How far would you go to get the one thing you've wanted your whole life? Once you got it... what wouldn't you do to protect it?
Arielle Reigns' desperation for a child is the common thread that strings the plot along. Seven years she's struggled to conceive with her husband, Martin, who reassures her that she is "more than enough woman for him," whether or not they conceive. But his reassurances are simply not enough for our protagonist, who tries everything- different positions, tucking her knees into her chest, visiting the shrine of a Catholic saint... I mean, you name the weird method and this woman has gone and tried it- but finds that her efforts are still not enough. After her hopes are dashed and she unloads yet again on her doctor and his office staff, she flees to a park to sit a spell and clear her head over a drink. Arielle is lured to a phone booth by the promise of a 100% success rate in conceiving and is introduced... to Mother. Mother promises Arielle her heart's desire... if she only drinks the milk, visit Martin one last time, and return her child once she turns four. After her brief return home, Arielle steals away into the foreboding swamp to spend the next nine months in the hope she can return to Martin with a child and they can be a family again after all the harm that she's done to the relationship. As the pregnancy progresses, Arielle discovers Mother's familiar sweetness is a veneer for something more sinister that hides in that swamp and vows she will escape the swamp and put this life behind her and raise her daughter in peace, promises be damned.
But the best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry and Arielle's daughter slips through her fingers. The novel really picks up after Hope goes missing and spends the conclusion unraveling Mother's identity, where her powers originated, how the children are conceived, reuniting Arielle with her husband and daughter, and confronting the evil in Stumphole Swamp.
The characters feel a little two-dimensional and veer towards the ridiculous at times but given the genre, I came to expect it by the end. Arielle tends to get carried away with her anger and is quite melodramatic but given a woman in her position, I could understand where she was coming from. Martin starts out pretty spineless, appearing well in over his head being married to a woman like Arielle but redeems himself by the end of the novel when he finds his courage and uses everything he has to try to save his love and their daughter. I felt like the mention of Arielle's infidelity and introducing a couple of chapters with the side piece were awkwardly placed and could have been done without; her 'indiscretion' and the boxing could have been mentioned in the story without introducing a character I don't expect to see again in the trilogy. The novel does take quite a while to pick up steam.
This novel begins with a pregnancy being terminated and well and truly gets weird toward the end with gore and sexual themes and where the milk that appears so often throughout the novel comes from so while these elements do serve the story's progression, this novel is not for the faint of heart. But all in all?
Mother gets a four glass pints of milk out of five from me.