The author of the “twisty, fast-paced” (The Sunday Times, London) Greenwich Park returns with a fresh and deftly paced thriller about murder, class, and motherhood in an exclusive London community.

When a young nanny is found dead in mysterious circumstances, new mom, Tash, is intrigued. She has been searching for a story to launch her career as a freelance journalist. But she has also been searching for something else—new friends to help her navigate motherhood.

She sees them at her son’s new playgroup. The other mothers. A group of sleek, sophisticated women who live in a neighborhood of tree-lined avenues and stunning houses. The sort of mothers Tash herself would like to be. When the mothers welcome her into their circle, Tash discovers the kind of life she has always dreamt of—their elegant London townhouses a far cry from her cramped basement flat and endless bills. She is quickly swept up into their wealthy world via coffees, cocktails, and playdates.

But when another young woman is found dead, it’s clear there’s much more to the community than meets the eye. The more Tash investigates, the more she’s led uncomfortably close to the other mothers. Are these women really her friends? Or is there another, more dangerous reason why she has been so quickly accepted into their exclusive world? Who, exactly, is investigating who?

Review:

Fast-paced, twisty, and captivating!

The Other Mothers is a brisk, suspenseful thriller that introduces us to Tash, a wife, mother and journalist who, after learning of the death of a local nanny, decides to investigate the case by befriending the mothers she’s always envied in the hopes of discovering what really happened, and Sophie, a young woman who gets in over her head when she gets a little too close to the members of the family she’s working for and discovers secrets that they’re willing to do anything to protect.

The prose is sharp and crisp. The characters are manipulative, cunning, and vulnerable. And the plot, told through alternating perspectives, is a tortuously menacing tale full of danger, deception, adultery, jealousy, manipulation, friendship, motherhood, class division, secrets, mayhem, and murder.

Overall, The Other Mothers is a cleverly plotted, unnerving, intricate page-turner by Faulkner that is surprisingly the first novel I’ve read by this author, but which will undoubtedly not be my last.

This book is available now.

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