Title: The Mother-in-Law

Author: Sally Hepworth

Publisher: St. Martin’s Press 2019

Genre: Mystery

Pages: 340

Rating: 5/5 stars

Reading Challenges: I Love Libraries; Cloak and Dagger

From the moment Lucy met her husband’s mother, she knew she wasn’t the wife Diana had envisioned for her perfect son. Exquisitely polite, friendly, and always generous, Diana nonetheless kept Lucy at arm’s length despite her desperate attempts to win her over. And as a pillar in the community, an advocate for female refugees, and a woman happily married for decades, no one had a bad word to say about Diana…except Lucy.

That was five years ago. 

Now, Diana is dead, a suicide note found near her body claiming that she longer wanted to live because of the cancer wreaking havoc inside her body. 

But the autopsy finds no cancer. 

It does find traces of poison, and evidence of suffocation. 

Who could possibly want Diana dead? Why was her will changed at the eleventh hour to disinherit both of her children, and their spouses? And what does it mean that Lucy isn’t exactly sad she’s gone?

Another pick from Anne Bogel’s Summer Reading Guide. I was expecting a very pedestrian thriller type of mystery, but this one really had depth. About 50 pages into this novel, I was fully invested in uncovering the secrets of the Goodwin family. I could not stand Diana and loved Lucy at the beginning of the book. By the end, things switched a bit and I began to really see Diana as the strong woman she was. I really enjoyed the back and forth in point of view and time periods. It added so much layer to the storyline and characters. I really enjoyed this one so much. Great pick from the Summer Reading Guide.

Next up on the TBR pile: