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MY REVIEW
This was a difficult book to review at the same time, very simple to judge on. It became harder by the author Lauren Westwood afterword which said you don’t know how people would behave in life and death situations.
The blurb was exciting and definitely caused me to feel the first curl of excitement unfolding, though not a big fan of cover. It had been done up on other books and didn’t really justify the title.
Then I started reading. Claire with a sick daughter and a healthy daughter and a rocky relationship with husband. Marianne with 8 miscarriages and a nearly broken relationship with husband. Ah, the husbands were so innocuous that I could never keep their names on track.
A fox entered into the lives of these 2 chicks with DNA sampling to know genetic family. A new plotline which was intriguing. Claire got to know about Marianne via the results. And therein lay the drama.
Having read other books by the author, I expected a lot of thrill but found myself bored with this one. Let me tell you the reasons. Character development and emotions seemed missing for me. Except Becky, I didn’t like anyone.
Claire was horrible, selfish, hypocritical, and her hatred for her elder healthy daughter Becky came off her in waves. I could understand being distracted by a sick child but literally being mean to Becky put me off the book. This atrocious behavior by the mother continued in the entire book, for every single action of Becky’s. I wanted to tell that poor child to leave home, run away.
Only in the last few pages, due to a twist of circumstances of which Claire herself was the cause, did the woman treat her daughter halfway like a human being. Ugghhh.
This was not a thriller; the blurb said it all. Marianne was the half sister to whom Claire, so far a stranger, explained about her daughter requiring Bone Marrow transplant. In return, Marianne asked for something. But Claire, calling herself a good mother, refused even at the cost of her daughter’s life who had less than 6 months to live.
Huhh what was all that about? Hate one daughter and forsake treatment of the other, all because she was going through some shocking news about the past.
Marianne too had her own messes. She appeared standoffish, but she was much better to read about than Claire. Dave had his own agenda and managed to attract both women. Believe me, he didn’t even have a magnetic presence.
The book took me 4 days to read. And it has now put me in a bad reading slump. Maybe mothers were mean in real life, but this was fiction. There was no cause for the mother to be so mean in this plotline.
Will get to my next book when this weird mind fog uplifts.
MY RATING
BOOK LINKS
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BOOK BLURB
Two DNA tests, one big lie…
“As I speed off in the ambulance holding my daughter’s hand, I wonder how I could have been so stupid. I should have made the bargain, paid the price – anything to avoid being right here, right now.
A voice whispers in my head that I can’t silence. This is all your fault. You killed her. It’s her voice, the one I hear in my nightmares. The woman who stole my memories, the woman who stole my life. And, this time, I know she’s right.”
How far would you go to save your child?
Claire is living every mother’s worst nightmare. Her daughter, Jess, has been diagnosed with a rare illness and desperately needs a bone marrow transplant. With no match on the registry, Claire turns to a charismatic geneticist for help and embarks on a Genetic Journey to seek a familial match for her daughter.
On the other side of the country, Marianne suffers her eighth miscarriage. Her perfect life is rotting underneath, but she is determined to do whatever it takes to have a baby.
When DNA test results reveal that Claire and Marianne are half-sisters, Claire must face the dark lies of the past and make impossible choices about the future. Is her secret sister the answer to her prayers, or will she cost her everything?
BOOK DETAILS
Publication Date: September 2021
I downloaded the digital version of the book from an online retail, and this is my journey down its pages, straight from the heart. STRICTLY HONEST and UNBIASED.
All my reviews can be found here.
3 Responses
No cause for a fictional mother to be so mean – so very true! And then the reader is supposed to like such characters?!
How awful and disappointing. I know exactly how this feels but you have hit on the review so much better than I could or did under the same circumstances – you have mad skills!
great review, but no thank you