Love, Mom

Love, Mom (2024) is the debut novel by American author Iliana Xander. The novel is a psychological thriller that follows Mackenzie Casper, a college student living in the shadow of her mother, world-renowned thriller writer E. V. Renge. When Mackenzie’s mother dies suddenly, Mackenzie receives a series of letters that lead her to uncover a decades-long conspiracy that challenges everything she knows about her mother and her family. Major themes in the novel include The Complex Nature of Grief and Trauma, The Fickle Reality of Literary Fame, and Nature and Nurture in Personal Development.

This guide refers to the 2024 e-book edition.

Content Warning: The source material and guide feature depictions of illness, death, child death, graphic violence, child sexual abuse, emotional abuse, physical abuse, mental illness, suicidal ideation, addiction, substance use, sexual content, and cursing.

Plot Summary

In the Prologue, an anonymous speaker reads the obituary of Elizabeth Casper, also known as E. V. Renge, and wishes that she had died sooner. After sneaking out of her mother’s funeral, Mackenzie Casper finds a letter in her car claiming to be from Renge’s number-one fan. Inside, she finds pages ripped from a diary in her mother’s handwriting. The diary describes Elizabeth’s traumatic adolescence in foster care and her first meeting with her future husband, Ben, and it also vaguely refers to a mysterious woman who ruined Elizabeth’s life. At a post-funeral reception, Mackenzie overhears Ben telling his mother, Evelyn, that Elizabeth’s death may have been a long-overdue murder.

At college, Mackenzie struggles with her classmates’ fascination with her mother’s career, and she recalls being annoyed when a professor named Robertson once assigned her class a project on E. V. Renge. She receives a second diary entry in which Elizabeth reveals that three boys assaulted her while they were in foster care together. The boys died in a barn fire a month later. Mackenzie’s best friend, EJ, confirms the story via an online search. Mackenzie arrives home to find her father digging through her mother’s office. Ben drunkenly reveals that Elizabeth was having an affair behind his back. The next morning, Mackenzie receives another diary entry revealing that, while in college, another foster care resident named Tonya Shaffer stalked Elizabeth and claimed to have proof about her involvement with the barn fire.

Mackenzie and EJ search Elizabeth’s office and find evidence that she was being blackmailed, along with a framed photo of a man whom Mackenzie recognizes from her mother’s funeral. Then, a creditor from a company called Huckleberry Supplies calls the home about an overdue bill. A new diary also entry reveals that Ben cheated on Elizabeth with Tonya in college. Mackenzie realizes that one of her mother’s books is likely based on this experience and begins to wonder if Elizabeth killed Tonya because of the affair.

Mackenzie becomes obsessed with the diary entries, especially those concerned with Elizabeth’s difficult pregnancy. The entries reveal that Ben continued his affair with Tonya throughout the pregnancy, and when Elizabeth confronted Tonya about the affair, Tonya claimed that she was seeking revenge for the death of her former boyfriend, Brandon, who died in the barn fire. Devastated about the affair, Elizabeth sought comfort from her friend John, a fellow student and bartender. Mackenzie and EJ decide to travel to Brimmville, the location of Elizabeth’s foster home, and visit a housekeeper who was questioned in the barn fire investigation. On the way to the airport, another diary entry is left in Mackenzie’s car, and it describes a violent fight between Ben and John two weeks before Mackenzie’s birth.

Mackenzie and EJ arrive in Nebraska and find Keller Foster Care abandoned. They drive to the home of the care home’s former housekeeper, Dianne Jacobson, who immediately recognizes Mackenzie as Elizabeth’s daughter. Dianne says that the girl she knew was quiet but brilliant and confirms that Elizabeth was assaulted in 10th grade. She suggests that Tonya was obsessed with Elizabeth, not one of the boys who assaulted her. She seems to believe that the fire may have simply been a prank gone wrong. Before leaving, Elizabeth gives Dianne a copy of her mother’s first book. Shocked, Dianne claims that the woman in the author photo is not Elizabeth but Tonya.

Twenty-one years earlier, Ben is pursuing an affair with Tonya, who tells him that Elizabeth Dunn killed her boyfriend in a barn fire out of jealousy. She convinces Ben to marry Elizabeth and steal her money. When Elizabeth confronts Ben at Tonya’s cabin and tries to break up with him, she goes into labor. Tonya insists on delivering the baby and keeping the weak and ill Elizabeth at the cabin until Elizabeth agrees to share her future novel profits. The narrative reveals that Tonya encouraged two boys to assault Elizabeth in their group home but was furious and jealous when Brandon joined in.

Tonya attempts to sneak into Elizabeth’s apartment, but Grunger, the superintendent of the building, with whom she has been sleeping for access to the apartment, stops her. She steals the manuscripts for Elizabeth’s novels-in-progress. When Elizabeth’s agent calls the apartment with news of a book deal, Tonya decides to fly to New York and act as Elizabeth to secure the deal. The plan disturbs Ben, but ultimately, he decides that he is too in love with Tonya to object. When Elizabeth begins writing again, Tonya decides to keep her alive to continue stealing her work.

In the present, Mackenzie realizes that the woman she knew as her mother was really Tonya. She returns home to find her father, her grandmother, her mother’s agent, and the mystery man from the funeral arguing. When Mackenzie confronts them, Evelyn forces Mackenzie to drink and insists that Tonya was nothing more than an obsessed stalker who died in a car accident. Mackenzie passes out and wakes up, realizing that she was drugged. She collects hair and writing samples to try to prove that the woman who raised her is not the real Elizabeth. At the university’s tribute to E. V. Renge, Professor Robertson approaches Mackenzie and expresses respect for her mother. Mackenzie realizes that Robertson is her mother’s college friend John and demands to know the truth about her mother. John says that he lost touch with her when she left their college town of Old Bow and confirms that the woman in Mackenzie’s photo is Tonya, not Elizabeth. He agrees to return to Old Bow to investigate the real Elizabeth’s disappearance.

When a detective questions Mackenzie, she offers hints toward her theory about “Elizabeth’s” identity. To appease Evelyn, Mackenzie agrees to sign a non-disclosure agreement in exchange for a trust fund. While in Old Bow with John and Dianne, Mackenzie finds Huckleberry Supplies, the company that called about an overdue bill. They give her the address for the account, a lakeside cabin where they find the real Elizabeth, who is being held captive.

One year later, Ben and Evelyn have been arrested for fraud, and Elizabeth has won rights to her work. Mackenzie realizes that John is her biological father. Dianne privately recalls how she caused Tonya’s death a year prior by causing her to fall while hiking. The Epilogue reveals that the superintendent, Grunger, was the mystery man from the funeral and had been blackmailing Ben and Evelyn and sending Mackenzie the letters.