During Covid it seemed to be hard for authors to know whether to refer to it or not and if so how. And even now, many authors are setting their action in 2019 or earlier so as not to have to deal with the pandemic. But there are plenty of authors who have tackled the issue and its impact on people even as the pandemic continued to rage Sarah Moss explored the lockdown in Britain in The Fell and Louise Erdrich chronicled the only lockdowns on a fictional bookshop (that might have been hers) but also the impact of the death of George Floyd in her novel The Sentence. Award winning crime author Laura Lippman has spent much of her career chronicling life in her native Baltimore so it is no surprise that her latest stand along novel Prom Mom takes us to that city during the 2020 and 2021 lockdowns (and other national events).
The book takes its name from its framing story, based on real events and one that it keeps coming back to, to ultimately devastating effect. That story is set in Baltimore in1997 and Amber finds herself on her prom night alone in a hotel room, bleeding and in pain. It will turn out that she gave birth to a premature baby which died while her date, Joe, was chasing after his ex. Amber, who will go to jail for a short time, will be forever known as the Prom Mom and her date as the Cad Dad.
But the main action of the novel starts in 2019 when Amber returns to Baltimore from New Orleans to deal with the property of her late stepfather and on the spur of the moment, it seems, decides to open an art gallery in a small shopping mall. She immediately starts cyberstalking Joe who is now a successful property trader happily married (it seems) to plastic surgeon Meredith. Of course, being a Laura Lippman novel, nothing is quite as they seem. Amber inveigles her way back into Joe’s life only to discover that Joe is having an affair with the much younger, and hard to shake, Jordan. And then the pandemic strikes and things become more complicated and simpler at the same time. Amber’s on-line businesses unexpected flourish but Joe’s investments are impacted, his secret liaisons become harder to manage and potentially hazardous to his and Meredith’s health.
Readers patience with Prom Mom will probably depend on a few things. First is how willing they are to relive the pandemic in the company of fairly well off, upper to middle class Americans. Second is how much they care about philandering Joe, who every woman seems to be throwing themselves at so that he ends up juggling three relationship, each a secret from the other two. There is not a lot of crime and not a lot of thriller here and although it does build to a dark fairly twisted ending it takes a long time to get there and it is hard to justify the journey.
Lippman is a great observer of people and that skill is clearly on show here. While Jordan is a little one note, the main trio of Amber, Joe and Meredith have interesting and sometimes conflicting inner lives. With the ongoing issues from the tragic end to Amber and Joe’s schooldays continuing to haunt their lives. But it is the minutiae, while well observed (for example, the hunt for toilet paper) that slow this narrative down and drag it into the banal. So that as a thriller this unfortunately mostly fails to thrill.

EXCERPT: Joe Simpson, denuded of words that linked him to Amber Glass, was simply a successful real estate salesman. All Amber wanted for herself was what had been granted to Joe. was that so much to ask?
Probably. Apparently. But if that's what she wanted, the smart thing to do would be to stay away from Joe, avoid him at all costs.
Amber was tired of doing the smart thing. She had usually done the smart thing, most of her life, and where had that gotten her?
She would not try to meet Joe or cross his path. But this was Smalltimore, after all, and it was probably only a matter of time before they encountered each other. She couldn't help being curious about that moment, fantasizing about it, even. She loved that she had no idea how he would respond to her, or how he felt about her. For the first time in a long time, maybe twenty years, her life held the promise of an exciting story.

ABOUT 'PROM MOM': When I was seventeen, I gave birth to a baby in a hotel bathroom while attending the prom...'

Two decades ago, Amber Glass’s life changed forever. No-one had even known she was pregnant – including Joe, her date.

Afterwards, she left town for good – and hasn’t seen Joe since. But she knows he hasn’t left, that he’s working for his father’s real estate company, married to a cosmetic surgeon. Child free.

Now Amber is back, and as the two of them tentatively start to renew their once unlikely relationship, will their secrets and motivations finally destroy everyone around them?

MY THOUGHTS: If you're looking for a character to dislike - I nominate Joe Simpson. He comes across as an all-round good guy. But he's not. Nope. Underneath, he is a sleazebag. A whiny, 'it's not my fault', sleazebag. He doesn't like to be around sick or poor people. He is duplicitous. He makes the story what it is. And I enjoyed it.

I liked Meredith and really couldn't understand what she saw in Joe. But then Jordan also loves/wants him. And Amber, despite their history. Everyone loves Joe.

