Review of Deceptive Calm
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Abnel A Ongaga
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Review of Deceptive Calm
[Following is a volunteer review of "Deceptive Calm" by Patricia Skipper.]
I went into Deceptive Calm expecting a smart domestic thriller—some slow-burn secrets, a polished world with cracks just beginning to show. And I got that, sure. But what I didn’t expect, or maybe hadn’t braced for, was how deeply it would hinge on something as intimate and, honestly, as loaded as motherhood. Vanessa starts the story as someone who seems barely tethered to her own life. Beautiful, composed, married into old money—her survival depends on stillness. But the moment Brett arrives, that stillness starts to fracture. I kept thinking about how her decision to breastfeed, despite Tod’s disgust and her mother-in-law’s judgment, wasn’t even framed as a moment of rebellion. It was small, almost quiet. But it was the first time we see her push back, not for herself, but for her son. It was a shift. A thread being pulled.
What the book does well is show how motherhood doesn’t just change Vanessa emotionally—it redefines her entire sense of self. She goes from existing in a life curated for her to actively shaping one. Her son isn’t just a character device, either. Brett’s presence forces choices. When she discovers the truth about his blood disorder, and how it exposes her own hidden lineage, she doesn’t collapse. She breaks—but in a way that sharpens her. I think the story really hit me when she started risking everything, not to save her marriage, but to save Brett’s future. Escaping to Big Sur, enduring the crash, dragging herself and her child out of the ocean—none of that happens without the urgency of motherhood lighting the way.
By the end, watching Vanessa step into her own voice, testify, and be publicly vindicated—it delivers. Not because it was unexpected, but because the journey to that moment felt so earned. Seeing Tod and Alexander arrested while Vanessa stood with Trisha and Barry, surrounded by the wreckage but still holding her ground—that felt like a release. I mean, I think I actually exhaled. The justice was clean. Probably too clean, if I’m being honest. The kind of ending where the villains are neatly scooped up and the damage feels conveniently contained. In real life, powerful men like that rarely see handcuffs, let alone prison bars. So part of me, the skeptical part, wasn’t sure how to sit with that. But the other part—the reader who’d followed Vanessa through trauma, silence, sabotage, and survival—needed that moment. Maybe needed the win more than the realism.
The novel’s strength lies in how deeply it leans into emotional truth, even when the plot tidies itself a bit too much. It doesn’t flinch when it comes to racism and class, especially in the way Vanessa’s identity as a biracial woman is concealed, erased, then weaponized by her husband’s family. The sickle cell twist wasn’t just medically clever—it was symbolic. The body revealing what society tried to bury. That hit hard. I do think, though, that the book sometimes leans too much into its messaging. A few passages felt like statements rather than scenes. Like I could hear the author behind the curtain, nudging me to feel something specific. It didn’t ruin anything for me, but I did notice it.
Still, those moments didn’t take away from the whole. I kept turning pages, I kept caring, and when I finished, I felt like I’d gone somewhere with Vanessa—through something. That matters. I’m giving it 5 out of 5 stars, even if it was a little too neat in the end. Because the emotional mess—the betrayal, the fear, the fierce love of a mother trying to keep her child alive in a world that keeps telling her to sit down and be quiet—was anything but neat. And that part stayed with me.
******
Deceptive Calm
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon
I went into Deceptive Calm expecting a smart domestic thriller—some slow-burn secrets, a polished world with cracks just beginning to show. And I got that, sure. But what I didn’t expect, or maybe hadn’t braced for, was how deeply it would hinge on something as intimate and, honestly, as loaded as motherhood. Vanessa starts the story as someone who seems barely tethered to her own life. Beautiful, composed, married into old money—her survival depends on stillness. But the moment Brett arrives, that stillness starts to fracture. I kept thinking about how her decision to breastfeed, despite Tod’s disgust and her mother-in-law’s judgment, wasn’t even framed as a moment of rebellion. It was small, almost quiet. But it was the first time we see her push back, not for herself, but for her son. It was a shift. A thread being pulled.
What the book does well is show how motherhood doesn’t just change Vanessa emotionally—it redefines her entire sense of self. She goes from existing in a life curated for her to actively shaping one. Her son isn’t just a character device, either. Brett’s presence forces choices. When she discovers the truth about his blood disorder, and how it exposes her own hidden lineage, she doesn’t collapse. She breaks—but in a way that sharpens her. I think the story really hit me when she started risking everything, not to save her marriage, but to save Brett’s future. Escaping to Big Sur, enduring the crash, dragging herself and her child out of the ocean—none of that happens without the urgency of motherhood lighting the way.
By the end, watching Vanessa step into her own voice, testify, and be publicly vindicated—it delivers. Not because it was unexpected, but because the journey to that moment felt so earned. Seeing Tod and Alexander arrested while Vanessa stood with Trisha and Barry, surrounded by the wreckage but still holding her ground—that felt like a release. I mean, I think I actually exhaled. The justice was clean. Probably too clean, if I’m being honest. The kind of ending where the villains are neatly scooped up and the damage feels conveniently contained. In real life, powerful men like that rarely see handcuffs, let alone prison bars. So part of me, the skeptical part, wasn’t sure how to sit with that. But the other part—the reader who’d followed Vanessa through trauma, silence, sabotage, and survival—needed that moment. Maybe needed the win more than the realism.
The novel’s strength lies in how deeply it leans into emotional truth, even when the plot tidies itself a bit too much. It doesn’t flinch when it comes to racism and class, especially in the way Vanessa’s identity as a biracial woman is concealed, erased, then weaponized by her husband’s family. The sickle cell twist wasn’t just medically clever—it was symbolic. The body revealing what society tried to bury. That hit hard. I do think, though, that the book sometimes leans too much into its messaging. A few passages felt like statements rather than scenes. Like I could hear the author behind the curtain, nudging me to feel something specific. It didn’t ruin anything for me, but I did notice it.
Still, those moments didn’t take away from the whole. I kept turning pages, I kept caring, and when I finished, I felt like I’d gone somewhere with Vanessa—through something. That matters. I’m giving it 5 out of 5 stars, even if it was a little too neat in the end. Because the emotional mess—the betrayal, the fear, the fierce love of a mother trying to keep her child alive in a world that keeps telling her to sit down and be quiet—was anything but neat. And that part stayed with me.
******
Deceptive Calm
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon
