Cutting Teeth

Bestseller Baker (The Husbands) takes readers on a stomach-dropping emotional roller coaster in this suspenseful and darkly comic tale of motherhood and murder. At first, the parents of RiverRock Church’s private preschool students are overjoyed when young Miss Erin Ollie, with her perpetual smile and PhD in child development, joins the faculty. However, their initial enthusiasm wanes as some of the four-year-olds in her class begin exhibiting a morbid fascination with biting and consuming blood. Before long, Miss Ollie is found dead in the school’s supply room with a pair of scissors protruding from her neck, and police zero in on her students and their protective mothers as the primary suspects. Three of those mothers narrate: there’s Rhea, who sells homeopathic remedies online; Darcy, once a high-powered executive, now an overqualified crisis manager for the county; and Mary Beth, who has dedicated her entire life to parenting her two daughters. Baker’s descriptions of the joys and trials of raising children bolster the mystery at the book’s core. With winning cynicism, she delivers a wicked thriller that doubles as a glimpse at motherhood’s dark underbelly. (July)