The Better Mother by Jennifer van der Kleut
Author Interview + Book & Author Info + Author Pet Corner!
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The Better Mother
A modern spin on Fatal Attraction meets The Hand that Rocks the Cradle, perfect for fans of The Last Mrs. Parrish.
Still recovering from a devastating breakup, 34-year-old Savannah Mitchell has finally managed to put her life back together when she gets the shock of her life—after a brief fling with a man named Max, she is pregnant.
When she gets in touch to tell him, he reveals that he’s just gotten back together with his ex, Madison, and he will need time to break it to her. Surprisingly, Madison isn’t upset—in fact, she’s excited, and wants to help.
Max insists Madison has the best of intentions, but Savannah finds her efforts—popping by uninvited, demanding lifestyle changes, and pretty much trying to take over the pregnancy—anything but helpful. When Savannah finally stands up for herself, Madison’s treatment of her goes from casually cruel to downright dangerous.
All Savannah wanted to do was form a friendly co-parenting relationship with the father of her child—but his new girlfriend obviously has much more sinister plans in mind.
She has no plans to co-parent at all.
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The Better Mother — Interview with Author Jennifer van der Kleut
The Better Mother centers on Savannah Mitchell. What would you like readers to know about her that they can’t find in the book description?
Savannah, 34, grew up without a father. Her father left her mother when she was just a baby, so she has no memories of him. When she finds out she’s pregnant, she is bolstered by the idea that maybe Max will want to be in his child’s life. It becomes very important to her, and because of that, she probably puts up with more than she should when things get tense between the two of them and Max’s girlfriend Madison, in an effort to keep the peace and keep Max wanting to be a father to their child.
What drew you to writing about an unexpected pregnancy, and the dynamic between the mother and the father’s girlfriend in The Better Mother? That’s a new twist on an old tale!
One of my guilty pleasures is reading the Reddit thread “Am I The A**hole.” One day I came across a post by a pregnant woman asking for advice with a similar situation—she was unexpectedly pregnant after a short relationship, but the father had already gotten back together with his ex in the time since they had separated, and she was becoming overbearing and controlling.
The very idea of such a tense triangle gave me goosebumps, and it immediately sparked the idea for a thriller novel.
Tell us about your road to publication with The Better Mother:
It was pretty traditional. I attended a few professional writing workshops in early 2023 that helped me hone the idea for The Better Mother, make an outline, and get me started drafting. Once I was finished with the early draft I hired a professional editor to help me smooth out the bumps and tighten it up, and then I was ready to start querying literary agents in April of 2024.
It all happened pretty quickly from there—I signed with a literary agent in August of that year, went on sub to publishers in September, and received my first offer of publication in November. I can’t believe the day is finally here that my book will be in bookstores! It’s incredibly exciting.
How does your experience as a journalist impact your fiction?
As I’m sure you can imagine, the two types of writing are opposites in almost every way. Writing news is strictly about facts, and you have to completely remove all emotion from it, whereas writing fiction is all about using your imagination and creativity, and relying heavily on emotional stakes to drive your story.
But the one journalism skill that really benefits me in my fiction writing is being able to hone in on what will interest the reader the most—what will hook them and keep them reading. It’s not only important in fiction writing (especially with thrillers) but it’s also very important as a journalist. In today’s digital world, attention spans are shorter than ever. If you can’t hook a reader in the first paragraph of your article, they will quickly scroll on to the next thing.
What can we find you doing when you aren’t penning twisty suspense?
Spending time with my husband and my two teenage sons (when they want to spend time with of course!). I also have a great group of girlfriends that live in my neighborhood that I love hanging out with, and we have a book club of our own.
As a former musician I adore going to concerts and theater shows of all kinds, and of course, I love to read. In addition to reading mysteries and thrillers I also love romance, historical fiction, and witchy/magical realism.
What are you working on now?
I actually just turned in my option book to Crooked Lane earlier this month, so I’m eagerly waiting to hear what they think of it. It’s a thriller tentatively titled EVEN IF IT KILLS ME about a celebrity journalist who gets caught up in a huge scandal that leaves one person dead.
Though I didn’t write a lot of celebrity news, it was fun to write a main character who is a reporter and to borrow some tales from my old newsroom days. And I’m already in the process of outlining the idea for my next thriller after that, but I’m taking my time with that one because I really want to slow down and enjoy my debut launch!
Words of Wisdom for Aspiring Writers:
Authors are such an amazing worldwide community. I feel very lucky to have met so many other authors, particularly those in the thriller/mystery genre, who are so generous with their advice and tips. So I highly recommend immersing yourself in the writing community.
I also think it’s incredibly important to seek out professional feedback in whatever way you can—someone who has industry experience and will give you honest, objective feedback on your writing or your novel concept. Friends and family are wonderful supports, but they tend to sugarcoat things for us, and they don’t work in the industry.
Lastly, is to prepare yourself for that brutally honest feedback, and to remember that no matter how many Nos you may get, it doesn’t mean your Yes isn’t right around the corner. I got several rejections for The Better Mother that were hard to swallow, right before I got several interested parties who loved it. You never know who, how, or where—and what one editor doesn’t like, could be exactly what another editor has been searching for.
Great Advice!
Author Pet Corner!
My oldest son has a gorgeous, long-haired guinea pig named Sylvie!
She came to us during Covid as a wonderful companion that helped him through the lonely days of lockdown, and five years later, she’s still with us.
The Better Mother Author Jennifer van der Kleut
Jennifer began her writing journey at the age of 10 when she started her own neighborhood newspaper, “The Santa Clara Times,” printed it herself, and walked up and down her street, passing it out to all the neighbors. She graduated from the School of Journalism, Mass Communications, and Public Relations at San Jose State University in Northern California, and went on to have a ten-year career as a journalist. Her works have appeared in countless print and digital publications including the the Huffington Post, the San Jose Mercury News, Silicon Valley Community Newspapers, AOL, Patch, Silicon Valley Accent Magazine, and Alexandria Living Magazine, among others, and has had several articles picked up or quoted by the Washington Post.
She is a 2005 recipient of the Peninsula Press Club Award for Feature Story of a Serious Nature, and a 2013 recipient of AOL’s “Must Read” Award for Enterprise Reporting. She also worked as a Web Editor & Producer for WJLA, the Washington, D.C. affiliate of ABC7 News, before leaving the news industry in 2014.
Since then, she has worked in small business management and marketing at the Washington, D.C. area’s busiest winery, The Winery at Bull Run.
Jennifer started work drafting her debut novel, THE BETTER MOTHER, in March of 2023 after attending the Algonkian Writers Retreat with Michael Neff. She began querying literary agents in April 2024, and was offered representation by fellow thriller writer Jenna Satterthwaite of the Storm Literary Agency at the end of July. THE BETTER MOTHER went on submission to publishing houses in late September, and excitingly, received its first offer exactly two months later, leading to an auction.
The Better Mother is due out in February 2026 with Crooked Lane Books (distributed by Penguin Random House).
Jennifer grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area and currently lives in Northern Virginia, just outside Washington, D.C., with her husband and two sons.
