What a great story! Absolutely loved it!! The dual narrative made for a great storytelling device in that it provided so much intrigue - who did what!? The characters were so unlikeable that you couldn't help but hold them all suspect. I enjoyed trying to figure out what happened. Such a great read!!

The story is focused on the mother-in-law, Diana, as we know from the start that she has been found dead. What isn't clear is: did Diana do the deed herself or is someone else at fault? The story alternates between the present and the past, so we have some sections from Diana's perspective and others from the perspective of Lucy, the daughter-in-law. Both of these women don't really get along but it turns out that they really don't understand one another and they cannot communicate well at all. However, there is a cast of characters who may be involved, including Ollie and Nettie (Diana's children) and Patrick (Nettie's husband, who seems to very much enjoy the trappings of Diana's rich life, shared with her husband, Tom). The story went in a direction that I hadn't expected, so it did keep me guessing until the end, but I'd say that the mystery was less interesting than the relationship between Diana and Lucy.

Thanks to NetGalley, St. Martin's Press, and the author for an opportunity to read an advance copy.

I was super excited to read The Mother In Law after one of Hepworth’s books was one of my favourite reads from summer. I did enjoy the book but, it is billed as a thriller which I find a bit misleading. It is a family drama with a mystery but it is in no way anything that had me on the edge of my seat nor dark at any time.

Sally’s writing is so similar to Moriarty’s and with the same Australian settings, it makes for great reading. It’s slick, engaging and fun to read.

The thing with me was I was either fully engrossed in the book or totally and utterly bored. I wish we’d got to learn more about Diana and Tom’s relationship but that’s just a minor detail. It did keep me guessing but I didn’t blow me away.

It was well written, albeit at time a drag but still something light and easy to read. I’ve read such a high calibre of books, particularly mystery/thrillers, as of late so I’m a harsh critic right now but this was just good, nothing spectacular

I enjoyed this book about complicated family relationships, especially those between mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law. It's a suspense book, yes, but it's also about human nature. Hard to put down - I read it in one day!

I liked the idea behind The Mother-in-Law and I found it to be well executed.
While not as dark and haunting as one would expect it to be because of the genre it belongs to, it was still an engaging and mysterious whodunit story throughout.
I really enjoyed the writing, it was light and easy to consume. The characters were very well developed, and even though at times it felt a bit disruptive, I did enjoy the two story-line structure, that gave a great look into Diana as a character. While it didn't absolve her from her actions, it gave me an understanding of her state of mind. I thought the mystery around her death was interesting, it sure had me guessing what happened until the end.
It's overall a great read, with minor hiccups here and there, and if you want a quick and light mystery/thriller, this book is definitely for you.

What a great book.. Loved the past and present. Easy to follow and keep me interested. Would recommend as a great read.


Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for an early release of this book

The Mother-in-Law is a family drama that focuses on the evolving, complicated relationships in one family that are brimming with secrets, misunderstandings and omissions. The story is compounded when the mother-in-law is found dead, adding a twisty murder 'whodunnit' that readers can sink their teeth into.

The story is told in two different time frames using the POVs of Lucy and her mother-in-law, Diana. These two women have a complicated, often territorial relationship that is fraught with misunderstandings. It's through these two points of view, that readers witness their often differing perspectives, the assumptions they make and how the omission of their true feelings lock them, as well as others in their extended family, in persistent emotional conflicts.

Readers will be able to sympathize with many of the issues and feelings raised and some may connect with the ever-present tension of family members fighting for emotional territory. The characters, which include several extended family members, are a well-rounded bunch and you may be surprised at which characters you sympathize with.

Extended family can be complicated, often messy and sometimes filled with different battles being fought behind the scenes. With The Mother-in-Law, Hepworth provides readers with a thought-provoking, multi-layered and character-driven story that will provide substantial fodder for book clubs - especially those that include readers from different generations.

Disclaimer: My sincere thanks to the publisher, St Martin's Press, for providing me with a complimentary digital copy of this title in exchange for my honest review.

Nasty, cold, charitable and giving Diana Goodwin is dead. Swiftly it becomes apparent that she was murdered and that someone close to her did it. The question is who--and this is where Hepworth's book is so brilliant, leaping over the hurdles of unreliable narrators and typical psychological suspense into the hearts and lives of people doing the best that they can with what they have. Hepworth weaves a world of privilege and struggle, of heartbreak over the inability to have a child and of business failure, of those you help and those who help you. Nothing is predictable, but everything is perfectly logical. Lucy Goodwin, the daughter-in-law with an extremely rocky relationship with Diana, is smart, likable, and wise in the midst of the chaos of young children and strained relations. This story grabbed me by the throat from the first page and never let go all the way to the end.

