Isabelle Archer is many things at once: an investigative journalist trained to chase truth, a mother trying to protect her own child, and a daughter shaped by a childhood that never offered safety or simplicity. Raised in a home full of foster siblings, her past is marked by one child who vanished and three more lost in a devastating fire—an “accident” that never sat right. Illness, fear, and whispered theories trailed the family, all tightly controlled by her mother, Gail, whose grip on the narrative was as suffocating as it was unwavering. When Gail dies, Isabelle returns home expecting paperwork and closure. Instead, she finds autopsy results that crack open the past. What follows is a reckoning—across dual timelines and shifting POVs—that forces Isabelle to relive what she survived and confront what may have been deliberately hidden all along.
This is the kind of book you fall into fast and don’t surface from easily. Rea Frey doesn’t sanitize motherhood, mental illness, or abuse; she leans into the discomfort and lets the mess breathe. The emotional tension is sharp, the atmosphere heavy, and the mystery unfolds with quiet control rather than cheap shock tactics. Isabelle’s love for her mother exists right alongside fear and suspicion, which makes her feel achingly real. The structure is clean, the twists land, and the emotional stakes never feel manufactured. Frey remains an auto-read for me because she understands how to braid psychology and suspense without losing the human core. Dear Mother is proof that family secrets don’t fade—they ferment, and when they finally surface, they demand to be faced.
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