I can't add much more to all reviews already written...difficult to read, yet immensely compelling. I actually burst into tears reading the final courtroom scene, surprising myself with how involved I had become with the characters and their harrowing story. To know this happens to real people .... there are no words ....

Told in third person, MAZIE BABY hooks you first with its descriptive sentences and believable characters, who right off the bat you can imagine being your own next door neighbors. Then it hooks you with the truth. Author Julie Frayn does not beat around the bush when she describes Mazie’s fear when her husband comes home and loses himself in liquor and rage; nor does she shy away from building up the tension in the house, from the second Cullen gets upset until Mazie, now bruised and bleeding, tucks Ariel into bed.

While the story isn’t definably a happy tale, it is an honest one that makes you fly through the pages in the hopes that Mazie makes it out free of her past in the end. The story truly is a tale of how “sometimes innocent people must defend themselves” and that opening up yourself to trust again is the best way to mend a battered soul.

The dialogue is raw, the character development happens at a life-like pace, and the story line – though depicting a desperate mother – never wavers on the edge of fantasy. Though fiction, MAZIE BABY could arguably be a firsthand autobiography for someone.