The story is told over two timelines - 1997 when the 'Prom Mom' tragedy occurs, and twenty years later when Amber reappears in Joe's life - and is told from the points of view of Joe, Amber and Meredith.

Prom Mom is very much a character-driven novel. The characters all have secrets, tell lies, and are manipulative. Everyone has their own agendas, not all of them apparent.

Prom Mom is a slow burn, but please stick with it - the ending is superb, with a twist that had never entered my head. But it is so fitting . . . talk about 'just desserts'!

Lippman has based this book on a series of unconnected incidents she uncovered while doing research into an idea she had for this book after listening to a podcast. Read her acknowledgements; they are enlightening.

⭐⭐⭐⭐.3

#PromMom #NetGalley

I: @lauramlippman @faberbooks

X: @LauraMLippman @FaberBooks

THE AUTHOR: Since Laura Lippman’s debut, she has been recognized as a distinctive voice in mystery fiction and named one of the “essential” crime writers of the last 100 years. Stephen King called her “special, even extraordinary,” and Gillian Flynn wrote, “She is simply a brilliant novelist.”
She lives in Baltimore and New Orleans with her teenager.

DISCLOSURE: Thank you to Faber and Faber via NetGalley for providing a digital ARC of Prom Mom for review. All opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own personal opinions.

I was pretty neutral about this book to be honest. I was quite invested in the first half but then my interest waned during the second half. It could have just been me and life taking over but I was hoping for more of an exciting finish. I prefer my thrillers to be more fast paced too and this one was quite a slow burn.

This book was extremely boring. I didn't think it was a thriller at all! It was more like a bad story telling, I found myself skim reading it and it was a chore. Would not recommended, and maybe not read anything else from this author.

I adore Laura Lippman’s writing. She is always sharp and on point and her books have an acute understanding of the human condition as well as a setting which never shies away from illuminating contemporary American society. And to begin with she sets her book right in front of Roe v Wade.
Prom Mom begins with a startling event in May 1997. 16 year old Amber Glass is lying on the floor of a Baltimore Hotel on the night of her prom. She is covered in blood. 24 hours later she will be in a police station, being questioned by detectives and accused of killing her premature, new born baby. Amber didn’t even know she was pregnant. She’d gone to her prom with Joe Simpson, a popular and well off young man who she was tutoring in French and who took her only because he was ditched by his date. Once they got there, Joe promptly saw a better prospect and left Amber without a thought, not even checking on her when she disappears into the hotel bathroom for hours.
Convicted of Amber goes to a young offenders prison and is thereafter dubbed by the tabloids and thus everyone, ‘Prom Mom’.
Joe, of course, suffers little consequence. He was referred to as ‘Cad dad’ but otherwise escaped and he carries on living his privileged life. This novels moves between past and present as we then see Amber in 2019, returning to her home town after the death of her parents. She’s been living in New Orleans and Paris and latterly and working in an L.A. gallery. The death of her parents brings her back to tie up their estate and sell their house.
Her inheritance is a decent one and Amber decides she will open a gallery in Baltimore and that it will specialise in the work of ‘outsiders’.
Told from the l perspectives of Amber, Joe and Meredith, Lippman shows us how little Joe’s easy, privileged life has changed. He’s now working in real estate development and is married to Meredith, once his college girlfriend and now a successful plastic surgeon. They have chosen not to have children and their life is seemingly charmed.
Joe hasn’t changed since Amber knew him. He’s cheating on Meredith with Jordan, a young employee in his firm. He’s making an easy living flipping properties until the pandemic hits and it all goes pear shaped.
This is a story about the life of the middle class privileged society in Baltimore. The glossy people like Joe with facile lives and a pre-occupation with designer ‘stuff’ whose conscience is simply a veneer covering a heartless life with no soul.
As Joe reconnects with Amber on the eve of the Covid pandemic, he is concealing a lot of secrets and they are bubbling just under the surface, ready to boil up and spoil everything.
The crimes here, apart from sheer heartlessness, do not come until the end of the book and the reader has to take a leap of faith with Laura Lippman in order to go with the shocking revelations of this story. But if you can do that, you will be richly rewarded by the beautiful and so subtle ways in which people are moulded, coerced and manipulated
Prom Mom is a slow burn of a book with top notch characterisation and pitch perfect writing. These are not characters you warm to, but you do get to understand what they are thinking and how those thoughts drive their actions. Prom Mom is a classic game of cat and mouse, where not even the mouse knows it is in the frame.
Lippman deliciously builds suspense and then hits us with a huge sucker punch. It’s an excellent unpredictable end to a sorry tale.

