BETWEEN A MOTHER AND HER CHILD.

BETWEEN A MOTHER AND HER CHILD by ELIZABETH NOBLE.

For Maggie and Bill it was (almost) love at first sight.

One impulsive wedding later and with the arrival of three perfect children, Jake, Aly and Stan, the Barrett family seem to have it all. Until the day their world stops turning.

In one instance, everything has changed in the cruellest of ways, and neither Bill, Maggie nor the children can ever be the same again. Clinging to the wreckage of her family, Maggie cannot even begin to fix things on her own.

Enter Kate: housekeeper, companion and shoulder to cry on. She's here to pick up the pieces and fix what isn't completely broken. But can Maggie trust Kate? And why is Kate so keen to help?

When Bill falls for another woman, Maggie realizes she will have to fight to put her family back together - but will they still want her?

- Back Cover Blurb

The dream, the one she had dreamt most nights for many, many months, always started the same way.

- First Sentence; Prologue

Please see My Thoughts below for my Memorable Moment

SOURCE ... On my TBR mountain for so long now I can't remember.

READ FOR A CHALLENGE? ... No.

MY THOUGHTS ... Not an author I've read before but looking at her back catalogue in order of publication this is Noble's seventeenth book which kind of surprises me. 

Reading a bit like a first draft; at 466 pages long I think a re-write/good editing could dispense of, oh, a good 100 or so pages. Then there's the ungainly structure and the lengthy descriptions that quite frankly could be cut. And that's to say nothing of the 
myriad of characters (some of whom are introduced then seemingly forgotten about until much, much later in the novel) whose points of view are randomly interrupted in favour of that of another character seemingly on a whim.

Given how big a deal characters are to me it was in fact these who disappointed most. Characters like middle-aged 'I fancy the arse off you, yes, but it's more than that. I really like being with you. I don't just want to ... jump in your knickers. I'd like to try and ... be together' Charlie*.

I don't know maybe it says more about the middle-aged men that I know but really? 

I'm afraid it wasn't just the cheesy dialogue that made him (and many of the other characters) unbelievable.

A 'I've started it so I'll finish it' reader; there aren't

many books I've thought were a waste of my time and even less I've given up on. Whilst I did finish Between A Mother And Her Child it did cross my mind that there was another (how ever many days it took me to read) that I'd never get back.

Oh well! Perhaps another one of the author's books will be more to my taste. Though somehow I think it will be a long time before I'm willing to give it a go and find out.

* Page 373 of the 2012 P/B Penguin edition I read.