Kelly Rimmer is definitely a force to be reckoned with. Her books are really well written and storyline to be asked admired. I look forward to reading more of their books in the future. Often emotional and always to be remembered.

Was a truly good read. Good characters and storyline. Finished in one sitting. I was impressed. Would recommend.

Great story, thrilling plot that I could not put down. Well worth a read, and would recommend to others.

I love reading Kelly Rimmer's books. She writes beautifully and her stories always have a twist. This is no exception. I read this book several years ago but the shock of the ending still stays with me. I can't recommend it enough... very few novels make me cry... this one left a huge emotional dent!

The Tragedy - When we join the story, a thirty-seven year old man has recently died. David Wyatt Gillespie was charming, a successful businessman, an avid sportsman, was on the town council, and was married with an infant daughter. He was also an abusive husband.

The Wife - Thirty-five year old Olivia Gillespie, is deeply traumatized by her husband's death. Swept away initially by David's charm and persuasiveness, she learned, after a decade, that David's love for her bordered on obsession. He was extremely controlling, emotionally manipulative, and physically abusive. Over the years he had cut her off from her own family and isolated her from all of her friends. Now he is dead, and Olivia finds she cannot move on. With a daughter who is only a few months old to look after, she rarely leaves her lavish home, and then only to visit her grief counselor in the accompaniment of her mother. Olivia once worked as a veterinary surgeon, but since the birth of her daughter Zoe, she has not returned to her career. Olivia blames herself for what happened to David.

"Sometimes I actually miss him, but then in the very next breath I find that I hate him so much that I hope there is a hell, just so that he can be suffering like he left me here to suffer."

As the book progresses, so too does Olivia's mental anguish gradually lessen. Enough so that she makes a list to get on with her life - using her maiden name, Olivia Brennan.

The Mother - Ivy Gillespie is David's mother. Reeling from the shocking death of her only and much beloved son, she is trying to grasp what has happened. We learn much about Ivy through her reminiscences of David's life, starting when he was just a small boy. Ivy had an unhealthy relationship with her son. She couldn't see that he had any flaws, and always completely centered her life around his. Unhappily married to the town's only grocer, she wants for nothing, yet she has never really loved he husband Wyatt. Her only love has always been her handsome and athletic son who learned his manipulative ways at his mother's knee. Ivy has always been jealous of her son's relationship with Olivia, and she blames Olivia for what happened to David.

"David was my perfection - and raising him was instantly my purpose. I threw myself into motherhood with great abandon."

MY THOUGHTS

The reader is never made privy to how David actually died until the very end of the book. We only know that it must have been something spectacular because Olivia mentions that his death was captured by national media. This is the crux of the whole book.

I absolutely hated Ivy's character. I was often impatient with Olivia's character. Yet, the author must have done something very right for me to FEEL so strongly about these two women.

Don't let the cover misguide you, this is not your sappy romance. Though it does have a small element of love story, this is mostly a book about unhealthy parenting, abuse in marriage, and even more than that, it was about grief and the grieving process.

Although readers often expect a plot twist when reading thrillers, you don't often get one in women's fiction. This book was the exception. The twist when it came near the end of the novel was profoundly shocking to me. That being said, after I thought about it a bit more, I realized that there were many hints in the book that I should have picked up on, but didn't. Shame on me.

Recommended to those readers who enjoy cleverly written women's fiction.

A rollercoaster of a read, with depth of feeling around Olivia’s marriage to the supposedly perfect David. I couldn’t quite work out who was supposed to be confessing here, David’s mother or Olivia... perhaps that’s the conundrum- both mothers with something to say sorry for.

All in all a riveting read that had me rooting for Olivia.

4* with a few tears thrown in for good measure.

A really good read, a little emotional at times. I would highly recommend it
Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC in return for an honest review.

I have a ton of books in my"read" file and none have shocked me as A Mother's Confession did.

This is a story about Olivia and David. They met in College, although they grew up in the same small town but ran in different circles. After college they get married and life for Olivia takes a drastic turn.
David becomes verbally and psychically abusive and alienates her from her family and friends. David's parents see the signs of abuse and chose to ignore it saying "it's their business". For years Olivia puts up with the abuse because as usual David cries and apologizes afterward and says if she would just be good he wouldn't get so angry.
This story is told in alternating chapters between Olivia and David's mom Ivy. It will have you frustrated on so many levels but will keep you reading. When I got to the end of this book I was bawling like a baby and could not believe I didn't pick up on the way it ended.
I will remember this book for a very long time.

Bookouture and NetGalley provided me with an electronic copy of A Mother's Confession. I was under no obligation to review this book and my opinion is freely given.

After Olivia's husband David commits suicide, she cannot seem to avoid the prying questions and sideline stares. Living near her in-laws complicates matters, especially considering the fact that Olivia and her mother -in-law Ivy has never quite seen eye to eye. Months pass, until Olivia decides that it is time to get back into her life. Along with her infant daughter Zoe, can Olivia find the strength within herself to face her demons and open her eyes the realities of her life?

Told in the alternating perspectives of Ivy and Olivia, the book shifts from present to past in a pretty seamless manner. The social issues of abuse, suicide, and death in general are well handled and realistically portrayed. There is a twist that many readers will not see coming, which adds to the realism of the story. I would recommend A Mother's Confession on the strength of its characterization and its well paced plot.

