cult called the Diviners in rural Vermont; ever since, she's attempted to keep a low profile. Those efforts get upended when, in 2023, a post about Rose's death goes viral and exposes Stella's current whereabouts. In recent years, the cult's "enforcement arm" (who call themselves the Facilitators) have become "the bullies of the internet," incessantly searching for slander against their leader, Radcliffe MacBeath, and tracking down former members who might be willing to spill their secrets. Knowing that either the Facilitators or Rose's killer will soon come after her, Stella heads to Vermont to confront Radcliffe. Gradually, in chapters that alternate between Stella's perspective and Rose's, Strohmeyer reveals the details of the latter's death. Despite the sturdy setup, Strohmeyer throws too much at the wall—a thread about paranormal powers is particularly goofy—and Rose's chapters are far more involving than Stella's. This disappoints.
