Mother Dear

A Thriller

By: Nova Lee Maier, Jozef van der Voort - translator

Narrated by: Karen Peakes

Length: 9 hrs and 7 mins

Publisher's summary

There’s only one thing worse than doing the unthinkable: what you’re willing to do to hide it.

Helen lives a decent, uncomplicated life. Satisfied in her career, she’s raising three happy teenagers, and her family has the most envied house on the street. Admittedly, she’s growing just a little disenchanted with her marriage to her workaholic husband, Werner. But that’s nothing she can’t fix. Then one day Helen comes home to something completely unexpected that threatens to shatter her carefully cultivated world.

For disaffected, young petty criminals Ralf and Brian, it was a scheme to make some cash: a quick home invasion. The targets they’ve chosen are Helen and Werner. Just as planned, Brian disappears into Helen and Werner’s house. And he never comes out again.

But Helen’s nightmare is just beginning. She can’t possibly imagine how much worse it can get or just how far she’ll need to go to protect her family.

©2015 Nova Lee Maier; 2018 translation copyright Jozef van der Voort (P)2019 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved

Story is worth the listen, but The narration is horrible!

This story Kept you interested and although slightly predictable with where is was heading it still had some twists and turns you didn’t expect coming along the way.

The narrator was horrible and the voices she made were cringy... almost had to stop because it was so bad!

Entertaining story

I like the author and all the twists and turns but found part of it hard to swallow. Very clever author.

It could have been very good

The story was very interesting and had a lot of promise, but the ending unexpected and somewhat unclear. **SPOILER ALERT** Why was Brian in the house, robbery gone bad or was he hired to stage a murder? After the scene on the cliff unfolds, what happens to the daughter and how did she deal with the truth about her father? How possibly can a nurse methodically carry frozen body parts into work and dispose of them, day after day and get away with it? What actually happened to the Father, and did the daughter witness it? Was she involved? Why did Ralf end up agreeing to drive around Europe with the Father's car to throw off any suspicion? How was the Fathers disappearance explained? The letters to "Mother" were tossed in at the end to justify Werner's falling out of love with his wife, but I don't remember much in earlier part of the book about the writing of the letters or that they would become a crucial part of the story. The mystery built up and built up and then at the end, poof it ended without any satisfaction.

Hard time relating

I think the book was well written and very well performed, I just had a difficult time relating to the lead character. I think its because I live in the United States and our gun laws are so much different (at least right now). I had a hard time getting past it, it seemed so odd. I don't want to give anything away or I would explain further.

Cleverly awesome

This is a very good read. Clever and smart. Pleasant to listen narration is very good. Story is belief and unpredictable.

in the end, you'll want to hug the author

How helpless and pitiful can she be and still be able to breathe!? How gullible can a teen be.! Okay, the teen I understand. However, an over the hill woman shouldn't be this stupid. I'm not sure if I can handle another book like this. Unless I'm mistaken and this is really a supernatural book about saints.
That's what I say while listening to a great performance. It's worth every word! Because, in the end, you'll want to hug the author.

The end truly made it all worth it

*Possible spoiler... maybe not*

OMG! The book started out really good but then, there was this loooooooooooooooong portion of the book where I grew bored and began to lose interest. It took me way longer to finish this book than it normally would. I stuck it out though and I'm glad I did. Honestly, my interest started waning when Helen let Werner convince her not to call the police. I thought that was the absolute dumbest idea ever. Then, he continued to blame her for what happened when she in fact saved their lives. In the end, I was all smiles because well, read to see for yourself. The end really is the best part of the whole book. Not because it is over but because of how everything comes together. You can't just skip to it, you have to read the whole book. Enjoy.

Interesting.......

I might recommend this book as a teen horror read—Based on the writing (maybe some syntax was lost in translation to English?) The idea of identification with teenage angst and crime is important but not conveyed in a transformative enough way for me to bond with characters. But interesting story! Well done

Strange, creepy thriller

Though it begins with a bang,the story drags until the halfway point when it takes off again.
The narrator was great.

Loses nothing in translation

I was pleasantly surprised that the writing and storyline flowed as well as it did, with none of the sometimes awkward phrssing in translated works. The characters were fairly well developed and , while generally not likeable, fairly realistic. My biggest objection is the manner in which Helen disposed of the body parts; generally, there is greater security/oversight/control in hosputals. This solution, while possible a couple times seems implausible as a working resolution in the real world. Criticism aside, this audiobook was an entertaining way to complety chores.