The Mother - Tapa dura

A close, vivid portrait of a mother's unrelenting mission to avoid anger and blame, instead finding real justice and necessary closure * Publishers' Weekly * A wonderfully vivid and arresting portrait of a mother facing up to the ultimate horror * Scotsman Magazine * Love, loss, pain, race, poverty, abuse and redemption are all beautifully played out in Edwards' novel about a mother struggling to not just 'remain alive, but live.' Edwards' story moves us in and out of a courtroom and into the heart of human suffering and ultimate strength * Naseem Rakha, author of The Crying Tree * A harrowing tale of a mother's grief where nothing is certain * Essentials Magazine * Thrilling, tense and poignant * Heat * A powerful book that will cut you to the quick * Sun * A compelling novel that gets into the head of a mother attending the trial of the boy accused of murdering her son. Her story gathers momentum and tension until the final verdict * Woman & Home * Skilfully plotted and heart-wrenching * Stylist * As emotionally satisfying as it is simply constructed, The Mother tells the tale of every woman's worst nightmare: losing a child, then having to face in court the man accused of murdering that child * Mail on Sunday Event Magazine *

Yvvette Edwards' second novel, The Mother, tells Marcia's story. Today, Marcia is heading to the Old Bailey. She's going there to do something no mother should ever have to do: to attend the trial of the boy accused of her son's murder. She's not meant to be that woman; Ryan, her son, wasn't that kind of boy. But Tyson Manley is that kind of a boy and, as his trial unfolds, it becomes clear that it's his girlfriend Sweetie who has the answers Marcia so badly needs and who can - perhaps - offer Marcia some kind of hope for the future. But Sweetie is as scared of Tyson as Ryan should have been and, as Marcia's learned the hard way, nothing's certain. Not any more. Somehow I am stronger. Where it has come from exactly I cannot say, but it is to do with hope, it is to do with light . . .