CANR

• All the Other Mothers Hate Me - 2025 G.P. Putnam's Sons, New York, NY

• Elle - https://www.elle.com/culture/books/a64221845/sarah-harman-motherhood-essay-2025/

  I Hid My Child to Keep My Dream Job
  To stay competitive as a TV correspondent, Sarah Harman made sure no one knew she was a mother.

  By Sarah HarmanPublished: Mar 27, 2025
  bookmarks
  Save Article
  Open share options
  a woman and a child facing the pacific ocean
  Courtesy of Sarah Harman

  Sarah Harman spent years as a TV news reporter, working tirelessly in a competitive industry that, she quickly learned, could replace you at a moment’s notice. So when she got the chance to have her dream job, she was convinced the way to succeed was to hide the fact that she was a new mother. “As a rookie, your main asset is your availability, your willingness to say ‘yes,’” she writes in the exclusive essay below. “I knew few people in their right mind would hire a rookie correspondent with a tiny baby. So I said nothing.” In 2021, Harman left broadcast news and changed careers; her debut novel, All the Other Mothers Hate Me, about a single mother forced to become a detective to save her young son, was released on March 11 and is being adapted for TV. Here, she revisits her TV years—and explains why she has no regrets.

  Advertisement - Continue Reading Below

  The moment I began to question my decision, I was in Indonesia, covering a tsunami. I was an international correspondent, reporting on the disaster for a U.S. TV network. My team—a producer, cameraman, and a local fixer—had decided to move inland, after a warning that a second wave might be on its way. My cell phone rang. It was my husband, back in London. Our son was 8 months old, and I could hear him crying in the background. “I think the baby has a fever,” my husband said. “I don’t know what to do.” I gazed out the car window at the watery landscape, imagining my husband in our apartment in the middle of the night. It was two days after Christmas—my son’s first Christmas, which I had missed to go cover this story. Panic gripped me.

  “How high is the temperature?” I hissed. Adrenaline was flooding my body. If anything happened, I’d never forgive myself. “Not that high,” my husband replied, backpedalling. “I’m just really tired. Maybe it’s fine?” My worry was immediately replaced by irritation. “You have to figure it out,” I snapped. “If you’re not sure, go to the emergency room. I can’t do anything from here.” Then I hung up.

  My producer looked at me. “Everything OK?” he asked, kindly. “Yup,” I lied. I didn’t say anything about my son being sick. How could I? No one knew he existed.

  Advertisement - Continue Reading Below
  What to Read Next
  It was always a gamble, keeping my son’s entire existence a secret. And to be fair, I hadn’t planned it that way. It just sort of… happened. By the time my son came along, I’d spent a decade climbing the slippery ladder of broadcast journalism. It’s an industry where female reporters and anchors are constantly being reminded that there’s always someone smarter, younger, or cheaper not just ready to replace you, but positively chomping at the bit for the chance.

  When I started interviewing for my dream job as a foreign correspondent for a major network, I didn’t mention that I was newly pregnant. The job was already such a long shot, I figured I didn’t need to give them one more reason not to hire me.

  This content is imported from instagram. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.
  Advertisement - Continue Reading Below

  A TV newsroom is a very hierarchical place. Correspondents compete against each other for airtime and the opportunity to cover big stories. As a rookie, your main asset is your availability, your willingness to say “yes”—to working every weekend, to covering all the holidays, to flying in to “babysit” a story until a bigger name correspondent can show up and take over. I knew few people in their right mind would hire a rookie correspondent with a tiny baby. So I said nothing.

  The day of the screen test, I stuffed my swollen feet into a pair of Jimmy Choos, pulled on a loose blazer, and hoped that everyone would assume I was just bloated. It worked; they invited me to New York for the next round of interviews. By that point, I was six months along, but due to my long torso, I looked more lumpy than pregnant. Plus, it was January. I wore a big coat. No one asked me when I was due, and I didn’t bring it up. The entire time, I was bracing for the moment HR would call me in for a chat, throw a knowing glance at my mid-section, and I would be forced to say, “Yeah, I’m actually pregnant.” But the moment never came. I flew home to Germany, where I was working as a news anchor, never having made my confession. The hiring process dragged on. By the time they made me an offer, we had negotiated the paperwork, and I’d gotten my U.K. visa, I’d not only given birth, but had enjoyed a decent maternity leave and was excited to be around adults again. My husband could see this was my dream job, and he was willing to be the default parent for a while. We packed up our apartment, hired a nanny, and boarded a plane for London: me, my husband, and our secret baby.

