The Guilty Mother by Sam Vickery is a solid psych thriller that details how far a mom might go for her children – and what secrets may have to be hidden in the process.
And there are a LOT of secrets flying around in this book. Most of them felt natural to the book. However, there were a few places where I thought I missed something because they seemed almost like a throwaway.
I’ll try to explain without giving away any twists.
It’s apparent from the very beginning that both Lisa and Victoria have ulterior motives for their actions – not to mention several secrets to keep hidden.
I thought Lisa was admirable. Even as she was put in horrible positions, and yes, she is the guilty mother, she maintained her stance to protect her family. And it never seemed martyrish – just what a mama bear would do for her family.
Victoria was a little bit harder to get a grip on. Her background with Russell was fairly obvious to me (if you read enough psych thrillers, you can find those hints fairly easily). But there are moments in the story where she veers off and it feels almost like she is a different character.
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Is that the result of what she put up with in her marriage? Or is it uneven writing? I honestly couldn’t tell. Not that it mattered much. There was only one moment where I actually thought, “Wait – what?” because it came out of left field and then there was essentially no follow-through.
However, maybe there is follow-through. It is in Victoria’s final decisions. I didn’t catch that during reading, but in retrospect it makes sense.
Additionally, the twists toward the end are pretty good. I was back and forth about how something happened and thought I had it figured out. Until it became clear that Lisa was VERY good at hiding her secrets!
And now I’m verging into giving those away.
I thoroughly enjoyed The Guilty Mother. Sam Vickery is becoming a favorite, and I look forward to the next psych thriller!
