Alice's Review: What A Mother Knows

Summary:  An unsettling, emotional and suspenseful novel of the unshakable bonds of motherhood, in which Michelle Mason not only loses her memory after a deadly car crash, but can't find her 16-year-old daughter, the one person who may know what happened that day. But the deeper Michelle digs, the more she questions the innocence of everyone, even herself. A dramatic portrayal of the fragile skin of memory, What a Mother Knows is about finding the truth that can set love free. ~blurb

Review: What A Mother Knows is a compelling new novel by Leslie Lehr.  Imagine having a car accident so severe your road to recovery includes a medically induced coma and memory loss.   That’s exactly what happens to Michelle Mason.  She doesn’t remember the past few years of her life, let alone the accident or that she had a passenger in the car.  Her traveling companion was 19-year-old Noah, an up and coming musician who was tragically killed.  As Michelle tries to piece together what happened, she is further plagued with a desperation to find her missing daughter Nikki.

This novel has a lot to offer.  Ms. Lehr provides her readers with many revelations and plot twists that keep us interested and turning the pages.  There are wonderful support characters, like her son Tyler and her mother Elyse. 

One thing I found is that I didn’t like Michelle.  Considered she just came back from a near death experience, she could have used a little humility.  I can’t imagine what it must be like to not know where your child is, but her efforts to find her were appalling.  She put blinders on and forgot everything else including her son.  I think that is what did it for me.  She was willing to chance sacrificing her relationship with her son to find her daughter.  The only time I truly felt compassion for Michelle was when she was interacting with her mother Elyse.  Elyse was wonderful and all kinds of messed up crazy.  I love that.

Overall, I didn’t quite know how I felt about What A Mother Knows until the very end.  Something happened in that last chapter that made me solidify my stance.  It was a wonderful ending to a good novel.  

Final Take: 3/5