Ten thrilling fictional mothers

Jenny Milchman's books include Cover of Snow, Ruin Falls, As Night Falls, and The Second Mother.

One of the author's ten top thrilling books in which mothers are the driving force, as shared at The Strand Magazine:

Mother, Mother by Koren Zailckas

Twenty-something Rose is missing. Her sister Violet is miserable, hospitalized, and depressed. And little brother Will just wants to please the woman who birthed them all. As water shapes rock, and wind stunts trees, so does the pathological narcissism of this matriarch warp and twist her children’s lives. The novel plumbs the dark depths at the core of the most ubiquitous unit in society. The family.

Read about the other entries on the list. 

Also see Heather Gudenkauf's eight favorite novels about fierce mothers-to-be, Sarah Vaughan's nine fictional bad mothers in fiction, Evelyn Toynton’s eight novels with monstrous mothers, and Nicole Hill's ten best moms in fiction.

--Marshal Zeringue