  Advertisement - Continue Reading Below

  To be sure, there are female TV correspondents who manage to have kids and still cover big international stories, like Clarissa Ward at CNN, one of my career idols. But she’s a singular talent, not to mention a big star with a shelf full of Emmys. I, on the other hand, was a newbie, a nobody—and determined not to let a baby get in the way of my dreams.

  “I knew few people in their right mind would hire a rookie correspondent with a tiny baby. So I said nothing.”
  At first, the “secret baby” strategy worked fine. Better than fine, actually. The new nanny was amazing, and my son, now nearly 5 months old, was thriving. My husband was enjoying having more time with him. And my new job was just as exciting as I hoped it would be. My new coworkers were talented and hardworking—the best in the business. I got a second passport and packed a little “go bag” that lived under my desk, so I could hop on a plane at the last minute. It actually helped that the role was completely all-consuming, because it made it easier to compartmentalize. Back home, my mom friends were pushing prams in circles around the park, while I was boarding last-minute flights from Heathrow, bound for disaster zones in Asia, plane crashes in Africa, and terror attacks in New Zealand. It felt like I was getting away with something, like I’d stumbled on the solution to a puzzle I’d wrestled with for the better part of my twenties: how to have the baby I desperately wanted and also keep my career and my identity.

  Advertisement - Continue Reading Below

  As the months passed, however, the adrenaline began to wear off and was replaced by a bone-weary exhaustion. Working across time zones, dealing with jetlag, and the pressure to be camera-ready at all times was hard enough. Throw in a secret baby who didn’t always sleep through the night—well, it was rough.

  Meanwhile, my son was becoming more of a person and less of a potato every day. It was hard not to gush to my colleagues about him, especially since I was beginning to forge real friendships with some of the producers and camera operators who I was spending long days with in the field, sharing hotels and cars and transatlantic flights. But after a certain point, there’s no easy way to casually mention, “By the way, I have a secret baby.” I was still self-aware enough to realize how cravenly ambitious the whole charade made me look. What kind of mother keeps her baby a secret to get ahead at work? A bad one, that’s who. I felt riddled with shame, like a liar. Which, objectively, I was. Plenty of women have no choice and have to return to work sooner than they want in order to support their families. But me? I was actively choosing this—choosing to leave. Not only that, but I was forcing my entire family to orient their lives around my ambition. “You’re so lucky,” friends would say, referring to my husband. “A lot of men wouldn’t go along that.” They meant it as praise, I think, but the implication was unmissable: What I wanted wasn’t normal. A good mother, I was convinced, would want to be at home with the baby all day. So I kept mine a secret.

  Advertisement - Continue Reading Below

  I was still convinced that my hard work would pay off one day. That’s the lesson we’re taught as young women, isn’t it? Hustle, grind, work yourself to the bone, and one day you’ll be rewarded. It would get easier, I told myself. Eventually, I would move up the ranks, have more standing to pick and choose assignments. But right now, I had to say yes to everything. That was the job. That was what I signed up for.

  a woman and a newborn
  Courtesy of Sarah Harman
  Advertisement - Continue Reading Below

  So when the bureau offered to send me to Los Angeles for several months, I didn’t hesitate. Professionally, it would be huge: I would get to cover earthquakes, mudslides, and maybe even some fun stuff, like the Oscars. Personally, it was not ideal. For starters, the corporate apartment where they housed visiting correspondents was a one-bedroom—a tricky situation for someone bringing along a husband, a secret baby, and a nanny. Still, I was convinced; it would all be worth it one day. So off to Los Angeles we went. My husband commuted back and forth between Los Angeles and Berlin, often rising at 3 A.M. to work on European time. We rented the nanny an Airbnb nearby our apartment and promised to fly her back to London for Christmas. I was essentially spending my entire salary on child care just to remain employed, but that’s the kind of career math women are often forced to do. Besides, I had already scarified too much—missed too much—to give up. Classic sunk cost fallacy, but I felt I had to stay the course.

