Another great read from Linda Green! The marriage mender follows a blended family as they are forced to confront issues in their life which is ironic as the wife/ mum/ step mum is a couples counsellor!
Alison and Chris are a married couple and have a daughter Matilda,and Chris has a son Josh from his first marriage who lives with them full time since his mum abandoned him as a 6 month old baby. Issues such as abandonment, adoption, alcoholism, missing persons and trust are all experienced within the family leading to them attending their own counselling sessions! Predictable at times but very readable!
Thank you netgalley for this early read.

I didn’t realise this was a reprint of one of her older novels. I thought it seemed familiar. I gave up half way through as I’ve already read it. It needs to be made clearer it’s a reprint.

I very much enjoyed this book and was very glad I read this. I thought the idea of the story was clever but actually the book was much better than the simple idea of a marriage counsellor not being able to sort out her own marriage. The story panned out well and seemed to just be a series of unfortunate events that changed everyone’s lives. I felt so much for Ali - she was a wonderful lady who genuinely seemed to want the best for everyone around her and was willing to sacrifice her own happiness to do so! I liked all the other characters and felt they were well written. I enjoyed having the different people who were having counselling with Ali as part of the plot. It really added to her character and made me like her even more! The one thing I found rather confusing, and a bit unnecessary, were the parts in italics in places. This is why I have not given the last star. I spent a lot of time trying to work out what they were and who they related to when it appeared there was no link or reason for them to be there. I felt the book did not need them. The ending was quite abrupt but actually I think it worked. For me I was happy as it did conclude the story.

I hadn’t realised initially that this wasn’t actually a new Linda Green book, but a reissue of one originally published in 2014. I haven’t read it before, though, so that’s not a problem.

Alison is married to Chris, mother to eight year old Matilda, and stepmother to sixteen year old Josh, whose own mother walked out on him as a baby and hasn’t been seen since. Alison is also a relationship counsellor, and stories of some of the couples she helps are woven through the book. Her own life, though, starts going to hell in a handbasket when Josh’s erratic long-lost mother, Lydia, turns up unexpectedly and immediately starts wreaking an unimaginable amount of havoc on their previously stable family life.

Linda’s books are always so involving and realistic, with hugely relatable characters. I loved the Yorkshire setting and how clearly people’s voices (and accents) came across. I especially loved Chris’s mother Barbara, who I could totally visualise - the sort of grandma everybody wants. Lydia, too, although the complete opposite as a character - she’s a kind of agent of destruction, really - was very believable.

The story really engaged me emotionally, and the resolution of Jayne and Bob’s story had me crying helplessly.

As always, a highly involving and readable story with characters you can believe in and care about.

#TheMarraigeMender #NetGalley
An excellent novel.
Alison is a marriage mender. Her job is to help couples who fear they have reached the end of the road. So 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 happy family. And sometimes the cracks run too deep to ever be repaired
Thanks to NetGalley and Quercus for giving me an advance copy.