Amber will always remember her high school Prom. And not for good reasons. And she will also always be remembered for it - in the tabloids - they christened her Prom Mom when she gave birth to and subsequently (allegedly) killed said baby on Prom night. Alone in a hotel bathroom whilst the father (who didn't even now she was pregnant) was off chasing after the girl he really wanted to be with (he was later called Cad Dad)... Suffice to say she left her hometown for a fresh start but now, as we catch up with her many years later, circumstances lead her back home. But will enough time have gone by for her to have a decent second chance... But what of Joe, now successful and married... Obviously their paths will cross...
Told in the two timelines, 1997 and the present which is 2020-21 so it includes the covid years, we follow Amber's return, how she makes her fresh start with her gallery, how she re-connects with Joe. But also what really happened all those years ago... The past complements the present perfectly, adding spice and colour to the ongoing Amber/Joe/Meredith saga.
It is quite character driven too so the characters have to be top notch to pull it off, to invoke the required emotions in the reader. And they are. On the whole. My only niggle would be that the author threw a wee bit too much in to make me um and er about how I felt about them. The more I learned, the more it confused me, and I gave up switching allegiance and just let them all get on with it. Which made the ending not quite as punchy as it maybe should have been for me.
Other than that, the book was a good read, pacing matched the narrative and the story got on with itself very well. The ending I already mentioned was surprising and I didn't see it coming. Had I really cared about the characters I guess I would have been major shocked!
All in all a solid read which I mostly enjoyed. It's my first by this author and, from what I did enjoy, will definitely not be my last. My thanks go to the Publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this book.

Laura Lippman can surely write excellent books featuring complex characters and a gripping plot.
This is not my favorite novel but it's one of those book you cannot put down even if you're not loving them.
Recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this ARC, all opinions are mine

I found this to be a fascinating dual timeline book where almost nothing happened for much of the read but it still kept me engrossed as it kept me waiting for whatever would happen. I knew something had to happen due to the natures of the main characters and their actions and relationships both past and present.
It was interesting finding out how Amber had become 'Prom Mom' and learning what happened to her over the next 22 years until she ended up back in Baltimore wondering if she could have a life there again. Seeing her trying to grow something and then be hit, like the rest of the world was, by the restrictions that came along with the global pandemic was highly readable and relatable with the differing viewpoints giving a look especially into how difficult it was a times when trying to do the best for someone who was in a vulnerable group.
I did enjoy this read and would pick up another by this author in future so, if you find the synopsis interesting, read it, the ending is well worth getting to!

This story, revolving around just a small group of characters, failed to enthral me as other books by Laura Lippman did. I like the way the author presents us with a story that eventually seems to have layer upon layer and it’s always interesting to see the layers exposed slowly.
This time however, too slow to my liking. About halfway through I was still nowhere near understanding what was the point. A young girl getting pregnant because they do not take precautions? Very careless, even in the nineties. I can understand, however, that Amber falls in love with Joe, because she is just so desperately longing for it. She certainly doesn’t get enough love at home. When she returns to her home town, we slowly discover what happened and how their lives went on in those twenty years they didn’t see each other. And here starts the part that didn’t keep my interest. I’m not from the US and I have absolutely no idea what all the cultural habits are in the different cities Amber and Joe lived in. It is very hard to understand characters that have absolutely nothing in common with yourself. It’s even harder to understand because they moved up and down and left and right over the country and I had to look up where they actually were at certain times in the story. Of course I could relate to Amber being over the moon having an actual date for the prom. I think a prom is something that takes place all over the world, in different form maybe, but with the same importance.
On the other hand, I went in search of an answer to the question why Meredith is having a Mardi Gras shoe on her desk, and I found a lot of interesting answers! Great, I learned a lot. But I don’t want a book where I have to stop every time to go to Wikipedia for answers. And you cannot find an answer to the question why people are ‘different’ when born or raised in different parts of the country. Not even in a tiny country as the Netherlands, let a lone a big one as the US.
So, three stars because there is a story there, but not the four or five I hoped for.
Thanks to Netgalley and Faber and Faber for this review copy.

⭐ ⭐ ⭐
Prom Mom
by Laura Lippman

'When I was seventeen, I gave birth to a baby in a hotel bathroom while attending the prom.'