  Then COVID happened. One minute, I was doing live shots at the arrivals hall in LAX, telling viewers about a mysterious new virus, and the next, I was back in London, trapped in my tiny apartment while the entire county went into lockdown. The bureau moved quickly, setting up the correspondents with lights and cameras so we could do live shots from home. Anyone who had to parent small kids through COVID while working from home has a horror story or two. But hiding a secret baby—now an active, mobile toddler—as our tiny apartment turned into TV studio? Well, it was nigh on impossible. As the boundaries between workplace and home collapsed, the barrier I had created between my personal life and my work life began to crumble. Then our nanny—the linchpin in this entire bonkers situation—resigned. I couldn’t blame her one bit: She had a pre-existing condition that required her to self-isolate for her own safety. It was impossible to hire another nanny mid-pandemic. With international travel shutting down, my husband, our toddler, and I were trapped on an island with no family support in the midst of a plague. My carefully constructed house of cards was falling. The months that followed were one long, horrible blur of Zoom calls, 5 P.M. gins, and hours of pushing my son around the ghost town of central London while dialing into bureau conference calls on mute. My husband and I passed the baby back and forth, shushing him during live shots, each of us trying to do the bare minimum required to remain employed, keep our son alive, and not completely lose our minds.

  Advertisement - Continue Reading Below

  When my contract ended, I was a shell of my former self. No one at the network fought to keep me. I was, as I had long suspected, very replaceable. There was no point trying to explain what was really going on, so I left, ashamed I hadn’t been able to make it work but deeply relieved that it was over. I took my secret with me.

  All the Other Mothers Hate Me
  All the Other Mothers Hate Me
  Now 48% Off
  $29 $15 at Amazon
  $24 $15 at Walmart
  While it might sound strange to admit, I don’t regret any of it. I always knew I was replaceable at work, because I watched countless other women be replaced before me—after they had kids and weren’t as flexible, or developed a chronic illness, or gained weight, or maybe just staked their fortunes to the wrong corporate overlord. I knew that a job would never love you back, and I wanted it anyway. And for a brief, shimmering moment, I had it all—a baby and my dream job—if only because no one knew what I was getting away with.

  Almost two years after I left, I worked up the courage to confess to my favorite producer—my “work wife,” who I had traveled all over the globe with—that I’d had a secret baby the whole time she’d known me. It was an awkward conversation, made only slightly easier by a generous amount of wine. But she responded with so much kindness and understanding, it almost made me wish I’d told her sooner. If I regret anything, it’s this: lying to other women who I came to consider friends; women who, as individuals, might have understood and supported me, even if the institution probably wouldn’t have.

  I wish we lived in a world where keeping your baby a secret didn’t seem like a semi-logical way for an ambitious woman to retain her career after motherhood. Even more, I wish I had been brave enough to work to change the workplace, rather than just try to claw my own way to the top. Mostly, I hope that whichever reporter took my place never feels like she has to do what I did to keep her job. And if she does, well, I hope my confession at least makes her feel a little less alone.

• Sarah Harman website - https://www.sarah-harman.com/

  I'm an American living in London. My debut novel, All the Other Mothers Hate Me, is being published in Spring 2025 by Putnam in the US and 4th Estate in the UK. Translation rights have sold to 15 countries and I’m currently working on a screen adaptation for FX with the guys who made The Bear.

  Before all my wildest dreams came true, I was a broadcast journalist and news anchor. I still own a lot of jewel-toned blazers.

• Weekend Edition Sunday - https://www.npr.org/2025/03/09/nx-s1-5071075/in-sarah-harmans-new-novel-a-hot-mess-of-a-mom-sets-out-to-find-her-sons-bully

  In Sarah Harman's new novel, a hot mess of a mom sets out to find her son's bully
  March 9, 20258:33 AM ET
  Heard on Weekend Edition Sunday
  Ayesha Rascoe, photographed for NPR, 2 May 2022, in Washington DC. Photo by Mike Morgan for NPR.
  Ayesha Rascoe

  6-Minute Listen
  Transcript
  A hot mess of a former pop singer becomes an unlikely detective when her son's classmate is kidnapped. NPR's Ayesha Rascoe talks with Sarah Harman about her novel, "All The Other Mothers Hate Me."

