Jodi Picoult and I agree, Jenny Milchman’s The Second Mother is an American gothic thriller. Check out my review at Booktrib.com. https://booktrib.com/2020/08/18/want-ad-lures-grieving-mom-to-island-of-intrigue... ( )

Thanks to BookTrib, Loves To Read (FB group) for this book.

What a tangled web we weave. So much going on and it was such fast reading that I probably could have finished it even sooner without all the distractions I put myself into.

Life in a small island is not an easy one especially when a family owns and runs and rules it. The grandmother made sure of it too. I liked the life of this small island in Maine with it's one room schoolhouse and all grades into one class. Julie moved from another small town in NY to this one trying to get away from her past life. What she didn't know is what she was getting into that's for sure and I had no idea what was coming towards me either. ( )

Julie has hit rock bottom. She is still grieving the loss of her baby and still blaming herself, she cannot function unless she has had a whole bottle of that amber colored scotch, her husband only seems to add to her alcohol issue but pouring her drinks every night after he gets home from work, and now he wants a divorce.

Getting enough energy, she decides to play around on the internet, and spots a job opening. Something is calling to her to apply. Can she really be around children again? Will it remind her everyday of Hedley or is this what she needs to get back on her feet and moving forward with her life. She applies before she can change her mind and before she knows it, she has accepted this position and is getting ready to move forward in life.

This teaching position is on a very remote island, hardly any cell or internet service and the people rely on each other for a lot of every day things. She is ready for the change, and doesn’t feel it will be much different than the remote mountain town she grew up in. She will be in charge of all grades of children in that school, and it’s something to give her drive again.

After Julie arrives on the island, it soon becomes clear that things are run by one powerful family, and they will stop at nothing to keep their hands on land, money and whatever else may benefit them. She has been warned numerous times, not to meddle in the Hempsteads business, as they own and run everything on this island. This is how this place survives as it does.

But Julie feels there is something sinister that happened, and is determined to find out the truth of the secret they are keeping as well as not be intimated off the island before she can solve the mystery. But every step of the way, Julie is met with warning and odd things happening to her dog and the house she is staying in. Can she get to the bottom of the truth of what happened on this island, or will she be run off like other outsiders?

Thank you to Sourcebooks for the free book I won in a giveaway. I look forward to searching out other novels written by Jenny. ( )

The highest compliment I can pay a book: I couldn’t put it down; I was up way past my bedtime so I could finish reading it. That’s what happened last night. I just had to finish THE SECOND MOTHER before I could go to sleep.

Like all Jenny Milchman’s novels before, which either take place in or are about someone from Wedeskyull, a small town in the mountains of New York, THE SECOND MOTHER begins there. Julie, a niece of the disgraced ex-chief of the Wedeskyull police, is grieving the death of her baby girl. She wants to get away from Wedeskyull so decides to resume her teaching career on a small island off the coast of Maine. There is where she experiences even greater trouble.

The island is full of secrets and lies. Has Julie become incarcerated in a mental institution?

Disregard a job application that asks marital status and number of children. Accept the unlikely abilities of elementary-school-age children. Go with it. Then you have here a most excellent and suspenseful story. ( )