Many thanks to Noelle Holten and publisher Bookouture for my spot on this Blog Tour
The book was quite different. It had all what the blurb promised and beyond that too. My first book by Ali Mercer, I went in thinking it was a thriller, but it wasn’t. It was about how a moment of lost control could lead to repercussions.
Rachel was a good mother, she worked hard, looked after the needs of her husband and her daughter Becca and was always working. Her husband was a house husband, but to me, he was quite a slimy character with a holier-than-thou attitude. Oh how I hate such people!
Then Rachel’s mother died and she went into depression, and one rash act caused her to lose custody of her daughter. She moved away according to her daughter’s wishes, leaving her home to her husband and started living in a shabby place.
Rachel met with women like her, Viv and Leona, who had lost their children due to circumstances, and the book was more about Rachel finding her strength and in the process, getting to know the human psyche.
Ali’s writing had the power to pull me in thoroughly at some places, there was innocence and honesty. The emotions shown by all the characters were controlled. I kept thinking how glorious it would have been if they had let go and said what needed to be said. Then the book would have been at a whole new level.
Overall, the lives of the three women were weaved well, enmeshed into the bonds of the story. This book was not only about lost daughters but also about relationships, old ones and the new. It was about human nature with its strengths and flaws. A good read.
I received an ARC from NetGalley and publisher Bookouture, and this is my journey into its pages, straight from the heart!!
All my reviews can be found here
Ali decided she wanted to be a writer early on and wrote her first novel when she was at primary school. She did an English degree and spent her early twenties working in various jobs in journalism, including as a reporter for the showbusiness newspaper The Stage. She started writing fiction in earnest after getting married, moving out of London to the Oxfordshire market town of Abingdon and starting a family. She has two children, a daughter and a son who is autistic and was diagnosed when he was four years old.
Ali is fascinated by families, their myths and secrets, and the forces that hold them together, split them up and (sometimes) bring them back together again. She always travels with tissues and a book and has been known to cry over a good story, but is also a big fan of the hopeful ending.
Your life isn’t perfect, but you’re still happy. Your husband has stuck by you and he’s a good dad. Your daughter Becca makes your heart explode with love. And then, in the time it takes to say ‘bad mother’, there’s no longer a place for you in your own family. Your right to see your child has disappeared.
Life goes on in your house – family dinners, missing socks and evening baths – but you aren’t there anymore. Becca may be tucked up in bed in Rose Cottage, but she is as lost to you as if she had been snatched from under your nose.
Everyone knows you deserve this, for what you did. Except you’re starting to realise that things maybe aren’t how you thought they were, and your husband isn’t who you thought he was either. That the truths you’ve been so diligently punishing yourself for are built on sand, and the daughter you have lost has been unfairly taken from you. Wouldn’t that be more than any mother could bear?
Publication Date: 14th May 2019
Publisher: Bookouture
Amazon
https://geni.us/B07NPX3XYMSocial
Apple Books
https://apple.co/2UZwwmU
Kobo
https://bit.ly/2I9ZDlT
Googleplay
http://ow.ly/MG3V30nI3hJ
16 Responses
This sounds like a heart squeezer
Quite a different read from my usual
great review, Shalini, but i have a hard time looking at books about daughters–that’s a tough relationship.
I understand Gin… Here the daughter was not taken, but just a misunderstanding created by the father. He was pretty bad.
This does sound like a really good read and it’s especially great about the way it explores mother/daughter relationships. Fantastic review!
Thank you so much ❤️
Oh. Sounds like this one could make you cry at times. Slimy husband character makes me want to strangle him already 😂
Slimy husbands are the norm in books… 😂
🙈😂
I already dislike the husband even before reading the book. This sounds like an emotional read, Shalini. I wish the characters had let go as you say. Great review.
Yes, once if they had screamed out their frustrations, it would made the story more real
Lovely review!!❤
Thank you ❤️