  Sponsor Message

  AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:

  Florence Grimes is a hot mess. She's shopping and about to shoplift a pricey outfit she thinks she needs when ping, ping, ping, ping, ping, her phone gets a rapid series of messages.

  SARAH HARMAN: (Reading) Emergency at school. Get here quick. My eyes dart across the screen, trying to make sense of what's happening. Police are on their way. A warm, woozy feeling washes over me. What's going on? I type. No one replies. There's a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. I try again. What is going on? But the other mothers just ignore me. The group chat goes silent. I throw my sweatshirt on top of the body suit and barge out of the dressing room, racing towards the escalator. My heart hammers in my chest as I pound out a text to Dylan on my phone. Are you OK? Text me back, I command, right away. I wipe the sweat from my forehead and stare at my phone, willing my son to reply. Last seen four hours ago, his profile taunts me.

  RASCOE: There's been a kidnapping at her 10-year-old son's London prep school. And over the next 300 pages or so, Florence will make a series of questionable choices in order to make sure he's safe. "All The Other Mothers Hate Me" is Sarah Harman's first novel, and she joins us now from the BBC. Welcome.

  HARMAN: Hi, Ayesha. Thank you so much for having me. I'm thrilled to be here.

  RASCOE: Why do all the other mothers hate Florence?

  HARMAN: I think Florence is somewhat of an unlikable protagonist, right? She's not like the other mothers at this ritzy London prep school that her child attends. For starters, she's a washed-up girl band singer. She's a decade younger than the other mothers. She doesn't really have a job. She's getting by making balloon arrangements that she sells to the rich moms of Holland Park. It's like that thing, Ayesha, that people say about child stars or people who get famous really young. She's sort of had an arrested development at the moment that she tasted fame, and she's been about 19 in her mind ever since, even though she's now 31 when the story kicks off. And she gets up to a series of hijinks, which you perfectly alluded to, once her son becomes a suspect in his classmate's mysterious disappearance.

  RASCOE: I was thinking about the other modern British literary hot messes, Rebecca Bloomwood, in "Confessions Of A Shopaholic," "Bridget Jones." How do you think Florence fits into that canon?

  HARMAN: As an author, I'm flattered to have her mentioned in the same sentence as any of those characters. I think Florence herself would think that she's a lot edgier and cooler than those women...

  RASCOE: (Laughter).

  HARMAN: ...Because she's kind of got a chip on her shoulder, at least at the beginning of the book. That said, I don't think that Florence has ever read a book in her life. So aside from watching the Bridget Jones movie, I'm not sure how many of them she would actually know.

  RASCOE: (Laughter) You're an American living in the U.K. In this book, Florence is an American living in the U.K. Because she's American, and for all the other reasons we've outlined, she's a bit of an outsider. Like, did you feel any connection to looking at British culture from the outside? Is that part of what you brought to the book?

  HARMAN: Yeah, absolutely. I felt like it was really interesting to have this outsider's perspective on this really rarified slice of society. The school that her son attends is an expensive private day school in London that's paid for by her ex-husband. Florence could never afford this school. It's such a class-obsessed society. And sometimes I feel like being an American here, you're, like, a neutral observer. Like, you're not really part of the class system. I moved here as an adult. Like, it's too late for me to get a British accent.

  So I'm just sort of on the outside looking in. And I tried to bring some of those observations to Florence, who also is American in the book and is looking at this society that she's never really going to fit in and be a part of. I think the difference is, Florence is completely uninterested in fitting in. She's happy being an outsider, whereas, I tried very hard to make friends with the other moms and not do some of the naughty things that Florence gets up to.

  RASCOE: She's a lot of things, Florence, but she loves her son, Dylan. Tell us about Dylan, though, 'cause Dylan's a little - he's a little bit different. He's a little quirky.

  HARMAN: Dylan's a little quirky, but come on, wouldn't you be if you were raised by Florence? Like, he didn't have much of a chance. He's 10 years old. He's a real do-gooder type. He has, I would say, a good heart. Because of the way other people perceive him, he gets bullied at school. But he's a good kid.

