SPOILERS!!!
The book starts by showing us a woman going to the nursery where her son sleeps and lifts a pillow over him, intending to suffocated him.
Iona Chatwin is a detective inspector who is assigned the case of a man who has disappeared. His wife, Bella, has reported him missing. Iona and his partner Yannis go to see her, and she tells them that the night before she was with some mothers who she met during her pregnancy in prenatal classes. She drank too much and her friends helped her into the house and left her sleeping on the sofa. When she woke up, Ewan was gone.
The novel seesaws between the lives of these five women and Iona's investigation. There is Chrissy, who is high-flying lawyer, who has a daughter, Chloe. Her husband is Russell, who is very attractive but resents the fact that Chrissie works too many hours and earns more than him. That is affecting their marriage. Chrissy has had problems with the couple next door who disapprove of the works she is doing in her graden. One of the builders is Atanis, and during a fight between Chrissie and Russell, the latter slaps her, and Atanis appears, making Russell to step back. Russell leaves and Atanis remains to comfort Chrissy and then she feels attracted to him, and she doesn't suffocate that attraction, and they become lovers.
Electra has twins: Pearl and Ozzy. Her problem is with Ozzy who is out of control. Once when she was in the supermarket, Ozzy threw a tantrum and hid under a trolley. Electra didn't know what to do, and in order to get Ozzy under the trolley, she used her foot. Then a woman who saw her reported her, so she and her partner, Zack, started receiving visit from social services. Electra feels that she is not a good mother, and when the social worker visits she is ill at ease. Thanks to Bella, who hinted that Ozzy may be on the autistic spectrum, Electra has him diagnosed, and the doctor confirms that Ozzy is autistic. The social worker confirms that she and Zack are good but having too much pressure, and she concludes that there is nothing more to do.
Electra has always felt guilty about Zach. Zach is twenty-five years, much younger than him, and when they got together, their plan was never to become parents. Zach had to leave his studies to work in a pub, and Electra thinks that she ruined his life because he should be at university and hanging out with friends instead of being a family man. So she decides to let him free, and she tells him that they are through, and even though Zach begs her not to do that, she is adamant.
Skye has a daughter, Juniper, who suffers from allergies, and the problem is that they leave on a boat in the canal. Skye is into meditation, yoga and massage, and she makes a living out of it. Juniper's dad is Pedro, a gay man, who Skye had a relationship with, and Skye is in love with him, but he now is in love with Felippe. Then the two men come to her, telling her that they want to have a child in common and ask her to be their surrogate mother. Skye thinks about growing a child in her womb and then become a stranger to her, and she knows it will be very hard, but Pedro and Felippe have promised to give her twenty thousand pounds, which will allow her to buy a flat for her and Juniper. Skye has started a relationship with Mort, a client, but after she has decided that she will be a surrogate for Pedro and Felippe, she thinks that she won't have time for a man, and then she breaks up with him.
Jen is the only one who is not a mother.. Jen is young, and the baby she was expecting was still born as there was a genetic disorder in her and her boyfriend. Jen keeps breaking up and making up with Eliot, her boyfriend. Bella hires her to look after Teddy, her son, while she is at work.
Bella is the person who appeared in the first chapter. We discover that her husband, Ewan, stopped her from killing Teddy, and he called the four other women instead of the police. Bella was in hospital for a few weeks, and now she has pills to control her mind. Bella realises that she is starting to have hallucinations, and as readers, we wonder if it is true that she is hallucinating or if her husband, who treats her horribly, is doing something to make her doubt herself. Yet, when we read that she starts seeing a tiger, we realise that Bella is unwell. Jen notices and Bella tells her about having these problems, and Jen tells the other mothers and they agree that Jen should keep an eye on her.
Iona and Yannis talk to all the mothers, and when they try to talk to Jen, they find her flat empty and there is a stain of blood on the floor. Jen is missing as well, and then they discover that Ewan is in Poland.
The book then shows what happened that night. Bella used a fruit knife and stabbed Ewan. Then they called the mothers, and Chrissy persuaded everyone that they couldn't call the police or Bella would be incarcerated and Teddy taken by social services. Helping her hide the murder would jeopardize their children as well, but they didn't hesitate to do as Chrissy asked. Chrissy went to talk to Atanis, who was going back to Poland and without any explanation she asked him to get rid of Ewan's passport and phone in Poland, so that is why the police think that Ewan was in Poland. Then they dressed Ewan in Bella's clothes so that if they were spotted, people would think that they were helping Bella as they had done before.
This is the point I have left the book in. I wonder what they did with the body. Where did they leave Ewan? And what about Jen? Where is she? Why is there blood in her flat?
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