Review: Under Her Care - Lucinda Berry - June 2022 I have previously read a few of Lucinda Berry's books and enjoyed them as she has a strong focus on children who have been neglected, abused, or have mental health/disabilities and then adds a thriller element to the story. It's no wonder she went into this as they say write what you know in a previous job, Lucinda Berry was a clinical psychologist and worked with childhood trauma and this shines through in her writings. The book starts with the mayor's wife being found murdered and the prime suspect is Mason who has severe autism and the intellectual age of a four-year-old or does he? The police have asked Casey a psychologist and a mother of an autistic daughter to come and evaluate Mason and give her thoughts. What she will discover though is a mother who is desperate for attention and a son that the mother trained to become the perfect autistic child. As Casey digs deeper into Genevieve's history and even looks at...

Review: Grace is Gone - Emily Elgar - January 2017 Have you ever heard of Munchausen by Proxy? Do you know someone with this? I do and I am glad that this person got her children removed and we have others looking after them as I could see her going down this route if she had kept her children. This book was inspired by the case of Gypsy Rose Blanchard and her mother Dee Dee. For those who aren't aware of this case, it was about a daughter named Gypsy whose mother had Munchausen by Proxy and was causing Gypsy to be sick and kept her this way to get attention. One day Gypsy cracked and along with her boyfriend they killed her mother. In Grace is Gone, we meet Grace and her mother Meg - Grace is sick and has multiple issues and her mother cares for her. We also meet Jon who is a newspaper reporter, years ago he wrote an article about the family and was blacklisted as they saw him take the side of Grace's father Simon. At the time, his son was sick and Jon cracked under pressure...

Review: Doppelgangers - Erin Lee and Lorah Jayin - January 2020 I have to admit I was in two minds with this book as I did enjoy it but thought it could have been a tad different as it wasn't what I expected from the title Doppelgangers. The book starts with us being introduced to Neri who is a special education teacher who lives alone, now that she is divorced and her children are in college. Neri receives an email from a concerned Aunt known as Harlo. Neri received it as she is stepping in for the current teacher Debbie who is on maternity leave. Harlo claims that her niece Laura is in danger and that her parents are abusing her by making her sick etc. Laura supposedly is on the spectrum, but when Harlo gets into Neri's mind, she starts testing Laura and is very surprised when things don't start to add up with the "autism" diagnosis.  We learn that Harlo is also single but quite a hard woman and works as a child social worker dealing with children who have bee...