Review: The Mother by Yvette Edwards

The Mother

by Yvette Edwards

Publisher: Amistad

Pages: 256

Format: ARC

Buy the Book: Amazon

Goodreads:  The unimaginable has happened to Marcia Williams. Her bright and beautiful sixteen-year-old son Ryan has been brutally murdered. Consumed by grief and rage, she must bridle her dark feelings and endure something no mother should ever have to experience: she must go to court for the trial of the killer—another teenage boy—accused of taking her son’s life. 

How could her son be dead? Ryan should have been safe—he wasn’t the kind of boy to find himself on the wrong end of a knife carried by a dangerous young man like Tyson Manley. But as the trial proceeds, Marcia finds her beliefs and assumptions challenged as she learns more about Ryan’s death and Tyson’s life, including his dysfunctional family. She also discovers troubling truths about her own. As the strain of Ryan’s death tests their marriage, Lloydie, her husband, pulls further away, hiding behind a wall of secrets that masks his grief, while Marcia draws closer to her sister, who is becoming her prime confidant. 

One person seems to hold the answers—and the hope—Marcia needs: Tyson's scared young girlfriend, Sweetie. But as this anguished mother has learned, nothing in life is certain. Not any more.


Kritters Thoughts:  Marcia Williams was an attentive mother and tried to do all the things she could to allow for her son to have the best upbringing and by a turn of circumstances he is murdered.  The book begins as the trial for his alleged murderer and she believes that she must sit through every day to help with her grief and "support" her now deceased son.  Her marriage is falling apart and her husband is dealing with the grief in a very different way and they are not connecting.  This story is not only about a marriage in disarray and a courtroom drama.

This book is both in and out of my wheelhouse in interesting ways.  I love a good courtroom drama and I read them often, so that was in my wheelhouse.  The out of my wheelhouse was that it came from the viewpoint of the mother of the deceased and there was drama both out and in the court and they bled together.  

The mother of the victim interacted with the mother of the accused and this was a big part of the book.  I would love to read this story again through her eyes and see what she has to say as she raised three boys on her own.  The reader only gets to know her through the mother of the victim's eyes which are obviously jaded!  

Has anyone read Yvette Edwards' previous book - A Cupboard Full of Coats?  I just may have to read it next!


Rating: definitely a good read, but can't read two in a row

Disclosure of Material Connection:  I received one copy of this book free of charge from TLC Book Tours  I was not required to write a positive review in exchange for receipt of the book; rather, the opinions expressed in this review are my own.