"Until You're Mine" by Samantha Hayes

With haunting and desperate inward dialogues, and frequent shifts in point of view, Samantha Hayes engages us in her clever thriller from the very outset. Until You’re Mine plunges us into the deep end of a thick emotional soup in which women unable to conceive a baby circle, vulture-like, around a clutch of expectant mothers. The lead-up and payoff of this creepy tale are rewarding and unexpected – congratulations to Ms. Hayes for a perfect and unerring job.

We meet the very appealing Claudia, who has married into the family of widowed Naval officer James, and his twin four-year old sons. Claudia is quite pregnant, and into this happy group comes Zoe, hired as a nanny to the twins, because Claudia’s due date is so soon and James will be leaving on a mission. And the creepiness starts – and then is really

revved up by a couple of gruesome murders of very pregnant women. Enter a husband-and-wife team of police detective inspectors, complete with their own baggage, and the twists and turns inevitably follow.

This is beautifully realized work. The denouement will please any fan of thriller crime fiction, and the portraits of our mostly female cast of characters only add to the value here. I raced through this book in a couple of days, even with my demanding work schedule, truly unable to put it down. I’m sure you will find it just as riveting, and be just as impressed with the clever Ms. Hayes. Take it up!