Amber Glass didn't even know she was pregnant, but owing to the fallout from the event that shocked the community, she moves South and keeps a low profile hoping to shirk the moniker "Prom Mom".

20 years later she's back and interestingly enough Joe, her prom date, has managed to kick his "Cad Dad" tag, and pretty much has it all, the successful cosmetic surgeon wife, the beautiful mansion and a charmed life.

This is a slow burn drama that reveals hurt and secrets with characters that are so hard to like, cheating, male entitlement, class privilege, God complex, revenge driven. It is tense and complex, and hard to look away from. Themes of belonging, and how nurture effects adult identity.

I find I quite enjoy novels set during the pandemic now. All the prep and the routine changes are relatable and there's enough distance now that I can kind of laugh at it all. Lippman uses the tension to great effect here because it becomes part of the plot twist in this car crash of a narrative.

Suspension of disbelief is called for, but isn't that the case with all good psychological dramas. Bingeworthy but check for trigger warnings ⚠️

Publication Day: 10th August 2023
Thanks to #netgalley and #faberandfaber for the egalley

#bookreview #irishbookstagram #prommom #lauralippman

Delightful story of Amber who on her prom night ends up waking up the next morning on a bathroom floor covered with blood and a dead baby and her boyfriend Joe not knowing anything about it and leaves town for good.
Years later she is back in the town and Joe is married to a cosmetic surgeon and when she opens a gallery he starts a friendship with her but when he has a affair with another woman things get complicated and her secret is under threat.
This is a story that keeps you guessing what will happen next with a unexpected ending.
Would highly recommend.
Thanks to NetGalley & Faber and Faber Ltd for a ARC for a honest review.

Thanks to Faber & Faber & NetGalley for ARC.

Amber Glass is notorious in her hometown for having secretly delivered a baby after prom. The aftermath of that has shaped her life and let to her departure to live a life where she's not just 'that one'. But Joe, her prom date, and the father of that baby, got to stay on and build a life in town. When Amber's step dad dies and she has to return to sort out the estate, their paths cross again.

Laura Lippman is often called one of the best crime writers around, but she's just one of the best writers around. This is an exploration of fate, circumstances of birth and entitlement, and a knotty psychological thriller with plausible characters and hidden motives galore. The denouement is breathtakingly audacious and only someone of Lippman's skill could pull it off so successfully.

12 pages.
The last 12 pages of the book where were something actually happened. That was all that was needed to tell this story.
I didn't like any of the characters, I didn't care about any of the characters. This read like when one of the stereotypical old people start a story about one thing and end up detailing 10 other stories at the same time. But longer, and nothing ever actually happened.
The thing is, that once you got to the last 12 pages and got the ending of it all, nothing of what had been told before mattered. All the personal stories and anecdotes, nothing made any difference at all and could have been skipped.

I don't think this was a bad book, I think this was trying to be about something that it wasn't. Telling the reader this is a "psycho thriller" is completely off. Nothing thrilling happened, it was just story after story about people who did shitty things and acted in shitty ways. This should have been a drama, a character driven drama, not a thriller.

The author does write well, there were few mistakes and it the writing style had good flow.

Prom Mom

What a weird book ... It was a real slow burner and a lot of detail to things that I'm still not sure were relevant, especially the politics. I find it really strange to read about COVID, still doesn't feel real. There are lots of unlikeable characters in this book, and they all seem a little (ok some a lot) crazy.

It did not have the psyco thriller energy I was expecting, but it was an ok read.
⭐⭐⭐
This was the first book I have read by this author. She has loads though so I'm wondering whether this one just isn't for me and I would get along with her other books better.

QOTD ; Have you read any books by this author? Is there any you would recommend to me?

I liked the premise of this story - Amber gives birth at the prom and is jailed for the murder of the baby while Joe, her date, carries on with his life. Joe is a spoilt boy who never grows up and takes no responsibility for his numerous affairs, fraud and major business failure. Meredith, his wife, is thoroughly unlikeable, despite helping children in third world countries who are born with disfigurements, in between doing cosmetic surgery on people who want to better themselves physically more local to her. I think she is meant to be likeable. Amber is the only one who seems relatable to, which shows how awful the other characters are!
I thought this book needed a good editor to take out all of the extra detail which was not needed. Telling the reader that Joe thought the Pakistani man’s name could not be Dave and was happier when it realised it was Dev bordered on unnecessary racism.
Unfortunately, I cannot recommend this book.

