A Mother Always Knows

Her mother wasn’t moving, and that was not good. If she stayed face down in the water like this, she would drown. Astraea tried to roll her over, but when she placed her small hands on her mother’s shoulder, she found the silky robe was sticky and wet. Then she saw a deep part in her mother’s hair, as white as Hansel and Gretel’s pebbles. Her skull was split open like a coconut.

Stella O’ Neill is still haunted by what she witnessed in June of 2003 after finding her mother’s body by the stream. Someone killed Stella’s mother trying to prevent them from escaping The Diviners Cult run by a mad man named Radcliff “Cliff” McBeath. Eventually Stella was rescued even though the murder went unsolved for two decades. Here comes 2023, Stella is working at a public library trying to live a normal life. No one would expect that she was raised in a cult. Unfortunately, her name gets leaked after a podcast and a true crime fanatic released her name and information online. Stella has her determination & a supernatural with her mother’s rose quartz pendulum that she will use to outwit the cult leader and discover who murdered her mother once and for all before becoming his next victim.

Writing, Atmosphere & Rushed Ending

Sarah Strohmeyer’s writing builds up enough spookiness with the cult and the paranormal stuff & the dark of the woods where the cult presides. Stella is a good character, and she uses her gifts of determination and her psychic abilities to help solve the murder of her mother. It was also interesting reading not just from Stella’s point of view but from her mother Rose’s point of view when they were in the cult and Priti, Ben’s wife’s point of view. The ending felt slightly rushed we find out the killer then it goes straight to the happy ending where things are wrapped up. I would have liked to have seen a bigger confrontation. All in all, though, I still enjoyed the story just the same. A Mother Always Knows by Sarah Strohmeyer is available today on July 1^st wherever books are sold.