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No family is perfect; each one comes with years of love and disagreements and strained relationships and baggage. And in The Mother-In-Law by author Sally Hepworth, a family is forced to dig through decades of that baggage as they deal with an unexpected loss.
The story begins with a death. When the police show up at Lucy and Ollie’s home to break the news that Ollie’s mother, Diana, is dead, Lucy goes through a series of mixed emotions. The two never had the best relationship. Sophisticated and polite and extremely generous with the mothers who received help from her charity, Diana was often cool and distant with her children—and even more so with her daughter-in-law. But when it’s revealed that the cause of Diana’s death is still under investigation, Lucy is forced to confront her feelings for her late mother-in-law.
Like most family relationships, The Mother-In-Law is layered and challenging. After Diana’s death, her children and their spouses are left with a whole lot of questions: did Diana really kill herself? If not, who did? And why would she disinherit all of them when they needed her most?
Moving back and forth through time to tell the story from two perspectives—Lucy’s and Diana’s—this novel is filled with secrets and miscommunication and misunderstandings. Every relationship comes with its share of challenges—and this one follows the stories of two people with different personalities, different backgrounds, and different needs, whose differences and disconnects kept them apart.
There’s nothing simple about this story. On one hand, it’s a twisting mystery—and as Lucy and Ollie and the rest of the family deal with the shock of Diana’s death, they also have to handle arrangements while enduring the constant scrutiny of the police officers who are investigating the case. Meanwhile, as the story unfolds, readers learn a lot about both of the characters—about their histories, their feelings, their challenges. Neither one is perfect—and though Diana is definitely a difficult character to like, both have their faults. And the secrets and revelations and miscommunication create a layered novel that will keep readers intrigued until it all comes together in the end.
Twisting and complex, with carefully drawn characters, The Mother-in-Law will keep readers guessing…and re-guessing…and then guessing again. It’s a fascinating story about families and relationships and the struggle to understand the people who are closest to us.
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