Just Jennifer

Just What Kind of Mother Are You? By Paula Daly (Grove Press, September 3, 2013)

We have all had that moment in our lives that we desperately wish we could have back and change the course of events.  Lisa Kallisto has such a moment as her seemingly perfect life is turned on its end when her best friend’s thirteen-year-old daughter disappears on her watch.  Lisa’s life is a busy one as she takes care of three busy children and juggles their never ending schedules, runs a busy animal shelter and tries to give her marriage the attention it both needs and deserves.  When Lucinda is to spend the night with Lisa’s daughter after school, but doesn't when Sally stays home from school sick, and vanishes rather than arriving at either house, she is not reported missing until the next day.  Lucinda is the second pre-teen young girl to vanish in the area, the first escaping and returning after being raped and traumatized, leaving the tiny Cumbrian village in Northern England in fear for their young girls.   Obsessed with guilt over Lucinda’s disappearance, Lisa begins her own investigation and as she does, small details or the families’ lives come to the surface, past transgressions and grudges begin to emerge as a portrait of less than perfect families comes to light all leading to a most shocking conclusion.  Adding to the depths of this chilling and all too real feeling novel is the personal life of the Detective Constable Joanne Aspinall lives with her aunt and is not just the police woman investigating the crime, but a well-developed character in her own right.  Heart wrenching, thrilling and eye-opening at once, Just What Kind of Mother Are You?  will have readers assessing their own lives and remembering to pay attention to the little things.