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Gabbie is married to Liam, and they have two daughters, Olivia and Alice. Unfortunately, her hubby has been keeping secrets with a bad gambling problem. How will she tell her daughters and where will they live? She has a lot of decisions to make. Loved, loved, and really loved!!!!! Warning, a box of tissues was needed to get through this entire book. My tears were never-ending and it pulled on every heart-string in my body… I enjoyed every minute of this book.’ Blue Moon Blogger ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Little do I know that everything I thought I knew about the woman who destroyed my life when I was a child is about to come crashing down. Living together now, the secrets that have kept us apart for all these years are finally revealing themselves. Will our fragile bond break completely, or could it be the only thing that saves me and my daughters…? Alice Moore needs to be commended on this beautiful cover design for My Stepmother’s Secret. Emma always has a great eye for cover designers for her books.
The parent,” says Martin, “feels attached to, pulled by, nourished by and connected to the same child as the step-parent feels rejected by, ignored by, jealous of, competitive with and exhausted by.”Her father had sent her away to boarding school, and there she was bullied by another girl. She appeared to have viewed others and situations incorrectly. I could feel every single emotion Gabbie was going through and it was like I knew her personally. All of the scenes were perfectly described and It was easy to feel as if you were right there in the middle of all of it. I cried and cried some more. I highly recommend reading this story with a box Having read some of Robinson's previous works, I have to say that this is her greatest novel to date. She writes from the heart, but skillfully avoids sentimentality, crafting a story that mirrors the complexity of real life in all its thorniness and messiness.
The book itself is written so well that it reads so smoothly from chapter to chapter with brilliant descriptions and settings perfect for the scene. It really dragged me deep into the story and I became completely invested until I came out the other end with tears streaming down my face. The title and synopsis fitted the storyline perfectly. My Stepmother's Secret by Emma Robinson was another brilliant book, I was hooked from the beginning till the end. I loved it. This well written family saga was full of secrets and the effects that those secrets had on other people. Gabbie has to decide whether to stay in her marriage and what she should tell her daughters about their father. It's also about choices and change. Is it possible to see people and situations differently than you have all of your life?. I throughly enjoyed reading this and it was a nice change from the dark thrillers I usually read. The ending was really heart warming and it was exactly what I was hoping would happen. Overall I loved this, and can’t fault it at all. I can’t wait to read more by this author!
Maybe I'm heartless and petty, but if I was in Gabbie's place I would have thrown my husband under the bus from the beginning, after making sure my kids and I would be ok. Knowing how many lies after lies I'd been told, I would not be feeling sorry for him even a bit. Of course, you don't stop loving someone, but you can not make yourself, and especially your children, a victim of their addiction. You can help them try to recover and do better, but your first priority should be your kids. Also, I don't believe children, especially older children, should be kept in the dark about serious matters like this. If anything, it can be a learning experience. I was annoyed that Gabbie didn't try to explain to Olivia. She didn't have to make Liam look bad, but some honesty from the beginning would probably have been appreciated by her daughter. Obviously, this is the moral of the story in a sense, but it was pretty frustrating to read. For some reason I was expecting a thriller, it definitely wasn't that, it was a straightforward general fiction based around family dynamics.
Gabbie has to make some tough choices, but she has learned from these new truths and is better equipped to handle her own life as a wife and mother to her girls and how she perceives her stepmother Jill in a different light. It is set over multiple time lines. When books show what has happened in the past and what is happening in the present I find it really helps the reader (if it is well done) understand why things are happening and what has lead to the present activities and decisions. It also shows the bigger picture.Gabbie has nowhere to turn but to her stepmother, Jill. Her mom and dad are gone, and even though they left her the house in the will, Jill can live there as long as she likes. It’s in that moment, I realise – I have nowhere to turn. If my precious daughters and I are going to have a roof over our heads, we have to return to my childhood home. The one I’ve not felt welcome in since my father died. The one where the woman who destroyed our family still lives… My Stepmother’s Secret focused a lot on the family dynamic and forgiveness. Oh there was tons of family drama, deep hidden secrets, very eye opening revelations that changed the perspective of what we thought was really real. This was a very deep and intense book if you think about it.
First, I want to thank Emma Robinson, Bookouture, and NetGalley for providing me with this book so I can bring you this review. Robinson's writing style is nothing short of captivating, as she teases out the story layer by layer, keeping the reader guessing until the very end. I found myself invested in Gabbie's dilemma, unsure of which way I wanted the story to go. It was a rollercoaster of emotions, and I couldn't put the book down.
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Gabbie is the mom to 16 yr. old Olivia and 8 yr. old Alice. She is married to Liam who turns out to have secrets that is tearing the family apart. However, Liam has a way of hiding those secrets and being the "favorite, fun parent." Throughout the story Gabbie is reminded of her own childhood and the loss of her mother at 13. We really have two stories in one with this one. The story where Gabbie is a child and one where she is the adult and parent. Heartbreaking… Had me with a huge lump in my throat and reaching for my box of tissues more than once… Heart-wrenching… Hits on a deep emotional level.’ Robin Loves Reading ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
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