Forgiveness Doesn’t Come Easily With ‘A Mother Like Mine’ [REVIEW]

Tensions flare when a mother and daughter reunite at the beach in Kate Hewitt’s A MOTHER LIKE MINE. (Photo by Lorrie McClanahan, Flickr)

Left behind as a toddler to be raised by her grandmother, a young woman works hard to build a life of her own with her young son in a picturesque seaside village. Just when she thinks she’s finally happy, her mother suddenly returns. Will she be able to forgive and bridge the chasm between them? Find out in Kate Hewitt’s emotion-packed new novel, A Mother Like Mine. 

Berkley

When Abby Rhodes fiancé died unexpectedly, she made her way back to Hartley-by-the-Sea, the small village in England’s beautiful Lake District where she grew up. There, she focused on being a good mother and dived into helping her ailing grandmother run the small beach café that is attached to their flat.

One evening after taking her son to the beach, she returns home to discover that her mother, Laura, has returned home for good. It is not a happy reunion. After 20 years apart, Laura wants to focus on the future and acts as though she has no intention of recognizing how her absence from Abby’s life affected her daughter. Meanwhile, Abby has some things she needs to get off her chest.

Although things don’t start out very well, the longer the two women are around one another, the more Abby starts to learn about pieces of Laura’s life and starts to see her mother as a woman who made tough choices rather than just as her very flawed and negligent parent. Slowly and tentatively, Abby and Laura begin to bridge the gap between them and nurture a budding relationship that they never had the opportunity to foster before. As they learn more about each other, they are quite surprised to find that it truly is possible to forgive and begin again.

Fans of Georgia Bockoven, Barbara Delinsky and Jude Deveraux will love Kate Hewitt’s A Mother Like Mine. This multigenerational story about three women reluctantly trying to mend fences is skillfully penned. Hewitt juxtaposes very intense family dynamics against a scenic backdrop that seems as though it should only be filled with happy memories. But life rarely works that way, and Hewitt plays that card to her advantage with her fearless portrayal of the wide array of emotions that ricochet across the shore and within the confines of the beach café itself. Vivid and realistic, these characters lure us in, make us care, and more than once, break our hearts.

Still, the message here is clear. Forgiveness is the word of the day, and if estranged relations can exercise patience and learn to love, hearts can heal and gaping wounds can ultimately mend. Readers will be captivated by this lush, heartfelt, and inspiring novel and will undoubtedly find themselves longing to return to Hartley-by-the-Sea time and again.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Kate Hewitt

Kate Hewitt is the USA Today bestselling author of more than 50 books, including the Hartley-by-the-Sea novels Rainy Day Sisters and Now and Then Friends, and more recently, the Willoughby Close series.

A former New Yorker, she now lives in Wales with her husband and five children. She also writes as Katherine Swartz.

Visit her home on the Web at Kate-Hewitt.com, read her blog, like her on Facebook, and follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

A MOTHER LIKE MINE
By Kate Hewitt
384 pgs. Berkley. $15.

You may purchase A Mother Like Mine at one of these fine online retailers: Amazon, Books-A-Million, and Barnes & Noble.

A Mother Like Mine is brought to you in association with TLC Book Tours.

Hartley-by-the-Sea Books Giveaway

Congratulations to Kay Garrett, who just scored copies of the first two Hartley-by-the-Sea books, Rainy Day Sisters and Now and Then Friends. Stay tuned for more giveaways coming up soon.