When you see them, they are so happy, so in love. He’s holding the door open for her, she’s clearly expecting a baby. You think: she has everything I don’t. Everything I ever dreamed of…
There’s room in her house where Shelley has shut away a heartbreakingly-soft, never-used baby blanket. In a box, under a bed, behind a door that she never opens. If it’s there, she can forget about it. Just like she has her memories. Of a marriage that hadn’t been perfect. Of a life that didn’t go the way she had hoped.
Every day she acts like everything is normal. Going to work and following a routine helps her pretend the bad stuff never happened. Until one day, everything changes.
She sees the couple moving in next door, laughing sweetly as they walk up the path to their new home. The woman is pregnant. It’s like she has everything that Shelley has lost. But when Shelley properly meets Lara, she soon discovers Lara is actually carrying a heartache to match her own.
As her friendship with Lara deepens, Shelley starts to wonder what might happen if she opens the box she’s hidden away, with the tiny, beautiful blanket in it. Will the secrets from her past – about what she lost, what she’s hiding from, and what she has been doing her best to forget – destroy her? Or will opening it up finally give her a change to live again?
A heartbreaking emotional drama about the power of friendship that will make readers laugh and cry, perfect for fans of Jojo Moyes, Dani Atkins and Daniela Sacerdoti.
This book is just gorgeous, as well as heartbreaking.
Lara moves in next door to Shelley and they seem like unlikely friends, but a friendship blossoms between them, and they become very close.
I could sense at the beginning that each of them had secrets and issues, but I’d no idea what these were.
The timeline flicks back occasionally to the past, and gives us glimpses of what went before. I loved these insights, which not only give hints into their pasts, but help to give greater depth to the characters that they are now.
When it’s finally all revealed, it’s quite heartbreaking. Each of them have been dealing with difficult situations, and often suppressing their emotions and internalising them.
As they go on a healing journey together, they each help each other.
This is such a captivating and emotional read, which will completely pull you in. It’s heartwarming and heartbreaking at the same time, and will have you both in tears, and smiling. Simply wonderful.
My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Her fifth novel – The Forgotten Wife – will be out in January 2020.
When she is not writing, Emma is an English teacher and lives in Essex with a patient husband and two children who are an endless source of material.
Website: www.motherhoodforslackers.com
Facebook: facebook.com/motherhoodforslackers
Twitter: @emmarobinsonuk
Instagram: emmarobinsonuk
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