  RASCOE: Just very into, like, the environment, very protective of animals. And that's what kind of gets him into it with the school bully, Alfie. Tell us about that mystery at the center of the book, because Alfie goes missing.

  HARMAN: You know, I was really intrigued by the idea of these missing kids story. There's a lot of books and a lot of media and stories about missing kids, fact and fiction. It's clearly something as a culture that really gets under our skin, and I wanted to see if it was possible to kind of have a more lighthearted take on a missing kids story. And I know that might sound sacrilegious because, obviously, it can be a difficult topic. But...

  RASCOE: It's not heavy drama. It's, you know...

  HARMAN: Not heavy drama, right?

  RASCOE: Yes.

  HARMAN: Like, it's the lightest possible version, I think, of this story. Look, I was a news reporter for, like, 15 years. There's a lot of darkness in the world. When I started writing this book, I was like, I want the happy ending that we never get.

  RASCOE: But it's very twisty and turny. Like, she goes there with some of these decisions.

  HARMAN: She really does. And I thought it was important for her as a character because one of the things that I was interested in was, like, we see a lot of depictions in media. Like, the hard-boiled male detective and, you know, he's on the case, but he's really detached. He doesn't have any, like, feelings about it. And that's part of what makes him cool, is, like, he's looking at all this hard stuff and it doesn't touch him. And Florence is the opposite.

  She's incredibly invested, overly invested way beyond what would be appropriate or ethical, and I thought it was interesting to think about. Look, even if you're not a parent, you don't have to be a parent to appreciate this, but what would you not do for your absolute favorite person in the world? If you really thought they were in trouble, is there something that you would say, no, that's just a bridge too far. We all have someone that we just are not rational about and that we would go there for. And for Florence, that's her son, Dylan, and she does go there.

  RASCOE: (Laughter) That's Sarah Harman. Her debut novel is "All The Other Mothers Hate Me." Thank you so much for joining us.

  HARMAN: Ayesha, it was so fun. Thanks for talking with me.

• Lucy Cavendish College, University of Cambridge website - https://www.lucy.cam.ac.uk/blog/interview-2023-fiction-prize-winner-sarah-harman

  04 September 2024
  Interview with 2023 Fiction Prize winner Sarah Harman
  Sarah Harman
  Following a hugely successful auction, All The Other Mothers Hate Me will be published in 2025 in the UK and US, with international and television adaptations forthcoming.

  How and when did you get into writing?

  I always dreamt of writing a novel, but it was firmly in the ‘someday’ category for me. Most of my career was spent as a broadcast journalist, criss-crossing the globe covering breaking news stories for television. Throw in a small kid, and there wasn’t much time for creative pursuits. It wasn’t until late 2021, after I completely burned out and realised I needed a fresh start that I began working on what would become ALL THE OTHER MOTHERS HATE ME. So I guess you could say I put it off as long as I could!

  How did you hear about the Lucy Cavendish Fiction Prize and what made you enter?

  A friend from my writing group told me about the contest and I entered on a whim. I had read somewhere it was good for aspiring writers to practise ‘putting your work out there’ and that was definitely true in my case. Sending in my submission forced me to go back and fill in all the blanks in my manuscript where I had written TK TK TK (to come) or ‘more words go here’ and to really consider my writing from someone else’s perspective. I won’t lie, I was super intimidated by the idea of these famous writer judges reading my work, but I decided to just go for it, and I’m so glad I did.

  How did you feel when you were selected for the shortlist?

  Being selected for the shortlist gave me such an incredible boost. At the time, I was still deep in slog mode, grinding out the final chapters and questioning everything. The announcement really motivated me not to give up. I felt like, ‘Oh ok, maybe other people get what I’m trying to do. Maybe it’s not complete trash.’

  How did it feel to win?

  Oh gosh. Winning the Lucy Cavendish Fiction Prize was one of my top 5 best moments ever. I can’t even tell you how meaningful the recognition was to me at that point in my life. The announcement was made at this wonderful ceremony in Cambridge. I was so surprised, I burst out ugly crying, and then, the over-eager American that I am, threw my arms around one of the judges, Dame Rose Tremain, who was just incredibly gracious about the whole scene.

