By: Sheryl Browne
ISBN: 978180314330
Publisher: Bookouture
Publication Date: 12/08/2022
Format: e-book
My Rating: 3.5 Stars (ARC)
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?
Fans of The Girl on the Train, Gone Girl and The Wife, will absolutely love this gripping and addictive thriller. Her First Child will have you hooked from the very first page!
My Review
Page-turning, full of secrets and lies, Sheryl Browne's take on dark and unsettling topics will keep the reader guessing to the very end in her latest domestic suspense —HER FIRST CHILD.
Told from POVs from past to present:
Eve (present) and (1997, 1998, 2000, 2009)
Lydia - Eve's Mom (present) and (1997, 2000)
Chloe- Eve's friend (present)
Dom- Eve's husband (present)
Topics: Family, affairs, domestic abuse, murder, sickness, mental health, and Munchausen syndrome by proxy
Evie and Chloe have been best friends since childhood, and both are married with children. What secrets do they have?
Chloe is married to Steve with two children, Thomas & Rose.
Eve is married to Dom with a baby son, Kai.
She is quite protective of her son.
Eve did not have a pleasant childhood. An abusive father and a heartless mother who never stood up for her or herself.
Evie's younger brother, Jacob, was sick a lot, and once she found him not breathing and later died. Was someone making him sick? Was it an accident or intentional?
She still believes her mom, Lydia was responsible for his death.
In the present, Lydia shows up, and Eve does not want her around her son. She has not shared her traumatic childhood with her husband, Dom, so he does not know what is happening.
Then something goes wrong with Kai. Who is responsible? What secrets are they hiding? Is history being repeated?
Eve is a complex character and suspects everyone due to the traumas and dangers of her childhood and emotional abuse.
Can she trust her friend, Chloe, her husband, Dom, or her mother, Lydia? OR herself? Long-buried secrets rise to the surface, and we aren't sure what to expect and who to believe.
Eve must confront her darkest fears and family secrets that threaten not only to upend her life…but to destroy it.
With many red herrings and mind-twists, as the reader, you do not know whom to trust. No likable characters here, so difficult to sympathize with them.
My first book by the author, and I look forward to reading more—for fans of author D. J. Palmer's Saving Meghan and Stacy Willingham's All the Dangerous Things.
Also includes an expert from The Affair.
A special thank you to #Bookouture and #NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
@JudithDCollins | #JDCMustReadBooks
My Rating: 3.5 Stars
Pub Date: Dec 8, 2022
Powerful psychological thrillers from the mind of Sheryl Browne
Husbands that think they have secrets…
People who take everything, but now need to pay…
Women who feel they are living someone else’s life – because they are…
About the Author
Bestselling Author, Sheryl Browne, writes taut, twisty psychological thriller. Sheryl’s latest book publishing with fabulous BOOKOUTURE is HER FIRST CHILD. Her previous works include several psychological thrillers with Bookouture, the DI Matthew Adams Crime Thriller series and contemporary fiction novels The Rest of My Life and Learning to Love. A member of the Crime Writers’ Association and the Romantic Novelists’ Association, she also has short stories in Birmingham City University anthologies where she completed her MA in Creative Writing. Sheryl has obtained a Certificate of Achievement in Forensic Science and – according to readers – she makes an excellent psychopath.
Sheryl lives in Worcestershire UK with her husband and her rescue dogs, Brie and Pablo.
To find out more about Sheryl’s novels, go to www.facebook.com/SherylBrowne.Author/ or follow @SherylBrowne on Twitter. To find out more about Sheryl, go to www.sherylbrowne.com
