Review: The Mother-in-Law by Sally Hepworth

Title: The Mother-in-Law

Author: Sally Hepworth

Published: April 2019, St. Martin’s Press

Format: ARC Paperback, 352 pages

Source: Publisher

Summary: 

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…

From the bestselling author of
The Family Next Door
comes a new page-turner about that trickiest of relationships.

My thoughts: I have been absolutely loving Sally Hepworth’s latest books and this one just might be my favorite one yet. I went in expecting one story and got a completely different one – in all the best ways! 

This story is one that is all about family dynamics and is filled with so many twists and turns that it will keep you on your toes. I loved that this story was one that is not your typical mother-in-law story…this isn’t one where you think you have it all figured out. I had so many feelings about Diana and I loved that because I went into this book thinking I would feel one way about her, and while I did feel that way in the beginning, those feelings changed many times. 

This story is a multi-layered jigsaw puzzle and ever so slowly the layers are peeled back so that we are able to piece together what is going on and what has happened. But it is done with such a slight turn of hand that you don’t quite see it happening until those last few chapters…that final AHA moment when you are just about left speechless. The story alternates between Lucy and Diana’s point of view, and between the past and the present, and this all adds to the on-going suspense and tension in the book. You want to race through the chapters to see what really happened, but at the same time, you want to enjoy the ride because it really is such a good one.

The characters are well-developed which makes them so captivating and makes you that much more invested in this book. And the relationships and dynamics between the characters are just fascinating. There are issues and that just makes it so compelling. Not one of these characters is without flaws and so you cannot help but suspect them all!

I loved this book…and I will be recommending this book to EVERYONE. It is a wickedly fun read and I wish I could read it again for the first time. You have to add this to your reading list right now…you won’t be sorry!