Women in history, lining up generations, strong social imagery. I really like stories of this kind and for me this novel brought what was expected of the genre. From 1937 to the present day, it tells the story of a family full of mysteries. And Emma wants to get to the bottom of the family secret. Is it worth it to stir up the past? The novel is a great way to draw attention to the importance of the family, to where the lack of communication can lead even between close family members, and how secrets will once be revealed. I loved this story, which had a picture in the center, but I was impressed by the character portrayal and the way the writer built the story. Thanks for the book NetGalley!

This book gripped me from the very first page. The writing flows beautifully. The characters are all well developed. This book looks at mothering and motherhood very well. It is disturbing in places.

Before reading this book, it is important for readers to be aware of multiple content warnings including blood, abortion, infertilty, and rape. Some scenes are quite graphic.

I found this book to be unlike any story I have read in the past. Its main concept surrounds the complexities of mother-daughter relationships. The story switches back and forth between perspectives and periods of time. I, at times, found these perspective changes to be slightly confusing and hard to keep track of, especially since many of the unfortunate situations seemed to repeat, in a sense, between the generations of women. The pacing was also a bit slow at times.

It's hard to rate a story that is filled with such dark and heartbreaking concepts, but it really did keep me engaged the entire time. I found it touching how Emma was able to find closure with her mother's death after discovering her story and how she used her experience to vow to improve her relationship with her own daugher. While I completely disagreed with Emma's choice at the end of the book surrounding her sister, Elizabeth, I understand why she decided to make this decision. Again, I find it hard to rate a story like this one, but I wholeheartedly recommend it to others.

I absolutely adored this book! Atmospheric, clever and complex, you’ll be swept away and taken on a fascinating journey. I’ll definitely read it again!

Emma and her mother had never been close, to the point that they barely spoke to each other for years. So, after her mother's death, Emma is surprised to discover that there may have been more to her mother's life than she could have ever guessed. Emma is desperate for answers but it may be too late to learn the secrets Margaret hid so carefully. And if she can uncover them, would they be worth the cost?

The Girl in the Maze is at the same time a beautiful and heartbreaking story of the complicated and sometimes very difficult family relationships and the importance of connecting with one another before it's too late. I love intergenerational tales, especially where family secrets are concerned, so this was exactly my kind of book. The multiple POVs and parallel time settings really helped to bring these characters to life, as the events that led them to where they are slowly unfold before our eyes. The author's writing is beautiful and works perfectly for this story!

This was a very hard-hitting book at times, so be very mindful going in this if that might be triggering for you as it got very difficult to read at times (content warnings below as usual). I had to put the book down a few times, even in the middle of a chapter, because I just couldn't read any more in the same go and this doesn't happen often to me. The book opening itself was very strong, and I was thrown a bit off balance even though I'd read the publisher's trigger warnings on the book's NetGalley page beforehand.

So many themes are tackled in this book and they're all connected to each other so it's hard to go into any of them without risking spoilers, but I'll say that while I really appreciated the tact with which some were handled, I found it harder with others. The characters were also a bit hit-and-miss for me, as sometimes they seemed to be really well fleshed out while at other times they felt a bit flat. I was also confused by some characters' choices, even when taking their trauma into account, and deeply disliked the portrayal of others. I also had trouble staying fully immersed in the story, as a few times I felt we were just going round in circles, waiting for the next big shocking reveal to come around.

Overall, The Girl in the Maze is a beautifully written tale of mothers and daughters yet, for me, it was missing something in the pacing and the character departments to make it a truly excellent one.

enjoyable read, felt repetitive at times but overall ok.

- thanks to netgalley and the publisher for providing me with the ARC in exchange for an early review.

I had a few download issues with the book and by the time it was sorted, the file had unfortunately been achieved.

I thoroughly enjoyed this story and seeing how the tale unravelled from generation to generation. Emma's journey was saddening but strangely uplifting too. I couldn't believe some of the twists that were revealed and not only felt sorry for Emma but Margaret too. The more I learnt about Margaret the more you could understand why she turned out how she did. I was so sad for both Emma and Elizabeth for the relationship they lost with Margaret but I was so pleased that they found each other. This was a tense read that showed how one secret can affect many generations.

The Girl in the Maze by Cathy Hayward is a hauntingly beautiful debut novel following the lives of three generations of the same family. This is a hard-hitting story, which may cause some triggers for readers, but with stories that are at times bleak, this is a novel filled with hope.

