Just What Kind of Mother Are You? - Hardcover

Paula Daly lives in Cumbria County in North West England with her husband, three children, and whippet Skippy. She is a freelance physiotherapist.

*Starred Review* Skillfully working both sides of the street—crime fiction and women’s fiction—debut novelist Daly delivers a highly suspenseful tale by way of a harried housewife. Exhausted from working full-time at the local animal shelter while raising three children, Lisa Kallisto, who lives in an idyllic village in the Lake District, overlooks the fact that her daughter’s best friend, Lucinda, never arrived for a sleepover. To make matters worse, Lucinda’s parents are a very wealthy power couple who bring out all of Lisa’s insecurities over her family’s financial struggles. By the time it’s discovered that Lucinda has gone missing, a whole day has gone by. And her disappearance has come two weeks after another girl was kidnapped, drugged, raped, stripped bare, and left in the freezing rain. Told from three viewpoints, including those of the cold-blooded kidnapper and the highly competent female police detective, this intriguing blend of suspense tale and domestic drama, which has a number of delicious plot twists, will keep readers riveted. Not only is Lisa, who may be flawed but has a lot of heart, entirely relatable, but there is also much insight here into the power games that rule both female friendships and the relationships between husbands and wives. First-rate fiction from an outstanding new thriller writer. --Joanne Wilkinson