I’m so excited to share my review of the fantastic My Mother’s Shadow by Nikola Scott. I really enjoyed this book and it has definitely been one that has stayed with me a long time after reading it. My Mother’s Shadow is now available in paperback and eBook where it is currently only 99p.
Book Description:
Hartland House has always been a faithful keeper of secrets…
1958. Sent to beautiful Hartland to be sheltered from her mother’s illness, Liz spends the summer with the wealthy Shaw family. They treat Liz as one of their own, but their influence could be dangerous…
Now. Addie believes she knows everything about her mother Elizabeth and their difficult relationship until her recent death. When a stranger appears claiming to be Addie’s sister, she is stunned. Is everything she’s been told about her early life a lie?
How can you find the truth about the past if the one person who could tell you is gone? Addie must go back to that golden summer her mother never spoke of…and the one night that changed a young girl’s life for ever.
My Review:
My Mother’s Shadow is definitely a book that is going to stay with me for a long time. The poignant story line is deeply affecting, especially when read as a mother of two children, I found that i often had a lump in my throat whilst reading about Elizabeth’s horrific experiences. It’s hard to believe that people judged and treated people so cruelly over so little without realizing the damaging effects that it would have on all concerned. I’m very thankful that thinking has now moved on and we now live in a much more open-minded society.
The main character, Addie, was very realistic and hugely likeable and I found myself really drawn to her story and plight throughout the book. The transformation she goes through is brilliant and I enjoyed watching her grow in confidence and start to stand up for herself, doing what she wanted to do rather than what she thought others wanted her to do. I felt for her with her difficult relationship with her mother, who she felt she never pleased and was never good enough for. It was hard reading about how this had affected her over the years and it was good to see her come out of her mother’s shadow in this regard and become a much more confident and together person. Her relationship with Phoebe and Andrew was lovely to read about as i felt that in their presence we got to see the really Addie and i loved how much more confident and unafraid she was around them.
The descriptions of the idyllic summer that Elizabeth spent with the Shaws was beautifully described and I really felt that I could picture those lazy, summer days in my mind’s eye. It was lovely to see a different, care free side to Elizabeth and to watch her grow throughout the summer in her new-found acceptance. Some of the games and mischief the children got up to was stuff that i used to enjoy doing when i was a kid, which helped create a wonderful sense of nostalgia for me and the fun i used to have.
Unusually for me with a book with two time-lines I found that i enjoyed them both equally. Normally I am rushing through one part of the story to find out what is happening in the other, normally older timeline. I think this is down to the author cleverly sharing out the facts and reveals between the two timelines so as to keep both interesting whereas i don’t believe this is always the case with other books. This also helped keep the story really interesting and I found that i kept reading, faster and faster as the book progressed in order to find out what had happened. Sometimes one of the story lines revealed a clue that wasn’t yet known in the other story line and then i found myself on tender hooks, waiting for it to be discovered and to see what their reaction would be to the new information. This helped create a lot of tension and anticipation in the book which made the book very easy to read.
Though it is hard to believe, this is Nikola Scott’s debut novel and I very much look forward to reading more from her. I felt the comparison with Kate Morton & Rachel Hore was very much deserved and feel sure that if you like their books you will enjoy this one!
Huge thank you to Becky Hunter and Headline for providing me with a copy of this book.
Author Information:
Nikola Scott was born and raised in Germany and studied at university there. Having been obsessed with books from a young age, Nikola moved to New York City after her Master’s degree to begin her first job in book publishing – a career in which she could fully indulge her love of fiction. She spent ten years working in publishing in New York and then in London, editing other people’s books, before she decided to take the leap into becoming a full-time writer herself. She now lives in Frankfurt with her husband and two sons.
MY MOTHER’S SHADOW is her debut novel.
You can visit Nikola’s website www.nikolascott.com and you can find her on Twitter @nikola_scott and Facebook/NikolaScottAuthor.
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