This novel centres around the lives of Betty, her daughter Margaret and her granddaughter Emma. Emma is emptying her mother’s apartment following the death of Margaret, but as she does, she is entranced by a painting created by Margaret when she was a young woman, the titular girl in the maze. The painting hints at what Margaret was experiencing as a child.

This book was a fascinating study of what women can experience as mothers, and the pressures they are placed under by what society decides is normal or acceptable. This was such a compelling story of the strength that women possess in adversity and how the trauma in one childhood can have far reaching effects.

This wonderful story was at times heart-breaking to read, but is a book that will stay with me for a long time. I cannot wait to read what Cathy Hayward writes next!

How much can you learn about someone when they have died? For Emma Bowen, in the last few years of Margaret, her mother’s life she has been distant and removed. Her mother was clearly a difficult woman. But Emma discovers some letters that it seems her mother had a past and one that she least expected.

It seems the will is the first of the surprises for Emma and when a painting is left to a friend of Margaret’s, Emma is trying to piece together everything from her mother’s past which she knew nothing about. The solicitor seems to know more than he is willing and allowed to say apart from one thing “some things are better left in the past”.

Then there is the discovery of a birth certificate, a sister, and actions that are wrong at any point in history. The story that the author tells is from the point of view of Emma in the present and Betty, her grandmother, Margaret’s mother in the late 1930s.

As the past is revealed in the present, Emma learns a lot about what happened to the generation before and how it has shaped the generations that follow. I was shocked by events and the secrets that come tumbling out and the ones that are still kept because the truth does not always help resolve the present.

This is with out a doubt a powerful and disturbing novel and not for the fainthearted, with some powerful subjects which will undoubtedly upset. The impact of the storyline will stay with me for a long time.

My thanks to the publisher for providing me with a copy of this book to review. I am a sucker for a book and intergenerational traumas and the relationships between mother and child, specifically mother and daughter. This book was great, very engaging and well-written.

Gripping and addictive. I loved this read.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for the chance to read a digital arc in exchange for my feedback.

What an engrossing and accomplished debut novel! A layered family history highlighting how influential a mother can be, whether she is present or absent…

The first few chapters were brutal and heartbreaking to read, but formed a needed foundation for the rest of the novel.

This novel deftly explores the topic of motherhood in all its many guises and permutations. It also explores the intense complexity of parenthood and family relationships, and how we are all shaped by our childhood experiences.

The book puts a fictional slant on how society has changed over the years when it comes to children born out of wedlock. It tells of relationships forged – and relationships destroyed. It portrays the rift between what our parents’ relationships were really like and how we view them as children. How we take our parents for granted until we are no longer able to do so…

“The Girl In The Maze” was an accomplished debut novel that I can highly recommend. I look forward to the author’s next novel.

What can I say about this book? I can not begin to tell you how much I loved this book! From the moment the book started I was completely riveted.

The book goes from the past, beginning in 1937 where we are introduced to Betty who soon gives birth to Margaret all the way to 2019 where we’re introduced to Emma, Margaret’s daughter.

Emma knew very little about what’s been going on with her mother’s life. But Emma is about to find out more about her mom’s past then she ever knew when she finds some letters left in her room. This is her journey into finding out what happened to her mother and it’s her past that helps her to understand her mother, how her experiences moulded them into the person she became, the difficulties she faced and why their relationship became strained.

The book bounces between Margaret and Betty to Emma throughout and it works quite well. Throughout the story, I felt a full range of emotions. There is a few moments especially which can be really hard to read. I felt awful for Betty and how she was treated for having a child out of wedlock. But I felt even more so for Margaret and what she went through, it was heartbreaking to read at times.

‘The Girl in the Maze’ is a beautifully written, poignant read about family secrets and motherhood. It really gets you thinking about how bad things were for women eighty years ago and how you may never know what’s going on in a person’s life.

Hands down one of my favourite books to have come out this year. If you love Stacey Hall’s work then you’ll love Cathy Haywood’s debut novel, ‘The Girl in the Maze’.

Emma has never understood her mother, Margaret.

Margaret dies, and Emma goes to clear out her flat. So many unanswered questions - why did she and her mother never talk about the past? why was Emma sent away to boarding school so young? why did Margaret dislike their daughter yet leave the flat to her?

A story of family secrets, stigma and shame. Will Emma learn who the 'Girl in the Maze' is and why she was painted? What had her mother been hiding?

At times uncomfortable, this is a book that deals with some difficult subjects, but manages to do so sensitively most of the time.

This harrowing, nuanced book spans the complex relationships and secrets of three generations of women from one family, plunging the reader into its dread-laden atmosphere from the first scene.

