Praise for Yvvette Edwards author of A Cupboard Full of Coats The Mother is a moving portrait of love, tragedy, and survival and of the aftershocks from a momentary act of cruel violence that transforms the lives of everyone it touches. As the trial takes apart her son s life and reassembles it in front of strangers, Marcia, always certain of Ryan s virtues, finds her beliefs and assumptions challenged as she learns more about her son s death and of Tyson s life. She must also bridle her dark feelings and endure something no mother should ever have to experience: she must go to court alone for the trial of her son s killer, Tyson, another teenage boy. She has to assume the role of supporter for her inconsolable husband, who has distanced himself and created a secret life. Consumed by grief and rage, she is forced to carry the weight of the family s pain. Ryan, not the kind of boy to find himself on the wrong end of a knife, is brutally murdered. Then the unimaginable happens, and in a single moment Marcia is stripped clean of everything she had presumed was hers for keeps. This routine was part of the wonderful, secure life they had built, complete with a brilliant and handsome sixteen-year-old son, Ryan.

Marcia s husband, Lloydie, expresses his tender love for his wife each morning by preparing a cup of tea and setting it by her bedside. From the critically acclaimed author of A Cupboard Full of Coats comes a provocative novel of a mother enduring the loss of her child, illuminating some of the most important and troubling issues of our time.

The Mother by Yvvette Edwards