Storytime

TAKE ME IN by Sabine Durrant, Hachette

Pacey, scary interlacing husband and wife accounts of the subsequence of a stranger saving their three-year-old son from drowning while on holiday. Middle-class London PRs Tessa and Marcus are grateful but judge Dave Jepsom – bald, gold fillings, tattoos. Jepsom’s designer trainers were ruined during the rescue and Marcus sends a new pair. But when Dave turns up to their home the night of a dinner party, to say thanks, the pair resent his presence. Tessa resumes her affair with a client, and thinks she sees her son’s saviour watching from the wings. She has dropped sick Josh at playschool to meet her lover. When Jepsom turns up to mend a broken tap and their house is trashed and burgled, they decide to tell the police about their “stalker”. The ramifications are awful as their lives unravel.

THE PERFECT MOTHER by Aimee Molloy, Hachette

A bevy of smart women living in New York have one common current thread: newborn babies. When the email To: May Mothers pops up, From: Your Friends at the Village, subject: Today’s advice; they gather on a blanket in Central Park to share the struggles of new motherhood. The cradle of personalities include Colette, “everyone’s girl crush with her Coloradobred effortlessness”; cheer girl Francie, “Miss Eager-to-be-liked, plump with rich Southern carbs”; and tattooed Brit Nell who organises a night at the Jolly Llama bar for the new mums. The result is the book’s nightmare crux: the disappearance of Winnie Ross’ baby Midas, while being babysat. Drunk Nell deleted the agency’s “peek-a-boo” (at your crib) app from Winnie’s phone. As police descend we wonder if any of the mothers really know each other.

WHISTLE IN THE DARK by Emma Healey, Penguin

Desperate descent into paranoia for Jen, mother of depressed 15-year-old Lana, who is found by a farmer after being missing for four days in UK’s remote Derbyshire countryside. “She smelled soggy and earthy and unclean, but she was alive.” Yet purple lines around her ankles suggest she may have been bound, she refuses a rape examination and a bloodied blanket and used condoms are discovered on the farmer’s land. Healey depicts the agonising communication gap between mother and daughter – Jen “stalking” Lana via social media, following her when she leaves the house; as Lana insists: “I can’t remember.” There was a “before Jen” and “an after Jen.” Lana is not so different – moody, argumentative, uncooperative, but what lies beneath this armour? A wake-up call for our “sat nav” times.