Tash is struggling with her toddler, Finn. He doesn't like being left at nursery and it makes her feel guilty. When one of the other mothers introduces him to her son, it makes life much easier. Tash is also befriended by the other mother, Laura and her friends, Nicole and Claire. All of them have children at the nursery.
Tash is a freelance journalist and is asked by the mother of a dead girl to look further into her death as she is not happy with outcome of the investigation by the police.
As Tash looks into this, it's obvious she's touching on a nerve somewhere as she starts receiving messages telling her to stopping digging in the death.
The story draws you in and it's written in both the present and in the months leading up to Sophie's death. From Tash and Sophie's viewpoints.
It builds to a climax where you can't help but hold your breath.

A psychological thriller with a twist in it's tale, that splits between two narratives of Tash (present - whose trying to work out what happened to Sophie and why none of the other mothers want to talk about her) and Sophie (in the run up to her death), I've not read any of Faulkner's other works, but this novel reminds me of the genre of Jeong Yu-jeong's The Good Son in that initially you are not quite sure what, who or why but it slowly becomes apparent.

I struggled to read this because of the formatting on my kindle however what I did read was definitely 5 stars. I will be buying a copy on publication and doing a proper review then!

I eagerly chose this book, already impressed by the author's previous work, which set a high standard for me. The blurb particularly caught my attention with its discussion of "motherhood cliques" and their emotional impact on individuals.

The author presents Sophie's and Tash's viewpoints in alternating chapters, creating a dual timeline of past and present. While this approach is satisfactory, it progressed at a slower pace than I would have preferred. The book has plenty of unexpected turns in the story that can keep the readers interested. However, I had to put in some effort to get fully absorbed in it. Despite predicting the conclusion, my enjoyment remained unhindered.

If you're fond of books that possess a gripping atmosphere, complex interpersonal connections, and captivating family mysteries, this book is an essential read for you.

In a corner of London one woman Tash tries to make friends with the other mothers at the playgroup. But Tash is also a journalist and she can’t help but be intrigued by the unexplained death of a local nanny Sophie.
How well did the other mothers know her and what are they all hiding?

This was a great read. A mystery surrounding morally dodgy women all wrapped up in their Hermes scarves. A plot which keeps on giving and some nice twists. This has a certain ‘Big Little Lies’ vibe to it without the domestic abuse.
Only drawback is that the two voices (Tash and Sophie) were not distinct enough which caused some confusion in the reading.

What a brilliant psychological thriller! This will definitely be in my top 10 books of the year. Greenwich Park was one of my favourite reads of 2021 but I think I loved this one even more!

Ex journalist Tash is keen for her son Finn to settle in to playgroup and make some friends. She's drawn to 'the other mothers' but they lead a lavish lifestyle with their expensive houses, coffee mornings and spa trips. As she becomes immersed in their group it seems they might all be hiding something too.

Tash begins some new freelance research into the suspicious death of Sophie who coincidentally was a nanny at the same playgroup as her son. What do the other mothers know about it and why do none of them want to talk about Sophie? Who can Tash trust?

The book is narrated by Tash (in the present day) and Sophie (in the months and minutes leading up to her death.) I loved the setting around a children's playgroup and could totally imagine this clique of mums that everyone wanted to be friends with! There were so many twists and most of the characters were suspects at some point in the story! I found it hard to predict and totally engrossing from start to finish! A brilliantly original thriller. I can't wait to read the next book by Katherine Faulkner. She is definitely an autobuy author for me now!

Second book I’ve read by this author. A good suspenseful story with many twists and turns. The downside for me was that there wasn’t a single likeable character throughout the whole story….but maybe that was the point.
Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher and of course the author for the advance reading copy in exchange for an honest review.

Claire, Laura and Nicole. Beautiful, stylish and rich, with their charming husbands and enviable homes, Tash can't help but be drawn to these women from the day she first meets them at her son's playgroup, and she can't believe it when they welcome her into their clique.

