Carol Goodman

In The Other Mother, Carol Goodman skillfully utilizes the unreliable narrator plot device which results in an engrossing, twist-filled mystery.

Daphne Marist and Laurel Hobbes meet at a support group meeting for new mothers who are struggling with postpartum disorders. Their daughters are both named Chloe and they strike up an unlikely friendship. Daphne is a former school librarian whose older husband manages a small hedge fund. Laurel is also married to a much older man but she is wealthy show more and attended exclusive schools in Europe. They quickly become inseparable and Laurel helps transform Daphne into her own image. Daphne eventually takes a job as an archivist for her favorite author Schuyler "Sky" Bennett and moves with Chloe to Sky's estate in the Catskills which is next to the Crantham Psychiatric Center. Daphne becomes quite curious about former mental patient Edith Sharp and she finds herself in an shocking situation that she might not be able to escape.

Despite her sympathetic plight, Daphne is not an easy character to like at first. She is a bit of a doormat and does not really stand up for herself. Peter rules the roost and she easily gives in to him. She loves Chloe but she is overwhelmed by obsessive thoughts and fears. Her friendship with Laurel is not exactly healthy since, just like her marriage, Daphne follows wherever Laurel leads.

For the first half of the novel, Daphne is an incredibly unreliable narrator whose grasp on reality seems rather tenuous. She has trouble differentiating between fact and fantasy. She is also unsure whether her memories can be trusted.

Is Daphne just using Laurel's identity to escape from Peter? Or does Daphne believe she is, in fact, Laurel? Well, that question is answered when her situation takes a shocking turn and Daphne finds herself in an increasingly precarious position. Will Daphne be able to convince anyone that she is telling the truth?

The Other Mother is an intriguing mystery where nothing or no one is quite as it first appears. Carol Goodman slowly parcels the truth through diary entries written by various characters. Although a couple of the plot twists are slightly implausible, the novel comes a stunning conclusion that is quite satisfying. show less

This is an author that I really enjoy, having read two of her previous books. This was the perfect opportunity to become reacquainted with her work. This one had plenty of dark academia vibes and was also a locked-room mystery. The atmospheric pull to it gave the reader a true feeling of "being there". I am not particularly an Agatha Christie fan, but I loved Christie's "And Then There Were None" and this one made me think of that. The vibes are certainly there, but this author put her own show more spin on things so that you never really knew what to expect. There is a very strong sense of place, and I am always a fan of that. The wintry setting completely sets the mood and adds to the overall tension. This is a dark and ominous story that kept me engaged from start to finish. Between the traditions of the school that we learn from the past storylines to the secrets that are being kept, this is one twisted story that you cannot stop reading. It kept me guessing all the way through. show less

Goodman's style of storytelling could be described as predictable. Yet predictable in the comforting way of an old pair of perfectly worn-in jeans or a favorite hot beverage suited to the end of a long, strenuous day. And while the line between strictly formulaic writing and simply having found your niche as a novelist may be a fine one, I comfortably place Goodman on the favorable side. River Road is Goodman's latest psychological thriller, starring Nan Lewis, a creative writing professor show more in upstate New York barely scraping by emotionally and psychologically years after the death of her young daughter in a traffic accident and her subsequently destroyed marriage. Following a department holiday party, Nan hits what she believes to be a deer, but soon finds herself the primary suspect in a hit-and-run case which has robbed her favorite student of her life. As she struggles to clear her name and save her reputation in the local community, Nan begins to discover eery connections between this crime and the one that ripped apart her family six years prior. Desperate for answers, she's plunged into an underworld of dark secrets. While the story is a bit slow to develop, Goodman's signature literary and folkloric allusions, atmospheric writing, and Gothic style make her latest yet another satisfying page-turner. show less

A shocking secret between siblings partway through “The Lake of Dead Languages” sets off a torrent of Hitchcockian plot twists-and-turns as windy as the windiest mountain road with as many blind curves you never see coming until…until it’s too late and you sit stunned, eyes all enormo-like, like you’re driving off a cliff, too shocked to scream. Though I’m not suggesting you disregard the first 243 pages of what’s an already intriguing whodunit mystery staged around a lost show more journal and an oft-lethal lake prone to apparent suicidal drownings (or might they be murders?) in the austere snowbound Adirondacks; it’s just that Carol Goodman so ups the macabre, gothic ante in the novel’s concluding chapters that as a reader you’re all-in no matter what. Should you recklessly begin this book in the evening plan on an unputdownable all-nighter and calling in sick to work the next day. Best read “The Lake of Dead Languages” during the day time, Friend, and never by a pine forested lake at night near a boarding school for nice and naughty girls, and especially not by a pine forested frozen lake which moans and creaks as its ephemeral ice shifts and cracks, eliciting eerie sounds all too hauntingly human.

Need I praise more the exceeding Excellency of “The Lake of Dead Languages?” I could further extol the virtues of its liberal use of Latin, or champion the literarily allusive depths it plunges, how a working knowledge of Virgil’s, “The Aeneid,” in particular, aids and enriches our psychological/motivational understanding of the painful choices made by the main characters, Jane Hudson (our narrator-heroine), and Lucy and Dr. Lockhart, as well as foreshadowing the varied dire consequences and outcomes of these character’s actions, for those, that is, who are in tune with the designs of Virgil’s ancient classic. But I’ll conclude and say no more, other than what a delight to have “discovered” the debut novel from one Carol Goodman which launched what looks to be an extraordinary career. show less