  Has being involved with the Fiction Prize helped your writing career?

  Winning the Fiction Prize changed everything. Suddenly the agents were reaching out to me! Even more importantly, I gained a whole community of fellow writers, past winners, and industry professionals. The other women on the shortlist – Amy, Smita, Carrie, Helen and Anna-– created a What’s App group, and now we share stories and advice and meet up in London every quarter or so to have dinner and talk about writing. Some of the past Lucy Cavendish winners who were already published gave me really valuable insight into the submissions process. Basically, it’s given me an incredible network of people I really admire, and I’m so grateful not to be alone anymore.

  What advice would you give other aspiring writers about their writing careers and then more specifically about entering the Fiction Prize?

  I’d like to offer some encouragement first: You can do it! Keep going! Finish your draft. Definitely enter the Fiction Prize, but don’t get too hung up on the outcome—try to just ‘send it and forget it.’ It’s good to practise putting your work out there, and you never know, it might just change your life.

Harman, Sarah ALL THE OTHER MOTHERS HATE ME Putnam (Fiction None) $29.00 3, 11 ISBN: 9780593851463

A former girl-band singer adrift in her life and career gets drawn into a missing persons case involving the "little shit" who's been bullying her 10-year-old son in this debut novel.

Florence Grimes isn't like the other mothers at St. Angeles, the posh London school her son, Dylan, attends. A divorcée and almost-pop star from Florida, she runs an online balloon delivery service and dreams of making a Mariah Carey-style comeback. Her going-nowhere-fast life suddenly gets turned upside down when Alfie Risby, heir to a frozen food fortune and her son's tormentor, goes missing during a school field trip. Dylan becomes a major person of interest in the investigation that follows; then Florence discovers Alfie's backpack in Dylan's room. Horror mounting, she reads one of Alfie's notebooks and learns that her son has made threats to kill his classmate. Readers are quickly pulled into the escalating drama by the sharp-tongued Florence, whose observations about the glossy St. Angeles "school mums" and their "anorexic whippet dog[s]," cheating husbands, and endless games of social one-upmanship are as unsparing as they are hilarious. Her commitment to protecting Dylan becomes the catalyst for her evolution into an amateur sleuth who stumbles across secrets so explosive they transform her and her son's lives forever. Sly red herrings and surprise reveals are par for the course in this tightly plotted story that, while it satirizes the British obsessions with appearance and class, also celebrates the power of personal redemption through love.

A smart, page-turning suspense novel debut.

Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2025 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Source Citation
Source Citation
MLA 9th Edition APA 7th Edition Chicago 17th Edition Harvard
"Harman, Sarah: ALL THE OTHER MOTHERS HATE ME." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Feb. 2025. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A827100949/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=16b6f0a0. Accessed 31 July 2025.

All the Other Mothers Hate Me. By Sarah Harman. Mar. 2025. 384p. Putnam, $29 (9780593851463); e-book (9780593851487).

Florence left a poor life in Florida for London via long, complicated means; she's a badly treated ex-member of a girl band, a divorced, single mother of 10-year-old Dylan, and totally out of place in the mothers group at his posh boys school. Since her divorce and ouster from the band, her life has been a total mess, except of course for Dylan. She has no life, she barely has an income, and her flat is held together with the aid of Adam, her policeman neighbor. When Alfie, a bully and her son's nemesis, disappears on a school trip, Florence keeps evidence that Dylan may be involved to herself. She and Jenny, another expat mom and tightly wound, Stanford-grad attorney, join together to investigate, though Florence doesn't share all. There are secret, illegitimate sons, lying, wealthy parents, and corruption on many levels, as well as Florence's sister's wedding. Florence's methods are neither conventional nor honorable, but in the end she is successful. This is a zany romp featuring a less-than-perfect character readers will root for.--Danise Hoover

Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2025 American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist/
Source Citation
Source Citation
MLA 9th Edition APA 7th Edition Chicago 17th Edition Harvard
Hoover, Danise. "All the Other Mothers Hate Me." Booklist, vol. 121, no. 11-12, Feb. 2025, pp. 31+. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A846924672/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=2c7f9dd0. Accessed 31 July 2025.