However, there is more to their offers of play dates, spa days and holidays than meets the eye, and Tash quickly realises that the other mothers may know something about the suspicious death of a young nanny two summers before. As a struggling freelance journalist, she can't resist trying to find out what really happened to Sophie Blake, but she may not like what she finds...

Katherine Faulkner's second novel is a twisty, pacy thriller about motherhood and murder, set in one of North London's most exclusive enclaves. Despite its host of unlikeable characters and a few plot twists which seem to come from absolutely nowhere, this well-structured novel held my interest throughout and managed to make me invested in the characters' fates in spite of myself.

Tash as a protagonist was difficult to warm to or empathise with. She likes to tell herself that she is different to the other women, and that her investigation is a noble pursuit - all she is trying to do is get justice for an innocent young woman and answers for her grieving mother - but she is just as materialistic and self-centred as they are. When we see characters of a lower social class through Tash's eyes, her judgement and condescension drips off the page. She manages to simultaneously scorn her new friends for how much they spend on haircuts and brunches and also openly yearn for the same kind of lifestyle. She is also a somewhat hapless investigative journalist: her investigation consists more of her responding to well-timed revelations from other people than of any tenacious digging on her part.

Some of the minor characters exist only to feed information to Tash at the opportune moment, and it would have been good to have woven them into the narrative more cohesively so their interjections felt less 'deus ex machina'.

Most of the twists are well-executed and unpredictable, but make sense given the information we have been given. On more than one occasion though, the author drops an exposition bomb for which the groundwork hasn't been laid and any resulting shock feels unearned.

Overall, although this is not a perfect thriller, it was engaging and enjoyable, and I look forward to seeing how Katherine Faulkner hones her craft in the future.

Thank you to NetGalley and Bloomsbury Publishing Plc for the opportunity to read and review an ARC of this book.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the advance copy of this thriller!
The premise of this one sounded so good and I couldn't wait to get to it. Having loved this authors previous novel, Greenwich Park, I had high expectations for this one. I was not disappointed.
There was so many twists and turns in this one, loved every minute of it. I look forward to reading more from this author ⭐⭐⭐⭐

A good story but quite long winded in places trying to work out the connections however a great twist in it

Katharine Faulkner has done it again! Another absolutely spine-tingling story, with twist after twist. She has a talent for playing on your expectations and your imagination. I could hardly put this book down as I was aching to know the truth, wanting to race through it and yet savour it all at once. If you’re after a thriller to make you grip your seat and catch your breath, almost miss your stop on the train, and leave you lying awake at night thinking about where the plot is going and how it could possibly all make sense in the end, you have found the book you have to read. I will read anything Faulkner writes at this point, and couldn’t recommend her books more. Thank you so much to Bloomsbury for letting me review her latest release.

This was a quick and enjoyable family drama/
thriller, albeit slightly predictable. It definitely focused on the family drama side as much as the thriller side!

Having really enjoyed Katherine's first book Greenwich Park, I was excited to see what her next book had in store. In a similar vein to GP, The Other Mothers (as you might have guessed) has motherhood at its core, following protagonist Tash as she attempts to restart her career as a journalist, investigating a potential lead while she begins to make friends with the others mums as her son's playgroup.

I liked that Katherine stuck to just two POVs in the book as it allowed the reader to build a connection with the two very strong female leads, The alternating chapters between Tash and Sophie worked really well together, steadily building a thrilling and tense plot threaded with twists and red herrings that kept me hooked throughout. While it was somewhat of a slow burner, this didn't stop the book from being enjoyable and it actually enhanced the tension of the plot as it neared its conclusion. The supporting cast of characters were well fleshed out on the whole although to start with, I would get Claire and Laura confused and didn't really see the need for Nicole as a character.

Overall a fantastic, well-written domestic thriller that I'd thoroughly recommend.