Did not finish. It was too slow for me. I took a break from reading so I can't remember the details of this book for a more thorough review

What a devastatingly brilliant read! 'A Mother's Confession,' is the terrible story of an abusive relationship at its very worst between husband David, and wife Olivia, the tragic consequences of which are saved until the very end with a twist that will leave you breathless.
There are so many layers to this book that it would be impossible to dissect them all in one short book review, but there are some serious issues under scrutiny here. It is about the relationship between mother and child, in this case Ivy and David, Olivia and baby Zoe. It is about obsession and the terrible things that come of it; that of Ivy with her son, David, and David's subsequent obsession with Olivia. It is about nature or nurture; the age old debate over whether someone is born or taught their behaviours. It is about grief and moving on; the story is told in the present day and uses flashbacks to the past to build a picture of how the life and death of David affected the two main women in the book, his mother, and his wife. It is about appearances, and how the façade of every day life can hide the truth behind every story. And it is about perspective; the central character is David, already dead when we begin, with his story being revealed gradually through the independent voices of his wife, and his mother.
This is truly a great book that will have you gripped to the bitter end.

This is an intense, emotional story of love & abuse, grief & new beginnings. You get to know David from both his mother’s viewpoint & his wife’s.
David’s mother, Ivy, feels like no one will ever be good enough for her son. She completely idolized him & put him on a pedestal.
Olivia, David’s wife, loved & hated her husband. He was very abusive towards her, but she could not leave him. They have a baby girl. David commits suicide. Olivia must pick up the pieces of her shattered life.
Both women tell their story of their love for this man & the devastating loss they feel with his death.

Thank you NetGalley for this advanced copy in exchange for my honest opinion!

Dear Bookouture. Thank you for the opportunity to read and review this title. Unfortunately, due to the large number of titles forwarded to me by various publishers, I'm not going to be in a position to read this book. Thanks once again and I hope to read and review many other Bookouture titles in future. Thanks. Kim. The Buzzing Bookmark

I really enjoyed the book, it has everything I love in a novel from start to finish. I can’t wait to read what the author has planned next!

Thanks to netgalley for the opportunity to have read this great offering.  It is the first book by Kelly Rimmer I’ve read, and I will try to read more of hers in the near future.
The book focuses on two women that have to deal  with the death of their husband and son respectively. 
The reader can see how the two woman’s grief is dealt with, and you really felt sad with them!
The whole time there was a hint of a secret and I couldn’t wait to see what it was, and the twist was done well!
Highly recommended.

This book is brilliant and difficult to put down. There are two narrators in the story. Firstly Olivia who has a baby named Zoe, her husband David recently committed suicide. Secondly Ivy, David's mother. Olivia was a battered wife and was about to leave David. In some ways she is glad to be free of her husband. Ivy thinks back to when David was growing up and she thinks that whatever Olivia did to cause David to beat her, she deserved it! David was a wonderful, special child, as far as Ivy was concerned. We journey with Olivia and Ivy through the past and future, where hopefully they can move forward. A great read!

Kelly Rimmer is fast becoming one of my "go-to" authors. Written in a similar vain as Diane Chamberlain or Jodi Picoult, Rimmer tells a heartbreaking story of love, loss and grief, told from alternating viewpoints of Wyn & Ivy.

The story had me hooked from the very first chapter and one that I didn't want to put down. The plot quickly unfolds and makes you really start to think about "nature vs. nurture". Is it possible that domestic abusers can be raised to be such, or is it part of their genetic make up? Or is it both?

Rimmer certainly makes you feel and you can't help but have strong feelings for our main characters. I would highly recommend this book.

This book is ‘easy’ to read as far as domestic violence is concerned as the aggravator (The Son, The Husband) is dead, so telling the story through the eyes of the women in his life is not backed by the silent and ever present fear that he is lurking in the shadows somewhere. Anyone with some exposure to this type of violence in their world will understand this constant overshadowing fear that they are being watched, heard or recorded. Still, it’s a hard read and covers some of the basis’s upon which these behaviours can develop and be nurtured and how friends and family can be a part of the cycle even when they are completely unaware of its existence. There is a twist, it wasn’t hard to work out as there are clues along the way, but still very well done.

Thanks to Bookouture and Netgalley.

I was enthralled with this book and the way the story was told from the perspectives of the 2 women in David's life - his mother and his wife.

It really brings home how the same scenarios can be interpreted in totally different ways.

I found the story tragic and heart breaking with a cracking twist that I did not see coming.

I will certainly be reading more by Kelly Rimmer.

--I received this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts are purely my own and not influenced in any way.--
By now, you probably know the basic plot of the book so I'm not going to rehash it, but the abuse is actually very well written and all characters are written unbelievably realistically. You really felt what both Olivia and Ivy were going through and you lived Olivia's triumphs and wanted to scream at Ivy's willful ignorance. Oh, Ivy. I actually DID NOT hate her as many other readers did, I found myself pitying her and understanding where she came from: her son was her world and she was stuck in a life she was not content in but forced to stay in. She was very bitter and saw her son as the one good thing that happened in her life and didn't want to see that be messed up too so she created her own reality that was showing cracks. I like to believe she did actually get it in the end, and I took all of her parts as if she is speaking to someone well after the events took place because she feels guilty, hence why she is telling the reader all of his backstory and showing where she went wrong. There is hope for her, just like there was hope for Olivia.
Olivia was a joy to read about because she never stopped moving forward. Whenever some obstacle came in her way, she overcame it. I actually liked that she never hesitated to ask for help when she needed it. Yeah, she made a few mistakes, but she was willing to own up to them and realize that she was not to blame for the abuse and tragedy that follows.
Now for the twist: it was foreshadowed, but it was subtle enough that I didn't catch it. That said, I always hate twists like this because it feels contrived and I've read it so many times in these types of books that it just cheapens the message and is kind of becoming a trope at this point, so I docked a star for just my general distaste of this type of twist in general, but this one was actually handled well and made some sense with the story.
Twist wasn't for me, but that's just an "Erika" issue with how often it seems to come up in women's fiction (view spoiler). Don't let it detract you from reading the book, it really is worth it!