A Mother Always Knows by Sarah Strohmeyer
Sarah Strohmeyer is one of the most versatile and compelling contemporary authors. Before starting her career as a successful and award-winning novelist, she worked for several years in the newspaper business initially as a freelance journalist and later as a crime reporter. Her first hilarious and slightly risqué book Barbie Unbound: A Parody of the Barbie Obsession was published in 1997. In 2001, she debuted a comedic mystery series with the enduring character Bubbles Yablonsky in Bubbles Unbound which won both the Agatha and Romantic Times Awards for Best First Novel.
This bleached blonde bombshell beautician, reporter and amateur detective has solved a number of murder cases in steel town Lehigh, Pennsylvania aided and abetted by hunky boyfriend Steve Stiletto through seven novels so far. The 2023 fast-paced humorous thriller We Love to Entertain spoofed reality television programs.
A Darker Turn with “A Mother Always Knows”
A Mother Always Knows, her current novel, is an edgier, fast-paced psychological thriller with a surprise ending that may leave readers astonished, closing with a “whoa, I did not see that coming” denouement.
Protagonist Stella O’Neill has a lifelong fear of being left alone as well as a deep-seated terror of dark woods. This stems from a combination of isolation punishment for minor transgressions meted out to her by cult leadership when she was a small child and from the shock of discovering her mother lying dead beside a trickling brook at the age of ten.
It was the night of the summer solstice during ritual celebrations practiced by the rural Vermont commune of Diviners led by controlling self-described “guru” Radcliffe MacBeath. He was a former time-share salesman, then multi-level marketer with the given name of Doug Dudko from Scranton. He had become rich from a series of best-selling self-help books about harnessing Divine Energy to achieve success. Becoming paranoid, he left the lecture circuit to retreat to an isolated 440 acre compound he established on the edge of the Green Mountain National Forest. Creating the “Center for Spiritual Center for Spiritual Dowsing” with a cadre of frightening security guards termed “Facilitators” surrounding him, he led a group of followers who lived an austere existence while serving and semi-worshiping him.
A Childhood Stolen by a Cult
Originally named Astraea, Stella was a toddler when her mother became mesmerized by Radcliffe, deserted her home and doting husband and took their child with her. Those in this off-the-grid commune wore long flowing hooded capes, grew much of their own food, and devoted considerable time listening to their leader’s lectures, contemplating and meditating. The children were not sent to schools outside of the compound. It took several years for the indoctrination and adoration to wear thin hastened by brutal, arbitrary penalties including those administered by Radcliffe’s most devoted acolyte Ellen.
Disobedience could result in withdrawal of food, denial of essential medical treatments, solitary confinement in a small box and drugs to induce sleepiness. These punishments began to include children and when she perceived Radcliffe himself was developing an unhealthy interest in her pretty daughter, seemingly grooming her, it was time to escape. Her hopeful escape plans came to naught with her life crushed out.
Memories of a hooded, fearsome creature with face concealed and topped with a pair of long, twisted antlers haunted Stella’s dreams. Could this be Cerunnos, “divine protector of the forest and the god of death” who murdered her mom and carried Stella to a mountaintop cave where she was found dehydrated and nearly starved three days later? Or was this a would-be rescuer in disguise who had arrived too late to save her mother?
Unearthing the Past to Confront the Present
Twenty years had passed since Stella was rescued. Her dad and kindly stepmother whom he already had been seeing before the murder then raised her providing support and an education. Her legacy was the rose quartz pendulum that her mother had used in divining. Stella also possessed determination and a curious supernatural gift of when barefoot being able to discern the hidden burial places of human remains which somehow transmitted their indisputable energy to her.
Stella became a librarian peacefully living until Dark Cults, a rather eerie television program ran a piece on the unsolved murder of Rose Santos, her mother. It also exposed her existence and whereabouts as the sole witness and potential target of the killer who so far had gotten away with murder. This unwelcome attention brought her threatening letters and emails compelling Stella to travel to Vermont to confront her fears head-on by solving the crime.
Who among her friends and small family could she trust to avoid becoming another victim of the Divining Cult?
A Thriller That Grips and Haunts
A Mother Always Knows is densely layered with a number of concurrent fascinating subplots to explore before the shocking conclusion. Sarah Strohmeyer has created a thriller so suspenseful that readers may feel compelled to keep bright lights burning and might feel compelled to eschew moonlit strolls.
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About Sarah Strohmeyer:
Sarah Strohmeyer is a bestselling and award-winning novelist whose books include The Secrets of Lily Graves, How Zoe Made Her Dreams (Mostly) Come True, Smart Girls Get What They Want, The Cinderella Pact (which became the Lifetime Original Movie Lying to Be Perfect), The Sleeping Beauty Proposal, The Secret Lives of Fortunate Wives, Sweet Love and the Bubbles mystery series. Her writing has appeared in numerous publications, including the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Boston Globe. She lives with her family outside Montpelier, Vermont.
