Her Mother’s Daughter

Confession time. As a closeted book-snob, a quick perusal of the back cover of Lesley Crewe’s new novel Her Mother’s Daughter made me pretty certain it wasn’t my kind of book.

A quiet homebody who lives in the sleepy little town of Louisbourg, of all places? Yawn. A glamorous sister complete with a sports car and head-turning good looks? Too Danielle Steel for me. A domestic secret? Geeze, that doesn’t exactly put me on the edge of my seat…

Well, flash ahead a few days and you’ll find this haughty reviewer wiping tears from her eyes as she reads the penultimate scene of the book—a scene that brings together all the flawed but loving characters in a way that “does the heart good” as my mother might say.

Crewe’s talent lies in rendering characters that readers can actually care about. They have been hurt and they have hurt others, but their essential goodness shines through.

Her Mother’s Daughter is the story of two sisters who have chosen different paths in life. Bay is the aforementioned homebody, an attractive widow who has raised her daughter Ashley with the help of her now-deceased mother and her good friend Gertie. Tansy is the flighty and glamorous sister who high-tailed out of Louisburg as soon as an opportunity presented itself. Old rivalries and wounds quickly resurface when Tansy returns to Louisbourg. Throw in a good dose of teen pregnancy and a really awful secret and you’ve got the makings of an entertaining beach read.

While the lives of these characters definitely fall on the fictional side of ordinary and the solutions to their problems are tied up more neatly than they would be in real life, Crewe still manages to speak truths about the enduring nature of family and the value of friendship. —Kate Watson