* All the Other Mothers Hate Me

Sarah Harman. Putnam, $29 (384p) ISBN 978-0-593-85146-3

Journalist Harman debuts with a funny, fast-paced blend of domestic thriller and social satire. Former girl group singer Florence "Flo" Grimes, now a hot mess of a single mom, is painfully aware that she and her 10-year-old son, Dylan, are pariahs at his posh North London school, St. Angeles--and that's before the frequently bullied boy becomes the prime suspect in the disappearance of his main tormentor. "The missing boy is ten-year-old Alfie Risby," Flo narrates in the novel's opening sentence, "and to be perfectly honest with you, he's a little shit." But her schadenfreude is tempered by mounting suspicion that Dylan, at minimum, knows more about the incident than he's letting on. When cops show up to question Dylan, Flo has already sent him for an extended visit with her ex-husband, deciding the best way to clear his name will be to solve the mystery herself. Unfortunately, her skill set--which includes passably covering the Mariah Carey canon--seems woefully inadequate for sleuthing, which makes her new, fellow American friend Jenny Choi a godsend, given Jenny's still-burning teen dream of being a PI. It's not all diet gin-and-tonics and giggles for the pair, though--especially once their digging turns up dirty secrets about Alfie's parents and St. Angeles itself. Harman's winning protagonist, page-turning plot, and delightfully irreverent tone will have readers clamoring for a sequel. Agent: Alyssa Reuben, WME. (Mar.)

Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2024 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Source Citation
Source Citation
MLA 9th Edition APA 7th Edition Chicago 17th Edition Harvard
"All the Other Mothers Hate Me." Publishers Weekly, vol. 271, no. 48, 16 Dec. 2024, p. 43. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A820624807/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=50541ae4. Accessed 31 July 2025.

Harman, Sarah. All the Other Mothers Hate Me. Putnam. Mar. 2025. 384p. ISBN 9780593851463. $29. THRILLER

DEBUT Harman's first novel introduces readers to Florence Grimes, a 31-year-old American expat living in London who is jobless years after experiencing the end of her girl band career. She has chosen to live life by the seat of her pants; her way of life and her perceptions of others are laughable, as she's unable to see her own faults. The only thing that keeps her going is her 10-year-old son, Dylan, who's enrolled in a prestigious, private school for boys. When her son's bully, Alfie, goes missing, she is worried about her son's possible involvement in his disappearance, so she goes into supermom mode by trying to secretly solve the mystery with the help of another mother from the school. As she noses her way into the privileged lives of the parents and school administrators, Florence endangers and incriminates herself in the process and will face a moral decision that could compromise herself and her son's status. Harman creates a unique main character who experiences significant growth and moral life lessons along the way, which will have readers rooting for her triumph in the end. VERDICT This thriller debut will add flair to libraries' crime fiction sections.--Lacey Webster

Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2024 A wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
http://www.libraryjournal.com/
Source Citation
Source Citation
MLA 9th Edition APA 7th Edition Chicago 17th Edition Harvard
Webster, Lacey. "Harman, Sarah. All the Other Mothers Hate Me." Library Journal, vol. 149, no. 12, Dec. 2024, p. 71. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A820431070/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=08ae397d. Accessed 31 July 2025.

"Harman, Sarah: ALL THE OTHER MOTHERS HATE ME." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Feb. 2025. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A827100949/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=16b6f0a0. Accessed 31 July 2025. Hoover, Danise. "All the Other Mothers Hate Me." Booklist, vol. 121, no. 11-12, Feb. 2025, pp. 31+. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A846924672/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=2c7f9dd0. Accessed 31 July 2025. "All the Other Mothers Hate Me." Publishers Weekly, vol. 271, no. 48, 16 Dec. 2024, p. 43. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A820624807/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=50541ae4. Accessed 31 July 2025. Webster, Lacey. "Harman, Sarah. All the Other Mothers Hate Me." Library Journal, vol. 149, no. 12, Dec. 2024, p. 71. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A820431070/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=08ae397d. Accessed 31 July 2025.

Word Count