Review: The Mother by Jane Caro

The Mother  is a very well written and entertaining debut novel by Jane Caro

Miriam is a mother of two adult daughters, Fiona and Alley.  Fiona is happily married with a daughter Molly, and Ally has just met the "man of her dreams", after multiple dead end boyfriends.   Miriam and her husband Pete both feel that Nick, Ally's future husband, is lovely, kind, he has a great career, ie. Veterinarian.   He is always polite and chatty the few times that they have met him.   

Ally and Nick had a whirlwind romance, get married, and move to Dungog NSW.   Nick gets a job at the local Vet clinic and Ally ends up volunteering there as a receptionist, in her spare time between her uni studies. 

Meanwhile, back in Greenwich, Sydney, Miriam owns her own successful Real Estate Business, which keeps her busy and her spare time is spent tending to her well loved garden.     Miriam's life as she knows it, is shattered when her loving husband Pete suddenly dies, and Miriam is left to learn how to live again without her Pete.

Life for Ally in Dungog is accelerating rather quickly,  before she knows it she is pregnant with their first child, she has quit her university studies, she is busy at home learning to be a mother in a new town with no family or friends around, and is feeling the pressure.        Miriam reaches out to Ally, to try to come and spend time with her new grandchild and youngest daughter, but Ally keeps refusing and has multiple reasons as to why she can do it on her.    

This story uncovers the truths behind domestic violence situations, and how easy it is to go undiscovered by the closest of family members and friends.

Without giving away too much of the story line, so that you are able to experience the book for itself.   What Ally and Miriam both go through in this situation is terribly scary and unfortunately believable.  

Ally is bullied, and becomes a slight shadow of the confident woman that she once was before she was married.   She looses faith in herself, and has convinced by her husband to the point of believing that she is insane and going crazy.      Ally's mother Miriam is a bad ass Mum, a Mum that will go to the end of the earth to protect her daughter. 

As  a mum of a young adult daughter myself, I found this book extremely relatable, and difficult to put down.  

Thankyou to Allen and Unwin for my advanced copy, in return I am offering my honest review.  Book first published in March 2022.

4 Stars: I enjoyed it and would recommend it to people who like the genre. I will definitely want to read more books by this author.

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