THE MOTHER’S SECRET

by Clare Swatman Pan, £7.99

KATE and Georgie are close sisters. They were brought up by their single mother Jan but while Kate was allowed lots of freedom as a child, Georgie was always encouraged to stay close to home.

Georgie has decided that it is time to see more of the world and she wants to travel abroad with her partner and their daughter. But she will need her birth certificate which her mother has always kept hidden away.

Jan’s health is failing and she has early-onset dementia so her behaviour is often unpredictable. Georgie and Kate know from past experience that they must tread carefully when asking questions about their past.

But when Georgie starts searching for her birth certificate she sets in motion a train of events that reveal some of the darkest secrets that a family can hide.

The Mother’s Secret is a tightly woven story that interweaves the modern-day story with events in the 1970s which reveal the reason for Jan’s protective behaviour towards her younger daughter.

From a chilling prologue through to an emotional and unexpected reveal this is a story that explores how one spur-of-the-moment decision can affect families, relationships and futures.

Clare Swatman is a talented author whose writing makes the reader ask some difficult questions about what they would do in Georgie’s impossible situation: whether doing the right thing would triumph over family loyalty.