Release Day Review: The Mother-In-Law


Author: Sally Hepworth
Published: TODAY, April 23, 2019
352 Pages

Reviewed By: Jessica
Dates Read: April 11-20, 2019
Jessica’s Rating: 4 stars

Book Description:

Someone once told me that you have two families in your life – the one you are born into and the one you choose. Yes, you may get to choose your partner, but you don’t choose your mother-in-law. The cackling mercenaries of fate determine it all.

From the moment Lucy met Diana, she was kept at arm’s length. Diana is exquisitely polite, but Lucy knows, even after marrying Oliver, that they’ll never have the closeness she’d been hoping for.

But who could fault Diana? She was a pillar of the community, an advocate for social justice, the matriarch of a loving family. Lucy had wanted so much to please her new mother-in-law.

That was ten years ago. Now, Diana has been found dead, leaving a suicide note. But the autopsy reveals evidence of suffocation. And everyone in the family is hiding something…

Jessica’s Review:

We are pulled into this novel of mystery from the first line as we know something has happened: I am folding laundry at my dining room table when the police car pulls up.

The Mother-In-Law does have the mystery of what happened to Diana, but it is more of a women’s contemporary fiction book.  If you are looking for a psychological thriller, this is not it.

Both Diana and Lucy are our narrators and they go between the present and the past over a 10 year time period.  Diana and Lucy never really had a chance to get to know and like each other.  Their personalities just did not mesh. Diana is very guarded with ‘high walls’ that take effort to break down, and with good reasons. I actually liked Diana more than Lucy, as I understood Diana.

This book was a page turner with short chapters.  As the novel progresses, it really began moving and the chapters became even shorter.  The last quarter of the book really moves fast and I stayed up late to finish it.  I had made my decision as to who the guilty party was but I was wrong! Everyone has their secrets in this novel and finding out all these secrets is part of the pull of the novel. 

I am fortunate to get along with my mother-in-law, but not everyone has that. Do you get along with your mother-in-law?   If you don’t would you want to kill yours?  Did Lucy kill Diana? Did Diana kill herself or was it something else entirely?

The Mother-In-Law is recommended. I received a copy of The Mother-In-Law from St. Martin’s Press via a Goodreads giveaway. 

Purchase Links:
Amazon US
Amazon UK