Wednesday, 10 April 2024

New Book - The Mother by Tess Stimson (Pages 1 - 60)


 First Published: 2019

Maddie Drummond is married to Lucas and has three children. 


The eldest, Emily, who is eight, is from another relationship, but Benjamin died in an accident before the baby was born. Her two other children, Jacob and Noah are babies; Jacob is two and Noah just a few months old. With Emily things were very easy, but Maddie is struggling with her two boys. With Jacob she suffered from postnatal depression, and with Noah she says she is fine, but she is not. There are a few occasions when Maddie didn't remember large chunks of time, but she doesn't feel ready to tell anybody. Her doctor, who treated her for her postnatal depression, wanted her to stay in a hospital to be treated, and that is why she can't ask him about these amnesic episodes.

Maddie owns a horse sanctuary, which she bought with the money she inherited from her father. Now the sanctuary is having financial problems, and one of her partners, Izzy, tells her that she needs to think about selling some of the land, but Maddie doesn't want to do that. For that reason she calls her accountant because she wants to take out a second mortgage on her house. The accountant tells her that as the house belongs to her and Lucas, she needs both of their signatures, but there is a second problem. The house already has a second mortgage that Lucas requested, and her signature was in the document. Maddie pretends to have forgotten, but she is surprised that Lucas took out the mortgage for 80,000 pounds, and the signature in the document is not hers. 

That night Lucas is away, and Maddie wonders if she really knows her husband. It is her intention to talk to her as soon as he arrives. When she wakes up that morning, she is surprised that neither Jacob nor Noah have slept the whole night through. Jacob and Emily have chickenpox, and she thinks that Noah is next. When she goes to check on her baby, she realises that he doesn't move and there is something wrong. In the next chapter we discover that Noah is dead.

These chapters featuring the Drummonds are interspersed with chapters about Lydia, a four-year-old child, who lives with her cruel and violent mother, Maddie. These chapters are told from her perspective in the first person, and it is a sad account. Then Maddie takes her to some place which I believe is some social centre, and Maddie goes to live with a couple who have no children. Yet, a couple of months later, Maddie returns to demand to have Lydia back, and she pretends to be repentant. Yet, when they are alone, we discover that the reason why she wanted Lydia back is because the authorities have threatened to evict her from the house as she was allowed to live there because she had a child. 

I am curious to discover what is the relationship in the novel about these two plots. I am already hooked and I can't wait to find out more. 

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