Call Me Mummy by Tina Baker @TinaBakerBooks @ViperBooks #blogtour #bookreview #CallMeMummy

Wooooooo hoooooooo!!! I’m thrilled to be welcoming the blog tour for Tina Baker’s debut novel Call Me Mummy (not to be confused with the Carly Rae Jepson hit Call Me, Maybe – totally different message)….

Massive thanks to Sahina Bibi for inviting me on the blog tour and to Viper Books for my advanced reader copy of Call Me Mummy. I also bought myself a copy from Amazon.

The Blurb

HIS MOTHER’S DAY YOU WILL CALL HER MUMMY

Glamorous, beautiful Mummy has everything a woman could want. Except for a daughter of her very own. So when she sees Kim – heavily pregnant, glued to her phone and ignoring her eldest child in a busy shop – she does what anyone would do. She takes her. But foul-mouthed little Tonya is not the daughter that Mummy was hoping for.

As Tonya fiercely resists Mummy’s attempts to make her into the perfect child, Kim is demonised by the media as a ‘scummy mummy’, who deserves to have her other children taken too. Haunted by memories of her own childhood and refusing to play by the media’s rules, Kim begins to spiral, turning on those who love her.

Though they are worlds apart, Mummy and Kim have more in common than they could possibly imagine. But it is five-year-old Tonya who is caught in the middle…

CALL ME MUMMY. IT’LL BE BETTER IF YOU DO.

What Did I Think?

What happened to Kim is MY WORST NIGHTMARE!!!!!!! I am paranoid when I take my boys shopping. I’ll admit one of them did wander off and it was the worst minute of my life!!!

I loved the split dialogue. Getting inside Mummy’s head was interesting. Se is very influenced by her upbringing (as we all are) but I personally didn’t feel that was a positive. She’s desperate to prove she’s a good mum at all costs. It does beg the question, does everyone have it in them to be a parent? Is it just a matter of wanting it or is there some magical gene that makes you a parent?

Kim, what do I say? She’s got problems and that’s before Tonya disappears. The media spotlight exacerbates these and highlights everything she does as you’d expect in this current culture. Everyone has an opinion on Kim and her behaviour but only we the reader know what’s going on in her head which is a mess!

Baker has written a twisted tense thriller that would be any parent’s nightmare. She’s curated the emotional journey of both Mummy and Kim brilliantly. I was invested in this story, hooked to see what Mummy would do next to attain Tonya’s affection and obedience. This book is yet another cracking debut for 2021 and Baker is one to watch. Please say there is a book 2 in the pipeline??! 🤞🤞🤞

Who Is Tina Baker?

Tina was brought up in a caravan after her mother, a fairground traveller, fell pregnant by a window cleaner. After leaving the bright lights of Coalville, she came to London and worked as a journalist and broadcaster for thirty years. She’s probably best known as a television critic for the BBC and GMTV. Call Me Mummy is Tina’s first novel, partly inspired by her own unsuccessful attempts to have a child. Despite the grief and disappointment of that, she hasn’t stolen one. So far.