The Perfect Son by Lauren North @lauren_c_north @berkleypub #bookreview #theperfectson

Happy Friday all! We made it!

This book was so so good! A slow burn with an exceptional ending, yes please!🧸

My Thoughts

Lauren North has crafted a clever and compelling psychological thriller. This was an absorbing story packed with tension, suspicion, and heartbreak. Tess has recently lost her husband Mark and now believes that her beloved son has been taken. Tess’s grief and frustration was palpable, drawing you further in as you turn the pages. The book starts off with Tess in the hospital having been stabbed and desperate to know what they are doing to try to find her son Jamie. The book then tells the story of the events leading up to the day of Jamie‘s birthday starting on the day of the fatal accident that killed Mark. Also peppered throughout the book were police interviews with Tess’s brother-in-law Ian and her grief counselor Shelley. I was suspicious of and second guessing everything and everyone. Why was Shelly a virtual stranger such a rock for Tesse? Surely nobody is that kind and supportive to someone they don’t even know. And then there was Ian… he was a little too concerned about life insurance money. I had oh so many theories and all of them wrong! This book left me with my jaw on the floor and a million thoughts running around in my head. An excellent debut that I would absolutely recommend.

*** many thanks to Berkley for my copy of this book ***

About the Book

A disturbing and shocking debut novel of psychological suspense about a recently widowed mother, her young son, and the lengths she’ll go to in order to keep him safe.
When Tess Clarke wakes up in the hospital the day after her son Jamie’s eighth birthday, she’s sure of these things: She’s been stabbed, her son is missing, her brother-in-law and her grief counselor are involved. But no one is listening to her.
After her husband, Mark, died suddenly in a terrible accident a few months earlier, the only thing keeping Tess together is Jamie. As they struggle to make sense of their new life without Mark, they find joy in brief moments of normalcy like walking to school and watching television together. Life is hard without Mark, but Tess has Jamie, and that’s what matters.
But there in the hospital, confused and surrounded by people who won’t listen, Tess’s world falls apart. To save her son, she must piece together what happened between Mark’s death and Jamie’s birthday, but the truth might just be too much for her to bear.

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