This is a well-written story about the repercussions from a prom night that goes wrong! The protagonists meet years later, and their shared history shapes their new relationship, and their relationships with others who've become part of their lives in the intervening years. So there are interesting themes around growing up, forgiveness, and possible redemption. But I found the plot twists a little implausible, and the characterisations (more tell than show) didn't develop sufficient empathy or sympathy to really care about the fate of the protagonists. The narrative didn't sufficiently develop a sense of imminent danger that might be avoided with the right actions at the right time, so there was little sense of suspense and intrigue.
Thanks to Net Galley and Faber and Faber for an advance copy.

Prom Mom Laura Lippman

3 stars

I am quite ambivalent about this book. It seemed a promising plot line to begin with. Amber returns to Baltimore to open an art gallery. 20 years before she had given birth to a baby in a locked room at her prom. The father, Joe Simpson, was a casual and secret date and had no idea that she was giving birth. The baby died and Amber had been accused of killing her and spent time in jail. She had moved away to New Orleans but was forever known in Baltimore as ‘Prom Mom.

Amber has never forgotten Joe who is now happily married to Meredith with no children. They seem to have the perfect marriage but Amber just wants to see him again.

This is where I found this book strange. Why would Amber still be obsessed with someone who had treated her so badly. Joe starts an affair with Jordan but again I found it strange when his marriage seemed so perfect. Amber and Joe also start a relationship which again didn’t really ring true for me.

As other reviewers have said the ending was excellent and made up for some of the criticisms that I have made but on the whole the story just did not seem realistic.

I also found a lot of the references to places in Baltimore and references to things that happen in America baffling in some cases as I had no idea what the author was referring to. However that is probably because I am a Brit!!


Karen Deborah
Reviewer for Net Galley

Prom Mom is a difficult book to categorise - I suppose it’s a thriller - except it isn’t remotely thrilling, there’s little in the way of suspense, or mystery. Maybe a dark relationship drama? I’m new to this author, but was intrigued by the idea of a story set against the backdrop of the pandemic, and seduced by all the high-star reviews. Unfortunately, yet again I find myself the outlier - it was too slow, the characters contemptible and the plot - such as it was - failed to hold my interest: an art dealer returns to her home town to continue her immature obsession with the ex who unintentionally ruined her youth. The three central POV characters, Amber, Joe and Meredith, are selfish, cowardly and coldly calculating, rather than overtly wicked, but reading about the plight of wealthy Americans inconvenienced by Covid— they can’t go to restaurants and have to hold Book Club outside, while others were dying by the thousand, left a sour taste in my mouth. 2.5 rounded down for the ending.

As mentioned, others have enjoyed this much more than I did, so I recommend reading a range of reviews to decide whether this one may be for you.
I received a complimentary ARC from Faber & Faber via NetGalley. Prom Mom is published on August 10th.

I really enjoy Laura Lippman’s books and this one is no exception. The book starts on Prom Night where Joe and Amber are attending as a kind of friends date. Joe has just broken up with his girlfriend and Amber has been tutoring him in French so he can stop failing this subject. During the night Amber becomes unwell and goes upstairs to the bathroom. She doesn’t come back. When Joe goes to look for her he finds the door lock. Amber assures him she is fine and just needs to be by the toilet. Joe eventually leaves with his friends, Amber however has just given birth.
Present day and Joe is married to Meredith, both successful business people with a lifestyle to match. Amber served time in prison for the subsequent death of her baby and has recently settled in Baltimore to open an art gallery. Joe also lives in Baltimore and it isn’t long before their lives cross.
Told through the 3 main characters, it all seems pretty straight forward, but things are not what they seem and the ending saw all my preconceptions turned on their head. If you want a ripping good read, this is it.

#PromMom #NetGalley

The prom mom of the title of this fast-paced page-turner is Amber, who gave birth, and then lost her baby, during her high school prom night. After many tough years away from north Baltimore, where this harrowing scene played out, Amber returns home, hoping to seek out the baby’s father, Joe, who appears to have his own issues that arise from simultaneously juggling a faltering marriage, an illicit partnership, and his attempts to rekindle a third relationship. But what unpleasant, uncomfortable and scarily true details will the multiple flashbacks that follow Amber’s return start to reveal?

At times, the plot of this novel seems to gallop ahead at breakneck speed, but nevertheless, it makes for a very satisfying read. Thank you to NetGalley and to the publishers for the free ARC that allowed me to read Laura Lippman’s latest novel, and to post this unbiased review.