In any other family Lucy would have been a very welcomed daughter in law. She was loving, warm and wanted to be part of the family. She was a good caring wife and mother and I thought that was the main criterion for a mother in law! I was wrong. Diana was cool and collected and she kept Lucy at arms length. She did not dislike her but she was never welcoming either.



Diana and Lucy got on fairly well. You knew where you stood with Diana who had iron clad principles and beliefs. One was that despite being endowed with a lot of money, she was not going to hand out any either to her son or to her daughter, however dire the circumstances were. She had a tough beginning herself and believed that you worked to overcome that. Nothing could shake her from that belief.

When Diana was found dead with a suicide note by her side, the family believed she had cancer and that may have caused her to take her own life. When that fact was disputed with no oncological records at all and when a vial of a drug found to cause slow, painless death was found the unraveling begins.

Unfortunately at the time of Diana's death both her children were in dire need of funds. The son because his partner had run the business down to the ground, they were in debt and everything had to go. Nettie the daughter desperate to have a child, an obssession if you can call it that, failed IVF treatments behind her, now forty and knowing she had to have one more round. Detectives had a good case for suspicion when they ruled out suicide.

In typical Hepworth fashion the story unwinds slowly but surely. You never know who could be the one but you knew it was close to home.

Fascinating read and a real page turner.

Sally Hepworth is very good a taking a family unit that seems perfect from the outside and slowly showing us the cracks and bruises that exist in reality. In The Mother in law, you meet a family that by all accounts has everything going for them. Then you slowly learn that the Mother in this family has secrets that she hid very well. What kind of secrets? Well, the book starts with her murder. The author has built the back stories and the characters so you know them and can predict what will happen next. It's not quite that easy. This is a true page turner that will keep your reading just to see if the daughter in law really killed her MIL.

would like to thank netgalley and the publisher for letting me read this thought provoking book

mother in laws...they can be the bain of your lives or they are a godsend...depends on your viewpoint...

nobody knows what anyone has gone through in their lives even your children, so reading this book i found it fascinating...i could see both sides...maybe the method was wrong but the ideas behind it sound...

diana is the mother in law...she is found dead with a note hidden away, was she murdered or did she commit suicide

this is the story that is split with past and present chapters with each character, though that sounds confusing it actually makes a lot of sense...and it built for a very interesting story, one that kept me glued right to the end

i can see this author being on my added watch list after reading this book

This is my first book by Sally Hepworth, but it will not be my last.

This book tells the story of Lucy, who has a distant and somewhat cold mother in law, Diana, who dies unexpectedly.

I do not want to give any spoilers, but I really enjoyed this book. I love the way the author was able to create two distinct voices in Lucy and Diana, and the contrast between situations told from the two perspectives. I was ready to hate Diana, then found myself sympathizing and even empathizing with her when it was her turn to tell the story.

I ended up really admiring both characters and the author's ability to really create fully drawn, realistic characters.

I cannot wait to read another book by this author.

Lucy's mother-in-law, Diana, is dead. But was it suicide or murder?

Excellent writing with well developed characters. I was captivated from the very beginning. The book explores the family dynamics between a mother and her child and a mother-in-law and her daughter-in-law. The story is told from the perspectives of Lucy and Diana and alternates between the past and the present.

I recommend reading this book and I look forward to reading more from this author.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for a copy of Sally Hepworth's "The Mother-in-Law" in exchange of an honest review.

"It's all about support. Whether you want to give it or not...actually it's about whether to give money or not. And that's not the same thing."

Most of us have or ARE a mother-in-law. Depending on who you are and who she is, the relationship can be fraught with issues, it can be smooth and mutually beneficial, or it can be one of benign neglect. Of course you don't get to choose your mother-in-law, but it's often been said that you don't just marry the man (or woman) -- you also marry the family.

Lucy has a difficult relationship with her mother-in-law, Diana. When Lucy married Ollie, she really wanted to be close to Diana because Lucy's own mother had died when she was only 13. But Diana is aloof and opinionated and strong and doesn't seem to have much regard for Lucy -- or at least not in the way that Lucy would prefer. It's not just Lucy who perceives Diana as difficult -- Ollie's sister, Nettie and her husband, Patrick, also have their share of issues with Diana. Only Tom, Diana's husband, exudes the warmth and generosity that everyone really craves. Why won't Diana help them all out financially, it's not like she and Tom don't have plenty of money. It causes a lot of friction between them all and it seems pointless since they all know they'll inherit someday.

Well, apparently someone could not wait patiently for their share of the money. Diana is found dead, at first suicide is suspected, but then the autopsy has some startling revelations for them and the police have been calling them down to the station for interviews and questions. Did one of the family actually kill Diana? NO SPOILERS.

