I received Until You're Mine as a birthday present - after putting it on my Amazon wish list! The back of the book says:
'Claudia is heavily pregnant with a much wanted baby, she has a loving husband and a beautiful home.
And then Zoe steps into her life.
Zoe has come to help Claudia when her baby arrives. But there's something about Zoe that Claudia doesn't like or trust. And when she finds Zoe in her bedroom, Claudia's anxiety turns to real fear.'
The book is written from the 1st person perspective of Claudia and Zoe and in a 3rd person narrative when focusing on the two detectives, Adam and Lorraine, and the cases that are being given to them involving pregnant women.
The book begins with a prologue in first person explaining how this anonymous woman has always wanted a baby from a young age. How she wished her dolls would come alive and how she would sprinkle magic talcum powder on her abdomen in the bath hoping she would get pregnant. The prologue ends with the sentence 'Having a baby, I decided, would be my life's mission.' It is from this prologue we understand this person clearly has an obsession with pregnancy and could possibly be mentally ill.
As the first few chapters progress we learn that Claudia is looking for a nanny to look after her unborn child and two step-children, twin five year old boys, whilst her Naval Officer husband goes back out on a mission and she continues working.
In comes Zoe who is determined to get this job and cannot stop looking at Claudia's pregnant stomach. Of course she gets the job (there wouldn't be a book otherwise) and readers start to discover that Zoe has a secret relationship with a woman named Cecelia - someone she can only contact occasionally and cannot afford to leave an electronic trace that people can track. With a determination to find everything out about Claudia - even snooping through her family's finances - things start to take a turn when Claudia catches her in her bedroom "putting up the moses basket". Claudia is in two minds as to whether she is to not to trust Zoe or whether she is just hormonal because of the pregnancy.
Whilst Zoe is obsessing over Claudia and Claudia is deciding whether to trust Zoe we have a side story involving Adam and Lorraine, the two detectives, who have been called in on a new case. Someone has killed a woman by trying to taker her baby in an at home caesarean operation. It is a gruesome murder scene that affects both characters and their home life. Adam and Zoe are a married couple in a dispute and when not at a crime scene are at home trying to parent their troubled teenage daughters.
As another attack happens the story starts to progress with more connections being made between characters and a build up to a dark, psychological twist that no one will see coming!!
This is the first book I have read by Samantha Hayes and will not be the last. She is an amazing author and this book is now probably the number one book on my recommendations list.
If you buy any book this week, month or year it has to be this one!
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