A well written family drama. The characters felt believable. It is beautifully written. A compelling and entertaining book.

This was the first book I have read by this author and I will definitely be reading more after this. I loved her writing style, the plot and the twists which were completely unpredictable and enjoyable

This book was everything I look for in a book. It was so exciting. The plot was fantastic. It really had me on the edge of my seat, and my heart racing. It was very well written and flowed well.

What a great book. I actually shouted out when I got to one of the twists as so unexpected. I just loved this book so much.

Another brilliant book by this lady
This book didn’t disappoint
You will not want to put it down
Thanks NetGalley

The Last Thing She Told Me by Linda Green was a five star read for me so I was really looking forward to reading this one.

I enjoyed this book overall but definitely not the way I enjoyed the previous book I read. While it was a good family drama that was well written with some likeable and unlikeable characters, I found it a little slow going for me.

The Marriage Mender is an emotional family drama about the challenges of being part of a blended family.
Alison is married to Chris and is mother to their daughter Tilly and step-mum to Chris’s son Josh. Things are fine until Josh’s mum Lydia returns to their lives after walking out when he was a baby. Alison is a marriage counsellor, but has to reach out to another professional for help when Lydia’s return and the subsequent fall out impacts on her own marriage.
I enjoyed this book, but did find it quite slow paced at times. It covers a wide range of family issues, and I’m sure many people will relate to the topics it covers.

Loved this book. Very well written, I was emotionally attached to the characters . So many emotions felt in this book. Loved the ending. It kept my attention the whole way through.

I have read and really enjoyed a couple of Linda Green's books so was pleased to recieve this one.

I found this really easy to get into and an enjoyable enough read for the first half but the second half just felt rather unbelievable, predictable and coincidental.

One thing I did find confusing was the way it jumped to Alison talking to other couples and the random paragraphs about marital problems.

That said the twist at the end was completely unexpected!

Thanks to netgalley and Quercus Books for the ARC.

Another fabulous read by this very talented author. Her style of writing and totally believable cast of characters grabbed me instantly. Loved it!

I loved One Moment, an emotionally charged and poignant book, but I'm not a fan of this one. I had high expectations and maybe it was the wrong approach as it's a different type of story.
I will try again but it wasn't my cup of tea.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine

This is a book about relationships and how complicated they can be. It was both entertaining and keeps you interested and enough twists and characters with secrets. Recommended
Thanks to Netgalley for an advance copy of this book

I really enjoyed this book. It was a great storyline with excellent characters. I would highly recommend this book as it was a great read.

Marriage guidance and relationship counsellor Alison Bentley lives with her husband, Chris who is a photographer, and is mum to nine-year-old Matilda, and step mum to sixteen-year-old Josh. Lydia, Josh's mum left Chris when Josh was still a baby and she hasn’t been around since. But on his birthday, Lydia turns up to see her son...

Set in West Yorkshire this is a delightful tale and I immediately connected with Alison, despite her job as a relationship counsellor. The fact that a lot of the story takes place in the Bentley family home could have made this rather tedious, but this wasn't the case at all. The storytelling is interspersed with italicised sections some of which made me smile. This was my third novel by Linda Green and I adore her writing style and the way she manages to get the reader rooting for her believable characters so quickly. A clever, engrossing tale about complicated relationships within blended families.

Disclosure: Thank you to Quercus for providing a digital ARC of The Marriage Mender by Linda Green via Netgalley for review. All opinions expressed in this review are my own.

Alison is a marriage counselor. When her husband's ex returns to claim her son back, the son she abandoned 16 years ago, it inevitably puts a strain on Alison's family.
Her job is to save other people's relationships, but can she save her own?


I read a few books from this author, and I always enjoyed them.
While this was a good read that held my interest steadily, I found that the second half of the book fell flat, and therefore I struggled to stay invested in the story. The twist at the end was unexpected, but I'm still puzzling over who the in-between italic chapters were about.
It was an OK read, so I give it 2 stars.

This is a good family drama with well described characters. Parts of it seemed familiar and I realised it was a reprint that I had read before. Equally good the second time around !

I originally read this in 2017 and vaguely remember the plot but was intrigued to reread and see if my thoughts remained the same.

Alison is a relationship councillor who is married to Chris. She is step mum to Josh whose mum abandoned him when she left Josh and Chris when Josh was a baby. Alison and Chris have daughter Tilly and at the start seem a strong family unit. The family begins to implode when Josh’s mum comes back and is still the rock and roll chick she was when she left 16 years ago. She creates chaos in the lives of the family and rifts which extend out beyond them.

The story deals sensitivity with difficult subjects like rape, abuse, abandonment and addiction. We see how the perfect family is torn apart by these and other issues and how the myriad of characters deal with things in their own way. It is interesting that Alison as a councillor tries to heal her own relationships and is unable to do so without outside help.

