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For three years Joseph Scott has been haunted by one moment-the moment that changed his life forever. Now he is starting over, and he wants his family back more than anything.
This is the story of Joseph and his wife, Zoe; of their children, Scarlet, Theo and Ben, for whom nothing will be the same; and of Zoe’s parents, who can’t forgive or understand.

Family Drama. Not my go to type of book when it comes to my choices but I do love a good one. For me there are not many authors out there who can pull off the realism of family life and make it interesting – even in the most extreme of circumstances that can happen to any of us. So last year a very good friend of mine handed me “After the Fall” from Charity Norman and basically said, hey, here you go. HERE is one. And she was right. It was absolutely compelling and yet very real.

So it is true I was looking forward to “The Son In Law” and to finding out if it would have the same resonance for me and it absolutely did. If anything I loved this one even more, probably because it had some extreme emotional truth at its heart and a question I would find hard to answer…how do you forgive the unforgiveable?

Here we meet Joseph, recently released from Prison, wanting to reconnect with his family, but that will not be easy considering the circumstances of his incarceration. As we hear from him, and at various points his Mother in Law Hannah, and Daughter Scarlett, a picture begins to emerge of a tragedy that has torn a family apart. As Joseph tries to put the pieces back together, this is a somewhat dark but also beautiful story, with some truly remarkable characters at the heart of it.

Not least Scarlett. The best part of this one for me was the way she approached things, lost her way occasionally, really wanted to do the right thing without knowing what the right thing is. All her emotions are there on the page and are stunningly real. There is a lot of that going on here, from all the characters. A most terrific reading experience.

Tackling some difficult subjects in a very real, compelling and addictive way this was outstanding. Charity Norman is the latest addition to my “must read” list.

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