‘The Other Mothers’ focuses on a group of extremely privileged women who befriend Tash, a freelance journalist whose son is having trouble settling at playgroup. Tash is looking into the death of Sophie, a former nursery nurse, as requested by the latter’s mother, and is beginning to suspect that this is not a simple case of death by drowning.
As she uncovers aspects of the story, she realises that there are connections between these women and nanny, Sophie. And she also begins to receive threats to leave well alone. However, although shaken, she is not prepared to drop her leads.
This novel is as much about parenting and substitute parenting as it is about unveiling a killer and a motive. Tash’s wealthy friends are pretty vile from the outset, whereas she does have a moral compass, albeit slightly wobbly! I found it difficult to believe that she would hang around with them as much as she does, particularly when she is worried about her lack of income. She can’t afford coffees out, let alone spa days. Faulkner’s plot is carefully constructed and we are certainly drawn into the story. However, the final section set in Cornwall does feel overly busy as she draws all her threads together.
I’m sure that lots of readers will enjoy this read over their summer breaks. An assured narrative but not quite as engaging as Faulkner’s debut novel, ‘Greenwich Park’.
My thanks to NetGalley and Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, Raven Books for a copy of this book in exchange for a fair review.

A good read with lots of little twists throughout.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the ARC in return for an honest and unbiased opinion.

This book is fabulous. It’s immediately gripping, and the characters are so real. Everyone is suspicious, everyone has a motive. The reader doesn’t know for sure what is right and who is good. The only reliable narrator is dead from the start.

I couldn’t stop thinking about this book when I wasn’t reading it. It’s so good, so thrilling, and the end still manages to be a surprise.

Tash is a journalist with a young son, married to a doctor. She meets a group of wealthy mothers at nursery.
Tash is investigating the death of Sophie, at the insistence of her mother, who is convinced she was murdered, although the death has been ruled accidental. Coincidentally, it turns out that Sophie was the nanny to one of the mothers in the group, and Tash doesn't know who to trust. All the characters, including Tash and her husband, have secrets they don't want revealed. The story is told from Tash and Sophie's perspective, so as Tash unravels the events leading to Sophie's death, we also see them from Sophie's perspective.

What if your friends from your son’s playgroup are hiding secrets? Meet Tash, an ex journalist looking for her big story to launch her career as a freelance journalist, who finds exactly that. The mothers in this playgroup are everything Tash wants to be, however when Tash gets roped into the mystery of Sophie’s death, a nanny who is known by the other mothers, things start to change. Who can be trusted? What secrets do they hold?

This is my first contact with Katherine Faulkner’s work and I was roped into the world and writing from the get go. The book is told from two points of view, Tash in the present, and Sophie, the past leading up to her demise. The pace of the book and the twists and turns that came, made me want to continue reading. I could not put it down. This style of the thriller genre is what I love most about it.

I want to give a thanks to NetGalley for the opportunity to receive this ARC, in exchange for an honest review.

Tash is a journalist but is struggling as a freelancer since the birth of her son. When she is befriended by a group of mothers at playgroup, she begins to realise that they’re not who they pretend to be. Tash discovers a web of lies and deceit which binds not just them together, but draws in herself and her husband too.

This was a really interesting thriller with many twists and turns. At times I found it hard to remember who was who and the links between characters. It was made more complicated by the dual narrative and trying to remember what each character already knew. I read the book in one sitting which helped to keep track of the storyline.

I received a free copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

When Tash is invited to join the it-mums at nursery, she feels honoured. Meanwhile, the mother of young nanny Sophie who was found dead presumed drowned asks Tash to find out more in her role as a freelance journalist. When she obliges, she starts to receive phone threats and begins to suspect everyone around her.
I did enjoy this book. There were too many similar couples with a child in it, which did confuse the story, but I liked the countdown to the present day and the alternating chapters between Tash and Sophie. An enjoyable holiday read.