Review: Iliana Xander's 'Love Mom'

 

Iliana Xander is making waves globally in the crime fiction genre, and much like Freida Mcfadden and Coolen Hoover (though she is more into Romance Fiction) her once self-published books are now getting a conventional paper back re-issue. So, when I came to know that her debut Novel ‘Love, Mom’ has just got released in India through Penguin, I couldn’t resist buying a copy of it. Though a bit lengthy , at about 390+ pages, I finished reading this book in two days and I must say that the critics haven’t been wrong about this thriller. Xander is definitely a name to watch out for in the Psychological thriller/ Crime-Fiction genre!

Elizabeth Casper was a best selling author. She has recently died in a freak accident. Her Daughter Mackenzie,  has always lived in the shadows of her Celebrity mother. Though she has never been that close to her Mom, she is still mourning the loss and is yet to come in terms with the void left behind. But Mackenzie is left with more than she bargains for when investigators start asking questions. Then, a mysterious mail arrives , containing pages from her mother’s diary. What Mackenzie reads leaves her in shock. Then arrives the next letter… Mackenzie is soon left with more questions than answers and that leaves her with no other choice than to unravel the mysteries clouding her very own existence. What was that ‘secret’ which her famous Mom was hiding all through her life?

There are only a handful of characters in this novel besides the protagonist Mackanzie, Elizabeth and her Husband, Ben Casper. EJ ,Mackanzie’s boy friend appears through out in the Novel and I must say that at times I found the banter between Mackanzie and him to be a bit irritating. The Grandma character , though appears only towards the latter half of the book is particularly worth mentioning. The Novel also reminded me of Coolen Hoover’s ‘Verity’ , though plot wise both these works have nothing in common between them.

As I mentioned before, this one has a really fast past narrative which makes good for the multiple logical issues in the core plot. There are a couple of decent twists happening in the novel and I liked the way the author tied up all the loose ends towards the end (though a bit too convenient, and far fetched ), but I honestly believe that she could have done away with that excessive 'spoon feeding' in the tail-end portions.

(Mild Spoiler Alert)

Some of the narrative tropes which the author has relied on to give that 'shock element' are hardly innovative and i must say that some of the recent thrillers have used the exact same (Riley Sager-The only one left, Freida Mcfadden- The tenant) 'twist', albeit a bit more succesfully.

If you are a thriller fan  who is on a staple reading pile of modern day  western thrillers(Freida Mcfadden, Riley Sager et al) I would say that 'the pivotal twist ' which is happening towards the end of the first half (the first pov) of the book might come across as a bit mediocre one for you.

On the whole, Love Mom  doesn't break any new grounds in terms of craft or story telling in the psychological thriller genre. Agreed, it's racy and twisty and has never  a dull moment in it's narrative. But, if you are a crime fiction afficionado, in probability you will find some of these twists and turns, way too familiar thereby relegating this to an okay thriller experience!

-nikhimenon