Mothers and Daughters: From the Sunday Times bestselling author comes the most captivating new family drama of 2022

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There were others that raised red flags almost immediately and I found myself shaking my head in disbelief and shock. She is a real ‘people person’, full of empathy, very kind hearted but is without any real focus or ambition. But the one thing she has no control over is falling pregnant despite having been married ten months and both her and Tom keen for children. The author of nineteen bestselling novels, and the winner of the 2006 Romantic Novel of the Year Award, Erica divides her time between Suffolk and Lake Como in Italy.

Mothers and Daughters, the latest novel by Erica James, is a contemporary family drama packed with plenty of secrets, lies and romantic misadventures. I think this symbolises the different pace of life that the characters lead and reinforces Naomi’s more laid-back approach to decisions. Since her husband Colin died a couple of years ago, Naomi has quietly rebuilt her life in Anchor House in the coastal village of Tilsham.Relationships that appear to be wonderful on the outside can be very dark and damaging behind closed doors and keeping up cheery appearances when the one thing you long for isn’t happening can be exhausting. Emotions boil over with these woman and soon there are secrets being told that Naomi had kept a long time about her husband, their father, add to this the stress with trying to fall pregnant for Martha and what is happening to Willow, this story becomes very emotional but a story that is told beautifully with care and thought, it takes in issues that are very prevalent in today’s world. In 2020, Erica received the Nielsen Silver Award for sales of over a quarter of a million copies for both Love and Devotion and Tell It to the Skies ; she has previously won the Romantic Novel of the Year Award for Gardens of Delight and is a Number One bestseller in Norway. Erica James’ writing appears so effortless, and from the first paragraph, I was drawn into the story.

Ellis Ashton moves into Waterside Cottage next door to Naomi, and they have been dating for two months. Themes of domestic abuse and coercive control in relationships are central to the story and were dealt with in a sensitive and insightful way, particularly in recognising how violent and controlling behaviour frequently develops in an incremental way, enabling the perpetrator to gradually undermine his victim’s self-confidence, thus encouraging totally misplaced feelings of shame and guilt to become entrenched, preventing the victim from feeling able to do anything to stop the cycle of violence and intimidation. This is a captivating and amazing story about relationships and life, and what mothers will do to protect their children; I enjoyed it from beginning all the way up to the end and found it difficult to put down. Siblings Martha and Willow couldn’t be more different – chalk and cheese they’d always been told, especially by their father.Although the relationship between the three women is at the heart of the story, other relationships are bought under the spotlight including marital problems, the issues facing blended families, control and abuse and deciding how much of your real self that you let others see.

That said a perfectly good read - it’s not the first or last book I’ve ever read where the author finds a convenient solution to the complex picture that’s been painted. In that way it’s quite slow paced, a gentle lumber through the countryside on a warm spring day; the odd cloud blowing up, but subsiding without too much of a chill. I was, therefore, more than a little surprised by how much I enjoyed reading Mothers and Daughters – a salutary lesson in not judging a book by its cover! She is a lot more relaxed and tends to have boyfriends who don’t last very long before she tires of them.

I also enjoyed the evocative descriptions of the rather genteel seaside village of Tilsham and of the family home.