Publication Date: July 1, 2025
The beloved, award-winning author of Do I Know You? and We Love To Entertain returns with an electrifying novel of psychological suspense that explores the way our pasts shape our futures in so many unexpected ways.
Stella O’Neill is just your average millennial, working at a public library and worrying about making rent. No one would suspect she’s been living under an assumed name or that she was raised in a Vermont commune of “diviners” where, and as a ten-year-old, she witnessed her mother’s brutal murder—a crime that has gone unsolved for years.
But her quiet, anonymous existence is upended when a true-crime obsessive posts her current name and location on the internet. Now, Stella has to get out of Boston before her mother’s killer can find her and finish the job he started all those years ago. Fed up with living in fear, she heads to the off-the-grid retreat of her childhood to confront her mother’s unhinged guru who controlled their lives for so long—the infamous Radcliffe MacBeath.
Stella has two powerful assets: determination and a supernatural gift. Relying on her mother’s beloved rose quartz pendulum, Stella will have to outwit the charismatic leader who’s ruined so many lives and discover once and for all the true identity of her mother’s killer—before becoming his next victim.
For two decades, Stella O’Neill has stayed under the radar. All of that changes in one instance, destroying her fragile peace.
Author Sarah Strohmeyer serves up a multi-layered psychological thriller in A Mother Always Knows. Stella’s memories of her mother’s murder make her the only eyewitness.
The story unfolds via three perspectives: Stella:], her mother, Rose, and a woman named Priti. What makes this story so fascinating is the cult element and its role in Rose’s death.
With an online show revisiting the details of Rose’s murder, Stella decides to face her fears and trust her own divination abilities. A rollercoaster of events connects the three narrators, culminating in a satisfying conclusion.
A Mother Always Knows illustrates Stella’s quest to unpack childhood trauma in an effort to regain control and deliver justice.
Sarah Strohmeyer is a bestselling and award-winning novelist whose books include The Secrets of Lily Graves, How Zoe Made Her Dreams (Mostly) Come True, Smart Girls Get What They Want, The Cinderella Pact (the basis of the Lifetime Original Movie Lying to Be Perfect), The Sleeping Beauty Proposal, The Secret Lives of Fortunate Wives, Sweet Love, and the Bubbles mystery series. A former newspaper reporter, her writing has appeared in numerous publications, including the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Boston Globe. She lives with her family outside Montpelier, Vermont.