I particularly liked the character of Barbara, adoptive mum of Chris. She shows compassion, understanding and complete loyalty to her adoptive child and his family and great courage meeting his birth mother.

As with last time I read this I would give 4 stars. Mainly this is because the ending is far to abrupt and the return could have been expanded a chapter or two.

Thank you to Netgalley, the publisher and the author for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

My first thought upon finishing this book was "WOW!" and then it went something like "where has Linda Green been all my life?" Seriously though, this is not my usual genre and when I do read contemporary fiction I tend to be rather picky about them. But this? This was something else entirely. It's a feel-good family drama with love and laughter, sadness and heartbreaks and yet it was still something so much more than that. I can't even begin to put my finger on it...but whatever it was, I loved it. And I loved this book!

The story opens with an initial therapy session to which Alison and husband Chris have come to help them identify the issues they have been facing and how to address them. Which is kind of ironic since Alison is a relationship counsellor herself, and she cannot help but see the irony here or the utter ridiculousness of their situation. Their 9 year old daughter Matilda called her the "marriage mender" as she helps keeps people's mummies and daddies together when they are rowing about stuff a lot. And here she is seeking her own marriage-mender.

But what has lead her and Chris to this point? Well, where do they start? Chris was the first to speak. It all began on Josh's 16th birthday...

It began like any other day, except that Matilda was bursting with excitement waiting at the breakfast table for her big brother Josh to make an appearance so they could shower him with their gifts. He was ecstatic with the guitar Chris and Ali had bought him and the amp to accompany it closely followed by the black on black clothes Matilda had lovingly chosen for him at Oxfam. And later that day, their gran was coming over and together they would enjoy a birthday tea together completed with an enormous chocolate cake that Ali had made. But something happened between those two events that set the wheels in motion to bring change into their happy contended lives.

Although Alison isn't Josh's biological mum, she has loved and nurtured him for ten years as if he had been. She met single dad Chris when Josh was just six years old, his mother having walked out and left him when he was just six months old. Chris had returned home from work to little Josh screaming in his cot in a sodden nappy with his mother, along with her belongings, gone. And then one day, Chris walked into a library with Josh where Alison was telling the gathered children a story. After that, they were regular fixtures at storytime until Josh invited Alison to his birthday party...and the rest is history. Or is it?

The knock on the door was surprising. Alison wasn't expecting anyone just yet with Josh over at Tom's and Chris having gone for a walk and Barbara wouldn't be arriving till Chris collected her. But as soon as Alison opened the door she knew exactly who it was standing in front of her. Lydia. After sixteen years since walking out on them without a word, she was back. The fact that it was Josh's birthday was hardly a coincidence for with her was a gift for the son she abandoned. Little did Alison know that with Lydia's return would be wreaking ball driven right into the heart of their happy family.

So why has Lydia returned after all these years? Why now? She wants to see Josh and the young man he is becoming but surely she had to know that her sudden reappearance after sixteen years without a word would throw his life into turmoil? He's a teenager and is not equipped to deal with such a disruption to his life, particularly with his exams approaching. But she had a special gift she had always meant to give him should she ever seen him again...and in that moment when he unwrapped it, Alison knew that Josh was going to give his mother a chance - he was that sort of person. But with that chance came broken promises, impromptu visits, drunken insults and broken hearts. And in the middle was Alison, trying to do the right thing for everyone...to keep her family together and keep everyone happy.

Soon cracks began to appear. And the sniping started. And then after one too many drunken outbursts and attacks on their family, Lydia threw a grenade into the mix with explosive consequences that no one could have foreseen. And in a blink of an eye, Josh was gone. And in the aftermath, blame was assigned as tears fell and life began to fall apart.

Then when Barbara revealed a secret that she was never to reveal, Alison knew then that her family needed help. And so she and Chris sought relationship counselling to help find a way through the rubble and back to each other.

But nothing prepared either of them for what was about to come...

I absolutely loved THE MARRIAGE MENDER, almost reading it in one sitting if not for the extremely late hour and needing sleep. That said, upon waking this morning I went straight back to it and didn't stop until the last tear-jerking page. Completely absorbing from the first page, THE MARRIAGE MENDER is a delightful and emotional read that is sure to tug at your heartstrings.

