Publication Date July 9, 2024

I live in a beach town, and every year there are a few books that I see LOTS of people reading as they relax on the beach. Well, good luck this coming summer relaxing while reading Kimberley McCreight’s Like Mother, Like Daughter! I remember in May of 2020, it was the beginning of the lockdown and I really needed things to read that grabbed me and got my mind off the pandemic. I had read McCreight’s Reconstructing Amelia,  and  A Good Marriage proved to be  another one of those books you start reading and just CANNOT STOP.

So, buckle up because now we have McCreight’s latest, Like Mother, Like Daughter. The mother is Katrina (or Kat), who is a wife and mother living in Brooklyn, working at a New York law firm. Her daughter, Cleo, is a student at NYU who has moved out on her own, and is oblivious to the reality of her mother’s job. Cleo thinks Kat does routine (boring) corporate law, while in reality she is the firm’s premier “fixer.” The two of them aren’t really getting along, and when Cleo goes to meet her mother at the family home  for dinner, she finds dinner burning and her mother missing. Then she finds her mother’s bloody shoe under the couch. A real WTF moment!

The story unfolds using different time periods and points of view. Initially, it is Kat’s POV during the weeks leading up to her disappearance, then we have Cleo telling it from her point of view after Kat’s disappearance. It turns out that prior to her disappearance, Kat’s husband has been unfaithful, they are heading for divorce, and he is making demands for money. If that isn’t enough, Cleo has gone back to a bad (dangerous?) relationship. Then anonymous threatening messages start arriving, revealing the truth of Kat’s past – none of which has been known to Cleo.

There is a lot going on! I HAD to keep reading. I can deal with multiple POVs and time frames, as long as they are clearly delineated. In this book,  they are, and the story unfolds (or, more accurately, thunders along) at a fast pace. Ironically, the pandemic appears to be erupting again just as I got this book, so once again I had a couple of glorious days to avoid reality and enjoy escapist fiction.  I loved it. Five stars. And many thanks to Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage & Anchor and NetGalley for the advance copy they provided in exchange for this honest review.