Friday, October 26, 2018

Stone Mothers

Stone Mothers by Erin Kelly     368 pages    I read a galley - book is due out April, 2019

What kind of secrets does the old Nazareth Mental Hospital hold? Too many for Marianne, who had vowed to never return to the town where she grew up in the shadow of the hospital. However, when her husband buys a flat in the newly renovated building so Marianne can be close to help her ailing mother, Marianne is forced back to relive old memories and desperately hope that her carefully built life won't shatter around her.

I really enjoyed this book, although the story went in a direction that I hadn't anticipated. However, I appreciated all of the historical details about the hospital and the kind of care that was given in the past. The pacing of the book has a quiet way of increasing, so combined with an underlying sense of dread and tension, it makes for a compelling and engrossing read. This is my kind of suspenseful, psychological fiction!   And I had not realized that Erin Kelly wrote Broadchurch -- which I had not read, but had watched on BBC and really enjoyed.

This book also held some appeal for me because I have read a lot of materials about the history of asylums and mental hospitals and treatments. So, I really found that Kelly's descriptions were on point and that made the book extra enjoyable.

Good for readers who enjoy Ruth Ware and Paula Hawkins

No comments:

Post a Comment