The narrative flips back and forth in time and is primarily written from the points of view of Lucy and Diana. The reader learns some interesting truths about each of the two women as their vulnerabilities are revealed. I particularly enjoyed this device in this story because it tantalized me and I felt that I really got to know each woman quite a bit better and so could relate to them more easily. I wasn't sure who had 'done it' and I liked how the author reached the climax and how it yielded a very sad, but satisfying conclusion. Nicely done! This was most of all family drama with a bit of murder mystery, but I'd say a relationship novel most of all. I loved the end quote: "I worked hard for everything I ever cared about. And nothing I ever cared about cost a single cent."

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the e-book ARC to read and review.

More than anything, Lucy wanted her future mother-in-law to love her. Lucy's mom died when she was young, and she really missed having a mom. Unfortunately, Diana was not at all the mother-in-law she had dreamed of. Diana was standoffish, often appearing indifferent or even cold towards Lucy. Lucy never felt like she measured up. So when Diana is found dead in suspicious circumstances, Lucy is the one who seems to miss her the most.
The police begin to look closely at all of the family ties and suspect one of them was the murderer. Everyone, even Lucy, has something to hide... something that would make them look completely guilty.
This book is told in alternating chapters, past to present, with Lucy and Diana as the narrators. The more I delved into the book, the more I saw a different side to Diana, and understood some of the things she had done and said weren't really intended to be taken the way they were. This book was so good that I couldn't put it down until the very end. Then however, I had to wait a little bit to finish crying before I could even write this. I cannot recommend this book enough!

This is a family drama about the relationships between mother-in-laws and daughter-in laws. And also between mothers and their children. And husbands and wives. It is about the complicated bonds of family, in the good times and the bad.

When Diana, the family matriarch, is found dead, the investigation leads from suicide to homicide to questioning Lucy (Diana's daughter-in-law) and Ollie (Diana's son). Lucy has never had a great relationship with her mother=in-law and the unusual circumstances surrounding Diana's death bring everything about their relationship into question.

This story jumps around in time, which I both liked and didn't like. Early in the book it was hard for me to connect with each of the characters and storyline jumps. It was a slow start. However, I did eventually get pulled into all the different timelines and enjoyed learning more about each of the characters in this family. It just took some time to get to that point.

I would give this book 3.5 stars. I liked it quite a bit, just wish that it would have done more to grab my attention in the early parts of the book. Still, a solid read!

The plot develops in two timelines, and is told in alternating points of view of the daughter-in-law, Lucy, and the mother-in-law, Diana. Lucy and Diana have always had a complicated relationship, and now Diana is dead...

I loved the book up to around the 75% mark, after which I felt it didn't pick up as much as I thought it would. The ending didn't live up to the rest of the book, but I still liked it and will definitely read more books from this author.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the arc.

THE MOTHER-IN-LAW, by Sally Hepworth is as much a family saga as it is a mystery. It's an emotional read, but well worth reading. The story is told in a dual narrative, Diana and Lucy, in a series of flashbacks - The Past, and present day - The Present. Diana, has died, an apparent suicide., but there are many questions surrounding her death, and official police investigation ensues - hence the mystery element.

Diana, the mother-in-law, appears to be wealthy, cold, unfeeling and miserly, which she is; but she is also so much more. It's a fascinating read, discovering her background, that which wrought her pride of standing on her own two feet, and expecting everyone else to to the same - this is a woman who does not take excuses, or give hand outs. The awkwardly stilted relationship she has with her daughter in law, is somewhat painful to read, at times, heartbreaking actually. She loves her own children, Ollie, and Nettie, but has awkward and strained relationships with them, as well. The one person she lovingly adores is her husband, Tom.

I can see why the ratings for this book are all over the place - some very negative, and some glowing. I suppose I'd be in the glowing category - I'enjoyed being a fly on the wall of this eccentrically dysfunctional family.
Thank you NetGalley, Sally Hepworth and the St.Martin's Press for the ARC, in exchange for my honest review.

After her mother died when she was thirteen, Lucy dreamed of the day she would have a mother-in-law. Unfortunately, Lucy's mother-in-law Diana is not what dreams are made of -- in fact, Diana and Lucy have a rather fractured relationship. So when Diana turns up dead with evidence of foul play, the family begins to wonder who would harm Diana?

Told in alternating perspectives, The Mother-in-Law details the past, present, and Diana's untimely death. While some books involving suspicious deaths seem too far fetched, Sally Hepworth turns a family drama into a frighteningly realistic murder mystery. The entire book I spent looking for clues as to what actually happened to Diana.

Definitely more a book about family dynamics than a mystery, but I enjoyed it anyway. Actually, I loved it. It captivated me from the first page and helped my interest until the last. It kept me guessing too. Everyone had a reason to want "the mother in law" dead, but in the end, what really happened?! I would definitely recommend (and already have) this book to friends. I have never read a book by this author before, but I plan to now.
Thanks to Netgalley, St. Martin's Press, and Sally Hepworth for the opportunity to read this ARC.