Just What Kind of Mother Are You? by Paula Daly Edition: Hardcover Price: $18.54		45 used & new from $10.99
WOW!, August 26, 2013 This review is from: Just What Kind of Mother Are You? (Hardcover) Lisa Kallisto—overwhelmed working mother—is the not-so-perfect model of the modern woman. She holds down a busy job running an animal shelter, she cares for three demanding children, and she worries that her marriage isn’t getting enough attention. During an impossibly hectic week, Lisa takes her eye off the ball for a moment and her world descends into a living nightmare. Not only is her best friend’s thirteen-year-old daughter missing, but it’s Lisa’s fault. To make matters worse, Lucinda is the second teenage girl to disappear within the past two weeks. The first one turned up stripped bare and abandoned on the main street after a horrible ordeal. Wracked with guilt over her mistake, and after having been publicly blamed by Lucinda’s family, Lisa sets out to right the wrong. As she begins digging under the surface, Lisa learns that everything is not quite what it first appears to be. In Paula Daly’s heart-stopping debut novel, motherhood, marriage, and friendship are tested when a string of abductions tear through a small-town community. Gripping and fast-paced, Just What Kind of Mother Are You? introduces an outstanding new thriller writer with a terrifying imagination for the horrors that lurk in everyday lives. ) What would you do if you lost your best friends child due to your over- work and other responsibilities? How would you handle knowing that you most likely caused this child her life? That people hated you for your oversight. This book is loosely based on the true story of a mother who did almost the same thing. She forgot her own child (infant) in her car and the child subsequently died from the heat. This book is filled with secrets, red herrings, hate and tension...but it is also filled with love, acceptance and good old common sense. Lisa Kallisto has always just been doing what she had to help keep her family afloat. She is not one of the posh mothers who do not have to work. She has too, but she is lucky enough to love what she does. Moreover, life is working out until that fateful day. The synopsis already posted is perfect. I do not want to say too much more about the plot of this novel for fear that I'm going to give away something crucial. However, let us just say that the ending was almost a total shock to me. As a debut novel, this is right up there with the debut novel of Carla Buckley The Things That Keep Us Here (one of my all time favorite novels. "Just What Kind of ..." so held my attention, that I had to finish it in one sitting. I was not feeling up to reading something `heavy' yesterday, but I knew that I needed to read this, and I was riveted almost from the very first chapter. The characters are deep, realistic well written and in turns both sympathetic and hateful. Everything was written so realistically and believable. The story is compelling, well written and gripping. The only problem I had with this book is that I had to try to translate so many of the Britishisms! Now I know what a Brit feels when they try to read an American author who uses a lot of American slang!