The Stay-at-Home Mother by Nicole Trope is a highly recommended psychological thriller set in Sydney, Australia.

Terry, Andrea and three-year-old Jack move into a run down house in an expensive neighborhood. Andrea is very pregnant and not pleased with this turn of events. They lost their home due to Terry's gambling problems, so moving into this house, a fixer-upper, is thanks to Andrea's father who knew the person buying it was willing to rent it for awhile to them. Andrea is less than thrilled, but she feels she is stuck in her current situation and that Terry is going to try.

At the beginning Andrea is a bit distrustful when the neighbor across the street, Gabby, reaches out to her in friendship, but soon she is becoming a part of Andrea's life. Gabby is busy with her teenage son, Flynn, but is always available for tea and snacks with Andrea and Jack. She even pulled out some old dinosaurs Flynn used to play with for Jack. Gabby has offered to babysit anytime Andrea needs help. What young, exhausted, pregnant mother doesn't need this kind of support, especially when Andrea is suspicious that Terry is gambling again.

The writing is very good and the plot is fast moving, entertaining, twisty, and surprising. Some of the twists are easily guessed and others are truly surprising. There are several strange, odd occurrences going on and so suspicions and tension will rise while reading. You will be on alert for something to happen, and things do happen, which only results in raising the tension some more. The opening of the narrative will definitely grab your attention and keep you glued to the pages for answers.

The narrative alternates between the point-of-view of Andrea and Gabby. Both women are complex, interesting characters, and both of them are hiding secrets from each other. Andrea is keeping her husband's addiction and how it has ravaged their family's security, financially and physically a secret. Gabby's addiction to social media where she posts about her son was an interesting character trait, but the more engaging trait is that it becomes clear quite that she is a very unreliable and unbalanced narrator.

You may have to suspend disbelief a time or two, but The Stay-at-Home Mother is a great psychological thriller that most readers will enjoy start to finish.
Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of Bookouture via NetGalley.
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Another great psychological thriller by Nicole Trope! The book is narrated through two POVs—Andrea, who is a young pregnant mother who moves to a new neighborhood with a young toddler, and Gabby, the woman across the street who is very into posting on social media, especially about her teenaged son, Flynn. Both women are hiding secrets about troubled aspects of their personal lives, which slowly are revealed over the course of the novel. Andrea is in a bit of a bind because of how close she is to her due date and because of troubles in her marriage and so she is forced to rely on Gabby for babysitting even though she doesn’t really know her. Then something terrible happens involving Flynn, and things quickly spiral out of control. I love books with unreliable narrators so this was a really fun one to read with lots of twists as we reached the second part of the novel. It was a short, fast-paced read that kept me guessing. I really liked the twists in the epilogues. 5/5 stars.

Disclaimer: I received a complimentary ARC copy of this book from Bookouture and NetGalley for review purposes. ( )