Brooke's Pick: What Mother Won't Tell Me by Ivar Leon Menger

Raised in strict isolation, Juno sets in motion a chain of frightening events when she's spotted by a stranger that makes her realize she doesn't know her parents at all or herself - and whoever they are, they'll do anything to keep her to themselves.

Oh my goodness. German author Ivan Leon Menger’s translation What Mother Won’t Tell Me just about did me in. The times that I have felt genuine fear for a character are few and far between, but Menger’s pulse-pounding thriller had me white-knuckling my book every time I picked it up.

What Mother Won’t Tell Me follows an isolated family who live all alone on an island in the middle of a lake in “Nordland.” The book’s narrator Juno is coming of age and is starting to ask questions as to how her family came to live on this remote island in the middle of nowhere, much to her parents’ dismay. Her parents’ answers are never satisfactory, with vague references to “strangers” who want to do them harm. When Juno, alongside her younger brother “Boy,” start to look into their parents’ lives and secrets, they uncover more than they bargained for … and then everything comes to a tumultuous head when Juno is spotted by one of these said “strangers,” putting everyone’s lives at risk.

Do you ever read a book that you hate to put down? That was What Mother’s Won’t Tell Me for me. Conveying genuine emotion and the perils of danger, What Mother Won’t Tell Me is a propulsive thriller that just won’t back down. This novel is relentless in its pursuit of trepidation and anguish. I was on the edge of my seat throughout the course of this book, quite literally afraid to learn what was to happen next.

To say I enjoyed a story such as What Mother Won’t Tell Me just doesn’t feel right due to the content of this book; however, I did find it to be thoroughly engaging and compelling. It is tautly wrapped and expertly written, driving forth both compassion and terror as it barrels forward toward its chilling conclusion.

Recommended to fans of Kimi Cunningham Grant’s These Silent Woods. - Brooke, Public Relations Librarian