Book Review: My Mother’s Photograph by Laura Sweeney
Published by Bookouture – thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for my gifted ARC.

Some books sneak up on you quietly, tapping your shoulder with a gentle “Hey, I’ve got a story to tell,” and then proceed to emotionally body-slam you in chapter four. That’s exactly what Laura Sweeney’s My Mother’s Photograph did to me. I sat down expecting a cozy, heartfelt escape to the British seaside, and instead found myself tangled in a haunting blend of family secrets, lost love, and wartime revelations—plus a few well-placed gut punches disguised as plot twists.

The story opens with Sarah, who returns to her childhood home in the picturesque village of Dovecote after a ten-year absence. She’s there to fulfill her dying father’s final wish, which already sounds like a recipe for emotional excavation. The village is the same, of course—sleepy, salty, gossipy—but Sarah is not. She’s carrying the weight of grief, guilt, and one colossal secret she’s been pretending doesn’t exist.

Enter the old cottage, still frozen in time. Enter the loose floorboard (because of course there’s a loose floorboard—it’s a literary law). And beneath it? A yellowed envelope containing photos from the Second World War. One of them shows two women standing in her mother’s garden. One of them looks familiar—eerily familiar. Cue dramatic music and cue me yelling, “What did you do, Mom?!”

What follows is a slow, emotionally loaded unraveling of the past, made all the more poignant by Sarah reconnecting with her estranged husband, Rob. Let’s talk about Rob. Rob is the kind of character who would absolutely be cast as the quiet-but-loyal carpenter in a Hallmark movie. He’s thoughtful, infuriatingly patient, and of course, still heartbreakingly in love with Sarah, despite her messy exit from both the village and their marriage.

Together, they set out to make sense of the photograph, and in doing so, start unpacking the story of Sarah’s mother—a woman who turns out to have had a far more complex and painful past than anyone in Dovecote could have guessed. The twist, when it comes, is less about shock and more about emotional truth. And it lands. Hard.

One of the lines that stayed with me long after I turned the last page was:
“Some truths don’t get easier with time. They just get heavier to carry.”
That one line alone could summarize the book’s entire emotional core. Secrets, buried in the name of love or shame, don’t disappear. They sit there, under the floorboards of our lives, waiting to be stepped on.

Now, let’s be real: this book could have easily veered into melodrama. There’s a long-lost photograph, a crumbling marriage, WWII flashbacks, tearful reunions, and a lighthouse (yes, there’s a lighthouse—it’s practically a character). But Sweeney avoids the cheese. The emotion feels grounded, not manipulative. The characters feel flawed but real. Even when Sarah frustrates you (and she will), you get her.

The writing itself is warm, elegant, and smart. Sweeney balances quiet moments with just enough drama to keep the pages turning. It’s the kind of book you read with a blanket and a glass of wine, muttering things like, “Oh no, no, no” and “Oh wow, that makes sense now.” There’s wit, too—subtle, but it’s there. And a certain self-awareness that makes the heavier scenes easier to bear.

As for the setting? Dovecote is charming, almost deceptively so. You’ll want to move there until you realize it’s a village where everyone knows everything except the things that matter. It has that signature British coastal vibe: beautiful on the outside, but full of history you’d better be ready to confront.

If you’re a fan of authors like Susanne O’Leary or Debbie Macomber, or if you just like stories where the past refuses to stay put and the future depends on a very messy, very human kind of forgiveness, you’ll love this. There’s romance, but it’s not about falling in love—it’s about choosing love. Again. Even when it’s hard. Especially when it’s hard.

Would I recommend it? Absolutely. Just maybe don’t read it in public unless you’re okay with people watching you sob into your cardigan.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (5 well-earned, heart-squeezing stars)
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