Ali was a wonderful character and I connected with her from the beginning, caring for her deeply as well as her beautiful family. Even Matilda I found to be endearing, and I am not one to be enchanted by children, but she had an uncanny knack of the most uncomfortable questions but she is rather intelligent beyond her years. Her relationship with her half-brother Josh is an endearing one to read. Chris is a wonderful father and husband although he could be annoyingly silent when you just wanted to shake him into sharing what was deeply troubling him and why. He was incredibly hurt by Lydia so his wanting to protect Josh from his train wreck of a mother is completely understandable. Barbara is Chris' mother and is the stoic matriarch with enough love and understanding to envelop the family in. Until secrets are revealed to put everyone and everything they knew to the test. But it was Josh who my heart went out to the most, having his world turned upside down and is so utterly confused by the new revelations in his life. His struggles were heartbreaking to read as is the final extreme decision he made.

The issues addressed in THE MARRIAGE MENDER cover abandonment, domestic violence, alcoholism, adoption, runaways, teenage pregnancy and depression which may be a trigger for some but each is approached and explored sensitively.

Overall, THE MARRIAGE MENDER is a wonderful emotional read that is compelling from beginning to end that even when I turned that final page I wasn't ready to let go of the characters and their stories. This is my first read by Linda Green and, if this book is anything to go by, it won't be my last.

A well-written family drama that is perfect for fans of Nicole Trope, Kerry Fisher and Julia Roberts.

I would like to thank #LindaGreen, #Netgalley and #Quercus for an ARC of #TheMarriageMender in exchange for an honest review.

EXCERPT: Polly turned to my form. It was only a matter of time before she found out now. I waited, watching her face for the sign. To be fair, she didn't even flinch.

'Ah, Alison, I see you're a counsellor yourself. What sort of areas do you cover?'

I hesitated. Aware how utterly ridiculous it was going to sound. I thought of what Matilda always said when people asked her what her mother did. She called me a 'marriage mender'. Said I kept people's mummies and daddies together when they were arguing a lot. My stomach tightened as I wondered what on earth she would think if she could see her marriage-mender mummy right now.

'Relationships,' I said to Polly, trying to keep my voice as low and as even as possible. 'I'm a relationship counsellor.'

The silence hung heavily in the air. Chris put his head in his hands.

I smiled weakly. 'It is rather ridiculous, isn't it?'

'Not at all,' said Polly. 'I'm divorced. I'd say that's more ridiculous.'

ABOUT 'THE MARRIAGE MENDER': The only relationship she can't save is her own . . .
Alison is a marriage counsellor. Her job is to help couples who fear they have reached the end of the line. But the trouble with spending your time sorting out other people's problems is that you tend to take your eye off your own. Even when her husband's ex Lydia arrives on the doorstep demanding to see her son, Alison thinks she can handle it. But what Alison doesn't realise is that Lydia is the one person who has the ability to destroy their perfect family. And sometimes the cracks can run so deep that even a marriage mender can't repair them . . .

MY THOUGHTS: I read this in one sitting, and I loved every word. The Marriage Mender is beautifully written, it's characters so very real that it is impossible not to care about them. I felt like I was right there with them as their family life fell apart after Lydia inserts herself back in Chris' and Josh's lives while Alison scurries about trying to keep everyone happy and hold everything together.

Dramatic humour abounds. I laughed. I cried. I gasped, both in horror and in astonishment. I threw up my hands in exasperation. I air punched in triumph, and groaned in despair. The Marriage Mender is a very emotive read.

All the way through I was rooting for Chris and Alison's relationship. I wanted it to work out. They obviously love one another, deeply, passionately. But is that enough?

Complicated family relationships. Humour. Lies. Secrets. A delicious combination with enough twists to keep my mind spinning.

The Marriage Mender is not predictable. The outcome is up in the air until the very final page. A compelling and entertaining read, and one I wholeheartedly recommend.

⭐⭐⭐⭐.7

#TheMarriageMender #NetGalley

I: @lindagreenbooks @quercusbooks

T: @LindaGreenisms @QuercusBooks

#fivestarread #contemporaryfiction #familydrama #mystery #sliceoflife

THE AUTHOR: Linda Green wrote her first novella at age nine. Unfortunately the pony-based, time-travel thriller genre never took off. She did, however, go on to become an award-winning journalist and has written for the Guardian, the Independent on Sunday and The Big Issue. Linda lives in West Yorkshire, is married to a sports photographer for a national newspaper and has a six-year-old son.

DISCLOSURE: Thank you to Quercus Books via Netgalley for providing a digital ARC of The Marriage Mender by Linda Green for review. All opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own personal opinions.

For an explanation of my rating system please refer to my Goodreads.com profile page or the about page on sandysbookaday.wordpress.com

This review and others are also published on Twitter, Amazon, Instagram and my webpage

Absolutely fantastic. I have some questions left unanswered and would love to have known more re the ending but then I reflected on it and it fitted and I don't want to know more.

I don't want to say too much as if I do there will be spoilers. Safe to say started this in an afternoon and finished reading late that night as I wanted/needed to know what happened next.

I was given an advance copy by netgalley and the publishers but this in no way influenced my review.