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Wanting a baby. Having a baby. Being barren. The most intimate and meaningful events in many women's lives are pregnancy and the birth of a child. Peyton Somerset is 39 years old, successful in her advertising career and comfortable in her New York City apartment. She's just conceived and is thrilled. There's no guy in the picture, but that's OK, Peyton is capable, organized and centered. If it sounds like a recipe for disaster when it comes to suspense and mystery fiction, you are right. The tension begins on page one with a prologue that will send shivers down your spine - a pregnant 15-year-old girl is abducted from the mall, just days before she is due to deliver. What you might expect to be yet another female victim, stalker suspense thriller turns out to be a compelling novel, well-written and excellently plotted and with a strong female protagonist who will not be victimized. Each chapter of LULLABY AND GOODNIGHT is a month of Peyton's pregnancy. As Peyton's belly grows large with child, so does the tension and pacing of the novel. Month One is February and in the winter chill, Peyton's excitement and anticipation and relief at finally being pregnant fills the pages. Corsi's mastery is evident as several subplots are introduced in the first chapter - a Derry and Linden Cordell who can't conceive, Anne Marie Egerton who has triplets and a fearsome secret and finally a frightening and anonymous presence who threatens some single and pregnant woman. With each chapter the tension grows, and the threats which at first are subtle and vague, become clearer and stronger and more malevolent. Peyton is wise to the streets of the city and is wary of strangers and friends who offer help. She is independent and strong, selective in her affections and slow to trust others. Peyton surrounds herself with life and support and friends, becoming surer and stronger as her time draws near. But her life is invaded in small and scary ways. And it isn't just Peyton who is threatened, but Peyton's labor coach (also pregnant) disappears and Derry becomes increasingly obsessed with wanting a child, and Anne Marie Egerton's secret past looms larger into her future. How are the stories of each woman related? So where is the threat coming from? Who is the anonymous, crazed voice that becomes louder and more insistent in each chapter? By the eighth month, Peyton's pregnancy is huge and the tension is almost overwhelming. The last month of pregnancy and the last chapter of the novel brings together the story lines as Peyton screams through her labor pains. LULLABY AND GOODNIGHT is Staub's eighth suspense novel, all standalones that feature women in danger. This novel, as were Staub's earlier works, is well clued and so the careful reader may be able to reason out connections and threads. Staub uses several pseudonyms to write in other genres including a great chick lit line, young adult fiction, romance, horror and non-fiction.
Reviewed by Maureen Battistella, June 2005
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