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    The Perfect Mother
    The Perfect Mother
    The Perfect Mother
    Audiobook10 hours

    The Perfect Mother

    Written by Caroline Mitchell

    Narrated by Alana Kerr Collins and Christina Traister

    4.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    She thought they wanted her baby. But they won’t stop there.

    Roz is young, penniless and pregnant. All she wants is to be the perfect mother to her child, but the more she thinks about her own chaotic upbringing, the more certain she is that the best life for her baby is as far away as possible from her hometown in Ireland.

    Determined to do the right thing, Roz joins an elite adoption service and can’t believe her luck. Within days she is jetting to New York to meet a celebrity power couple desperate for a child of their own. Sheridan and Daniel are wealthy and glamorous—everything Roz isn’t. Her baby will never go hungry, and will have every opportunity for the perfect life. But soon after Roz moves into their plush basement suite, she starts to suspect that something darker lurks beneath the glossy surface of their home.

    When Roz discovers she isn’t the first person to move in with the couple, and that the previous woman has never been seen since, alarm bells start ringing. As the clock ticks down to her due date, Roz realises her unborn baby may be the only thing keeping her alive, and that despite her best intentions, she has walked them both into the perfect nightmare…

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBrilliance Audio
    Release dateJan 14, 2020
    ISBN9781799749608
    The Perfect Mother
    Author

    Caroline Mitchell

    A former police detective, Caroline Mitchell now writes full-time. She has worked in CID and has also specialised in roles dealing with vulnerable victims—high-risk victims of domestic abuse and serious sexual offences. The mental strength shown by the victims of these crimes is a constant source of inspiration to her, and Mitchell combines their tenacity with her knowledge of police procedure to create tense psychological thrillers. Originally from Ireland, she now lives in a pretty village on the coast of Essex with her husband and two children. You can sign up for her newsletter at www.caroline-writes.com, or follow her on Twitter (@caroline_writes) or Facebook (www.facebook.com/CMitchellAuthor).

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    Reviews for The Perfect Mother

    4.5/5

    280 ratings19 reviews

    What our readers think

    Readers find this title to be a thrilling and suspenseful read. The book keeps readers engaged with its fast-paced plot and intense moments. Although some readers found the beginning slow, they were glad they continued reading as the story picked up. The twist at the end was unexpected and added to the intrigue. The characters were interesting and the story was well-written. However, some readers had issues with the accuracy of the Irish accents in the narration. Overall, this book is recommended for those who enjoy suspenseful stories with unexpected twists.

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 5/5
      It's a great story with a twist right at the end!
    • 5/5
      ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐+⭐
      The Perfect Mother by Caroline Mitchell is a crazy, mad, nail-biting thriller that will keep you by the book until you finish! Seriously this book was a wild ride! Honestly, there were parts where I needed to take a break as it was too intense!
      I am not sure about how I feel about the end but I can see why things happened how it happened.

      All that Roz wants is the best future for her child. Blinded by the money that the celebrity power couple offering Roz is flying to New York to move into their posh house where she will have her own basement apartment. Soon Roz realizes that if something sounds too good to be true is most likely not true! With this move, Roz opened the door to the hell! Will she ever find a way out?

      This is definitely a MUST-READ book!
    • 5/5
      Oh such twisted innocence. What a bizarre ending! Pick a villain, any villain!
    • 4/5
      A little slow at the start but then got more fast paced. Really good solid read. Some of the Irish accents were a tad inaccurate though!
    • 5/5
      Quick paced! I thought I figured the ending out but i was wrong!! I just started to enjoy suspense books. I am so glad this is one of the first suspense books I read. This author did not drag out any of the sense. I can not wait to read more from this author
    • 4/5
      This was a wonderful, suspenseful story. Well written with interesting characters. The American narrator (Christina Traister, I believe) is where it goes wrong. Her English and Irish accents were so awful. It was hard to listen to!
    • 5/5
      This book is full of twists and turns but not out of the realm of possibilities ?
    • 5/5
      I adored this book! I loved the story as well as the narrators
    • 5/5
      VERY interesting and the twist at the end was perfect!!
    • 4/5
      Writing & narration were crisp & kept the story moving along.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      OMG!!!! This book started off slow. I even thought about putting it down, but I am SO GLAD I didn’t… I finished it in 2 days!!! Great read!!!

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      I loved this story, but oh boy, some crazy and scary characters. You don’t know who to trust!

