I was asked to review the this novel by the publisher because I wrote a very favourable review here for Apple Tree Yard.
My Husband’s Son begins with a woman, Heidi, who thinks she has stumbled upon her husband’s missing son. She has no reason to believe it is him except for a ‘feeling’. She starts to stalk the boy, but then goes off on another tangent of snooping amongst her husband’s things. Her motive is to help her husband, even though he clearly does not want her to.
Heidi’s own child has been murdered, and whilst she fixates on her husband’s trauma, we learn that she lost a lot of weight during the initial grieving process for her daughter, wears punishing high heels, and carries a memento of her dead child in her handbag, however apart from a brief mention( two thirds of the way through) of her ‘dark days’, we don’t really witness her own loss as anything more than symbolic.
The main thrust of the book, for the reader, is that her husband is hiding something, but unfortunately, the pace is slowed by exposition and puffed out with information that camouflages the plot.
The last third of the novel moves faster, reveals the broad answers, and the conclusion is interesting, yielding food for thought. However, although I love the premise of this story, I was not seduced by the narrative.