When teenage Betty locks herself in the mouldy family bathroom, the following grisly scene feels all too familiar, as the desperations of post-war working class family life become visceral. This is a world of few choices for women, and one full of blame and inequality. The impossibility of doing ‘the right thing’ under such pressure, no matter how well intentioned, is a bittersweet thread running through all these women’s lives and fraying their relationships. The structure of Betty’s life is stacked against her, and the weight of judgement presses down.

Family secrets abound as the narrative switches between time periods and generations, with each mother juggling their own interests within the bounds of ‘respectability’. ‘The Girl in the Maze’ is a physical tie between these threads, providing a visually arresting and evocative metaphor for the complications of the women’s lives.

As one character wryly notes, ‘you were never as good a parent as …the day before your first child was born’ and later, ‘nobody warned you about parenting teenagers when you were pregnant’. These women are often difficult, sometimes cruel in their treatment of each other, but drawn with enough insight into their own pain to elicit readerly compassion.

Characters are trapped in their own personal mazes, all too often through society’s pressure to conceal anything perceived as unacceptable, forcing them to repress rather than articulate their experiences; ‘It just goes to show how difficult it is to interpret someone’s emotions’. Misunderstandings abound.

Betty’s daughter Margaret has a similar experience of early motherhood, and a central mystery pivots around the identity of Margaret’s child. There is an emotionally intelligent narrative shift at this point, so that even when events take a truly sinister turn, we still catch a glimpse into the complex web of motivations behind the actions – in the worst of circumstances, we never lose sight of how all human beings are flawed, complex creatures. As a friend observes, family dysfunction can be seen ‘rolling down from generation to generation like a fire in the woods, taking everything in its path.’

The story may literally revolve around the experiences of women from one family, but figuratively their stories reflect a much larger reality. Ultimately, this is a narrative that refuses to lose sight of humanity, and its compassion extends even to the least sympathetic characters. ‘At the end of the day you’re just human.’

‘The girl in the maze’ is one of the best debuts I have read in a long time. The premise is so original and the characters are all so unflinchingly flawed, which adds such an honesty about how complicated family relationships can be.
After the death of her mother, Emma Bowen finds some private letters which could explain why their bond as mother and daughter was so strained from her childhood. The story unfolds over three generations and has a beautiful pace; I could see a few plotlines in the works before they happened but it didn’t take anything away from the impact that they had within the story itself.
I loved the use of the ‘girl in the maze’ painting at the centre of Emma’s childhood and they way it symbolises how several people can interpret a situation through very different eyes; the perfect way to describe the layered experiences of these women.
I enjoyed the pace and the appreciated delicate way Hayward handles very difficult themes throughout the book. I am not a huge domestic fiction reader but I enjoyed this one immensely because the way in which Emma learns of her family history is not a perfect linear emotion of shock or fury and that is so much more compelling to me. Emma and her mother and in turn her mother and grandmother had their own burdens which spilled into their relationships.However as Emma develops her own empathy and understanding she definitely changes from the beginning to the end which is wonderful to witness as a reader.

This was definitely one of the best books I have read this year... I did managed to finish this book within a few hours. It was captivating and difficult to put down.
HIGHLY RECOMMEND

I was very happy to see that the publisher included trigger warnings on the request page of Netgalley so I could be prepared for the content! I think this is something that should happen more often

The story had good pacing and pulled me in right away. I love a story that spans generations and had switching POVs so this was right up my alley! The book also provides a great look at complex mother-daughter relationships.

The one “negative” aspect (for me) was that some of the writing could feel too long-winded and detailed, getting off topic and away from the plot.

Overall, The Girl in the Maze was a fantastic read and will probably be a favorite for the month! Please keep in mind that this is a dark, emotional read so I’d suggest you look at triggers before considering reading this book.

Triggers: blood, medical trauma, self harm, abortion, vomit, death of parent, grief, estrangement, cancer (brief), rape, domestic abuse (brief), miscarriage, stillbirth, infertility, toxic relationship, pedophilia, child abuse

Another historical fiction story that delves into the past but they never get old or boring for me as there is so much history out there to write about.

For Emma the past will help her understand her mother and their relationship (or lack there of). This story really covers three generations of women (Emma, her mother and her grandmother) and their lives and the effect each life had on the next. There are moments of darkness and light, there are moments regret and the emotions that run through this story are very powerful.

This is a well written book and the characters are all strong women in their own way. It really brings to life the fact we need to share our stories, good and bad, with our families, not to keep secrets and to be open and honest so that good relationships can be born and love, sorrow and happiness can be shared.