      I loved the duel narrators too, great voices, which is a plus for someone like me, some voices grate on my nerves and distract me from listening to the story as the narrator will bother me too much. Not so with these two!

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      This book was very well written. Talk of suspense all through. Not easy to put down once you start reading.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      I don’t often give five stars but this totally deserves it. I was hooked from the very beginning and was on the edge of my seat for much of the ride.
      The storyline was fantastic. Roz was a single Irish girl who finds out she is pregnant, she doesn’t feel that she is the right person to bring up her baby, she is struggling and she wants the best for it. She joins a website to find suitable parents for the baby, not thinking she will actually find anyone, but when a diamond member from America shows interest, meaning they are wealthy and trusted members, she decides to see what they are like.
      Whisked away to America Roz is railroaded into giving her baby to this couple but while Roz is pregnant she has to stay in a locked basement apartment and things take a sinister turn.
      Well written and absolutely brilliant from start to finish. I felt like I was living in Roz’s shoes.
      Caroline Mitchell penned something quite remarkable, terrifying and amazing.
    • 4/5
      This psychological thriller is about a young Irish girl who finds herself pregnant and can't tell her best friend who is the father of the child. So, she decides to go on a website to find parents for her baby. Roz finds a diamond couple on the website dedicated to matching would be parents with children. These parents are willing to pay for a baby. Roz's friend, Dympna, begs Roz not to sell her baby, but Roz says that she isn't selling the child - the couple will just pay for her expenses, and will be able to offer the child more than Roz could. Roz is estranged from her recovering alcoholic mother, and does not tell her mother that she is pregnant. When Roz arrives in NYC she finds out that her baby's parents are celebrity couple Sheridan Sinclair and Daniel Watson. She is thrilled about this as Roz has been a fan of theirs for years. However, it doesn't take long for Roz to discover that Sheridan does not really want Roz there - and that she is extremely jealous of Daniel. Additionally, Roz notices that the entire staff seems terrified and subservient. Roz begins to feel the brunt of Sheridan's meanness, but doesn't fully realize the extent of Sheridan's depravity. Roz feels trapped, needs to protect her child at any cost, and is desperate to escape. What follows will surprise you. Who is really calling the shots and why will surprise you. Who unravels all of this will surprise you! I enjoyed this book, and look forward to reading more from this author. #ThePerfectMother #CarolineMitchell #NetGalley
    • 4/5
      Roz, who lives in Ireland, young and jobless, is so lost and torn apart when she finds herself pregnant after one night stand. Contemplating her own dysfunctional upbringing, Roz is not confident if she is fit to be a perfect mother.Searching around, Roz stumbles upon and decides to join an elite adoption service, where she is matched with a wealthy “diamond” couple who resides in New York, USA – the powerful distinguished celebrities, Sheridan and Daniel.Thinking that she is blessed with this golden opportunity to give her baby the perfect life that she never had, Roz immediately flies the distance to New York to meet the potential adoptive parents, without realizing that her worst nightmare has just begun…. Roz just walked herself into a tangled web of dark secrets and lies…and great danger!I have just discovered a very talented author, Caroline Mitchell, who cleverly spins this suspenseful thriller “The Perfect Mother” that is packed full of gripping twists and turns!! I am definitely going to read her other thrillers!!
    • 4/5
      It appears that Caroline Mitchell, author of the The Perfect Mother and other previous thrillers and works of psychological suspense, made a good decision when she switched from being CID to becoming a full-time author. Her latest release is a tense and twisty novel that offers some good character development and solid plotting to counteract a small bit of predictability and repetition. Roz is living in Dublin with her best friend when she discovers that she is pregnant after a secret one-night encounter. Roz feels unprepared to raise a child at this point in her young life, but is also unwilling to have an abortion due to her religious upbringing. Faced with this dilemma, she explores an option unique to our modern economy- a website offering to anonymously connect wealthy couples with surrogates or those looking for adoption in return for extensive compensation. Her roommate, Dympna, tries to dissuade her from following through with the arrangements, but Roz is dazzled by an offer that will have her pampered in NYC at the behest of a high-profile couple looking to pass off an unborn child as their own. She also believes that this is an incredible opportunity for her child to have the very best that life can offer. Roz is naïve but smarter than she first appears, and the reader may be initially frustrated by her actions but will come to respect