This book is being put in the mystery/thriller genre, but while it does have an element of mystery, I would consider it more of a domestic drama. It was definitely more of a slow burn than a full blow edge-of-your-seat thriller. And it was also very good.

Talk about a study in perspective and miscommunication. Lucy and her mother-in-law, Diana, are a walking, talking example of how differing personalities and communication styles can drastically affect relationships between people when the parties involved aren't on the same page. I was addicted to their stories and how they tried to navigate the sometimes challenging daughter-in-law-mother-in-law relationship. It's particularly difficult with Diana because of her strong opinions and unyielding moral values, which can at times cause rifts throughout the entire family.

And when Diana is found dead, the question becomes... did Diana commit suicide or did somebody have motive to kill?

Sally Hepworth's writing was wonderfully executed, keeping my interest the entire time. I am usually a fan of books with relatively short chapters because I tend to be more inclined to keep reading when a chapter ends, flying right through the book from cover to cover. And this book was no exception. Flipping between time periods, past and present, can often be challenging to accomplish without causing confusion for the reader, but in this case was absolutely essential to the storytelling. I also enjoyed the "past of the past" timeline that took place even earlier in time and how that tied into the overall story.

Overall, I enjoyed this one very much and would recommend to those who typically enjoy domestic dramas with a pinch of mystery.

-I received an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to NetGalley, Sally Hepworth, and St. Martin's Press for the opportunity to review.-

⭐️⭐️⭐️
The Mother in Law by Sally Hepworth tells the story of a suspected murder of a woman who was revered by strangers, her husband and children and tolerated by her son and daughter in law. The dual perspective story focusses on Diana, the matriarch and Lucy, the daughter in law. Diana has gained respect through her charitable endeavours and feels less concerned about her children’s partners’ feelings towards her. Lucy lost her own mother at an early age and wants a solid relationship with Diana as another mother figure for her but is far from successful at achieving this.

When Diana is found dead, what appears to be a suicide initially has the markings of murder. Who had the most to gain by Diana’s death? Who might have wanted Diana dead? Lucy had the most tumultuous and at one point violent relationship with Diana so is chief in suspect.

This story moves between the past and present giving history to the familial relationships leaving the reader changing their mind on who might have killed Diana.

I enjoyed reading this book but wasn’t so engaged that I couldn’t put it down. I have to be honest that it is difficult to review a thriller without comparing it to other thrillers I’ve read in the past. I am left wondering if I would have rated it higher had I not read a few really exciting thrillers of recent. I will note that my review is lower than many I’ve seen so I encourage the reader of this to seek the book out and give it a go. Please, however, do not read all the book descriptions the publishers have put out as it gives so much of the story away unfortunately.

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.

I remember reading a book called The Family Next Door by Sally Hepworth back in March of last year (see review HERE) and I loved it, so when I saw this book by the same author available on NetGalley -- The Mother-In-Law -- I knew that I needed to read it.  When I requested the opportunity, I was approved! YAY!

The Mother-In-Law is told from two points of view -- Lucy (the daughter-in-law) and Diana Goodwin (the mother-in-law).  When Diana is found dead in her home, folks are unsure whether it is suicide or if someone wanted her dead.  Suffice it to say that Diana wasn't always the nicest person to those close to her.  The author does a fantastic job creating a character that you can love and hate at the same time in Diana.

The story begins with the police pulling up to the home of Lucy and her husband, Ollie. Although the police car doesn't have sirens on, Lucy knows something isn't right. 

Then the story jumps back ten years to Lucy's first visit to Ollie's family home.  His father is very nice and is happy to meet Lucy and so is Ollie's sister, Nettie.  While she isn't rude, and in fact, she's actually very polite, Ollie's mother, Diana is cold and standoffish.  Lucy just wants Diana to like her but the harder she tries, it seems the more strained their relationship becomes.  And now…Diana is dead. 

The twists and turns simply kept on coming and coming and none none of them could even be foreseen.  This was a very thought provoking story and I was really surprised by a few things going along. The author did a wonderful job of bringing her characters and their individual stories to life, and I was very satisfied with how everything came together in the end. 

As I said above, this is my second book from Sally Hepworth, and while I loved The Family Next Door, this one just blew me away! She will definitely be added to my "must read" authors!!

I received an advanced readers digital copy of this book from NetGalley and St. Martin's Press in exchange for my honest review. I was not required to provide a positive review but I chose to because it was a great book!!

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.