The Rumor by Lesley Kara

Rumor has it there is a child killer in the neighborhood.

In The Rumor by Lesley Kara, Joanna has moved back to her hometown with her young son and is having a difficult time connecting with the other mothers at the school. When she hears a juicy piece of gossip, she passes it along, hoping it will somehow grant her access to the inner circle. Much to her eventual regret, it does and Joanna begins to feel responsible for all the speculation surrounding who the possible killer could be.

I liked this book, but I didn't love it. At times, the "mystery" felt forced and any twists presented weren't quite believable. The author made an effort to include a large number of people who could have been the killer, but it fell flat because none were developed enough to be interesting. 

There were a couple of times that I was downright annoyed with the main character. At one point she describes meeting the father of her son: it was in college and she was very drunk and "he didn't even try anything". For goodness sakes, give the man a medal for not trying anything with an intoxicated young woman! Cue the eye rolls. Then there were a few times when Joanna describes herself as being completely inept when it comes to regular household or motherly chores: I can't even sew on a button properly. It was irritating. I don't mind a character that can't do everything and I assume the author was attempting to show that her character was flawed, and that's all well and good, but she shouldn't have so many flaws as to be unlikable.

I didn't care for this book, but it did lead to some interesting book club conversation, so I will give it that.