her intuition and self-preservation skills. It is a little too late when Roz realizes that her circumstances are suspicious when she finds herself held captive by a celebrity couple who may have already performed some serious misdeeds in the past. Their money and influence have bought the silence of those who abet their scheme, and the woman in the couple seems to be completely unhinged and controlling to the point of abuse. Mitchell writes the character of Sheridan especially well. She manages to be an obvious villain, but still evokes pity and has some surprising attributes and a rationale that rescue her from becoming a caricature. Dympna is also a resourceful person in the story, providing the moral and rational voice that acts as the safety valve in the spiraling action. The novel is told primarily through Roz as the first-person narrator, with occasional guest chapters told from Sheridan and Dympna’s point of view. There are also cleverly placed excerpts from tabloid press “articles” that help flesh out the backstory of Sheridan and her superstar husband. The reveal of the paternity of the baby is not as surprising as it was intended to be, and some of the “Americanisms” are a bit off, but these are forgivable in light of the rest of the book’s overall quality. The Perfect Mother is not a perfect thriller, but it is an entertaining one- a solid choice that will delight those looking for an absorbing new read.Thanks to the author, Thomas & Mercer (Amazon) and NetGalley for an advance copy of this book in exchange for an unbiased review.
    • 3/5
      When Rosalind Foley finds herself pregnant, she knows she needs to find a good adoptive family for her child. After all, the pregnancy is the result of a one-night stand, Roz has no money, and she’s just lost her job. She discusses her predicament with her best friend, Dympna, but does not identify the father.When a “diamond couple” on the elite Miracle Moms website expresses an interest in adopting her child, Roz travels from her home in Dublin, Ireland to New York City [first class, courtesy of the hopeful adoptive parents] where she meets the couple. The Hollywood superstar couple, Roz realizes, are in a position to give her baby everything she herself cannot provide. But the young woman has no idea that, when she accepts the offer to live with Sheridan and Daniel until the baby is born, she’s stepping into a waking nightmare . . . .Short chapters keep the pages turning in this entertaining, quick read that offers readers a strong sense of place and a promising opening premise. However, readers are likely to find Sheridan’s behavior too over-the-top, her outrageous antics causing her to more closely resemble a caricature than a real character. Daniel is more mysterious and, as the story unfolds, it becomes clear that there are many, many secrets in this household. Dympna seems to have a better grasp of reality and urges caution while the supremely naïve Roz is a bit impetuous. But Dympna is the kind of friend that everyone wishes to have in his or her life.Tension builds as the well-written story unfolds although there are times that the narrative seems to drag, reiterating the same behaviors and circumstances, causing the intriguing opening chapters to lose some of their sparkle. There are unexpected plot twists that readers are not likely to see coming, but the big soap opera-ish twist at the end comes out of nowhere and is likely to leave them shaking their heads in disbelief.
    • 4/5
      The Perfect Mother by Caroline MitchellRoz realizes she is pregnant after a one night stand. Knowing her mother had not been the best role model, not having much income and still needing to finish school she leans toward adoption as a way to provide her child with the perfect mother. So, she looks and finds a site that promises wealthy intelligent well off people she can meet that might be interested. After making her choice she leaves her best friend Dympna behind and heads off to New York to meet the prospective parents. Sure, some warning bells go off in her mind (big ones went off in MY mind) and she should have listened to her gut...but she didn’t. And, if she had listened and run this story would have never gotten off the ground. With each chapter more is revealed about the powerful couple in show business and the more that I learned the more worried I became. I had a good idea what would happen and wasn’t surprised by the plotting and pace but was surprised by one twist that had me scratching my head as I had not tweaked to the fact that one person’s fantasies were as dark or darker than an other’s. What I liked: * Roz never gave up even when a bit of Stockholm syndrome seemed to set in she was hopeful she and her baby would get out alive...well...most of the time she was.* The twist I did not see coming* Dympna: Roz’s best friend who never gave up on finding her* The creep-factor and chill the story provided – I wrote down that one person was psychotic and later thought more than one actually was.* The way it played with my (and Roz’s) mind* The resolution at the endWhat I did not like: * The power couple – Sheridan and Daniel* The fact that not all of the bad guys were punished* Seeing just how warped and cruel and sick some people can beThank you to NetGalley, Amazon Publishing, UK and Book on the Bright Side Publicity for the ARC – This is my honest review. 4 Stars