{My thoughts} – Kate finds herself considering the possibility of joining a mommy and me group with her daughter. She happened to have run into the co-founders while shopping for baby things. They invited her on a cruise that the moms and dads would be attending in order to give her the opportunity to get to know the other members and a feel for the group.

Kate and Jim go on the cruise and wouldn’t you know someone ends up dead. She isn’t well liked by the officers that are assigned the case and they make it known when she’s being questioned.

I really enjoyed this book. It was fairly jumpy when it came to the back and forth and trying to figure out who could have done it and why, but in the end everything was wonderfully pulled together.

I am looking forward to reading the next book in the series. ( )

I have not read the first book in this series, but for the most part, I was not confused during this book because of that. I did struggle a bit with trying to understand why new mom Kate wants to be a P.I. when her daughter is only a couple months old, but . . .perhaps that is better explained in the first book. I do think I have that book on my Amazon reading list.

Kate is asked to join a mother's group. Her introduction to most of the members comes on a dinner cruise where the husbands, but not the children, are included. Sadly, the mother's group seems to be mostly one-upsmanship. (Did you child do this at this age? Is your child going to the right swim class or preschool? etc.) Also, so many characters and their husbands are introduced to me at once, that it was sometimes hard to remember who was married to whom. However, I thought the author did a good job of showing a first-time mother's struggles with parenting.

During the cruise, one of the ladies dies. Another of the ladies hires Kate to find out if her husband is having an affair--which somehow to Kate also means that she gets to investigate the death of Helene. I did like that this author doesn't make the police out to be incompetent and that Kate doesn't necessarily feel that the police can't solve the case without her help.

As Kate gets more serious about becoming a P.I., she gets another P.I. (who is dating her mother) to sponsor her and supervise her while she learns the trade.

I will go back and look for book 1 of this series and I will also be looking for book 3. ( )

This was an entertaining, cozy-style mystery, probably of most interest to fairly new mothers, since various aspects of mommy-culture feature here- especially for humor.

The humor resides mostly in satire on snobbish mommy culture- like the swimming pool for which one has to apply practically upon conception to get a slot in their classes. And better think about applying for the prestigious preschool ASAP! It has a subtle but snarky attitude toward boutique baby-rearing, and that is fun.

Unfortunately, the characters don't live up to the premise. Kate regularly asks her husband- Laurie's actual father- to "babysit" his own child. This annoys me greatly. When dads care for their kids, it's called "parenting", not "babysitting"! Similarly, if Jim is not drugging the kid, I do not see how Laurie could sleep as much as she does- basically to keep her out of Kate's hair when Kate is meddling in mysteries.

I did rather like Kate's mom- after her husband died, she's taken a new lease on life and is dating TWO hunks of her own age! You go!

The other mommies in the group, though were a pretty sad lot, and the dads were worse. No one seemed to care about much of anything, so all their reactions seemed arbitrary. The eventual resolution fit, but because of this was not especially satisfying.

It's not a bad book, and recent mothers will probably like it more than I did because it will relate more to their experiences. ( )

I love it when a book is exactly what I'm looking for-- in this case, a cute, fun mystery.The mystery (murder in a moms' group, oh my!) was cleanly executed, but the main reason to read this is the same as pretty much any cozy-- the characters.Kate Connolly is amazingly on the ball for a new mom, although she has a fairly easy baby, particularly when dad is holding down the fort. Still, it's fun to read the ever-changing lists, and the concerns about 2 month old baby milestones. I found Kate to be a great balance of self-absorbed, baby-absorbed, and thinking about other people. She wants to be a PI because it fits in with her desired lifestyle (home with the baby), but it works because she's genuinely interested in people, and that comes through in her job performance.Kate's mom and her friend Paula are secondary characters that I'm looking forward to seeing more of in future books. Her husband was a little boring, but that's OK. Every kooky detective needs a sane sidekick somewhere!The whole book is a little goofy without being over the top, which made for an entertaining read. ( )

This is the second book in the Maternal Instincts series, which means that Kate's baby, Laurie is now two months old, which is also approximately how long Kate has been an amateur P.I.

She stumbles on her case when she gets invited to check out a mommy group when the group goes on a rare child-free outing - a dinner cruise. However, the event ends in disaster when one of the mommies ends up dead. One of the other mommies hires Kate to find out what happened, mistakenly believing that Kate is a full-fledged, licensed P.I.

I really enjoyed the first book in the series, so I had been looking forward to this book. What a disappointment.

There were four couples in the mommy group, and one of the suspected motives becomes adultery, with every mommy pointing out every possible combo, which made it confusing to remember who the actual original couples were. Eventually, I just gave up trying.

It's also getting increasingly annoying that Kate CONSTANTLY calls her daughter ridiculous nicknames like "Lemon Drop" and "Peanuty Pie." It's as if she doesn't know her daughter's name. Meanwhile, the husband isn't all that helpful - he doesn't know how to warm up the pumped breast milk, he doesn't know how to bathe the baby - I think this is supposed to be comedic, but it isn't.

The third book comes out next week, and I'll read it as the tie-breaker in the hopes that this book was a sophomore slump. ( )