Ann Prentice se enamora de Richard Cauldfield y espera ser muy feliz. Su única hija, Sarah, no puede soportar la idea de que su madre se vuelva a casar y trata de arruinar la boda. El resentimiento y los celos corroen su relación y hacen que cada una busque consuelo de diferentes formas. ¿Están madre e hija destinadas a ser enemigas de por vida, o vencerá el amor que aún subyace entre ellas?

Agatha Christie created Mary Westmacott as a secret identity that allowed her to write for her own pleasure, free from the constraints of the mystery genre. Between 1930 and 1956, Mary Westmacott published six novels. The secret identity remained undiscovered for nearly twenty years. Even when it became widely known that Christie was Westmacott, she continued to write as Westmacott, publishing two more novels, the first of which was ‘A Daughter’s A Daughter’ (1952). In that same year, Agatha Christie published Mrs McGinty’s Dead (Hercule Poirot #25), They Do It With Mirrors (Miss Marple #6) and opened The Mousetrap on London's West End so, I was curious to see what kind of book Agatha Christie had made time for in a year when she was already so commercially successful.

The answer was a welcome surprise: a very open and engaging contemplation on what a forty-one-year-old widow with an adult daughter should look for from her life and what relationship she should seek with her adult daughter.

This Mary Westmacott novel seemed much more grown-up than Agatha Christie's mysteries. Seventy years later, it still felt modern and relevant. It was full of gentle reflections on the problems that people create for themselves and others by trying to do what they think they ought to rather than what they really want to. It looks at the concept of sacrifice and asks whether the sacrifices a mother makes for her daughter are really for her daughter or for herself and warns that sacrifices aren't one-off events but rather are self-inflicted wounds that leave scars and may fester if not tended to.

The book is cliché free and non-judgemental. This story is written with great precision. The arguments between the people feel real. The way the situation escalates feels inevitable. There's a fairly unblinking confrontation of how fragile happiness is and how it differs from the pursuit of pleasure and of the dangers of loneliness and of drug addiction.

I realised how well the story was working when I found myself saying to the main character, Ann Prentice, who I know is fictional and who anyway couldn't hear me, 'Why do you want to marry this stubborn, deeply insecure man? He doesn't listen. He doesn't learn. He's not terribly bright, not good at reading people, is dismissive of women, is easily embarrassed, quick to anger and constantly tries to assert his non-existent authority. What is his appeal?'

I particularly liked meeting Dame Laura Whitstable, an old friend of Ann Prentice, who sees the world very clearly. She is given to make succinct, unemotional pronouncements about people and their motivations and limitations but is very wary of giving advice. She seemed to me to be the embodiment of the authorial voice and perhaps an idealised version of Westmacott/Christie herself.

I'm very glad I read this. I loved its distinctive voice and the insights into the emotions of the people. I also enjoyed getting a feel for what the lives of the English middle class were like in the early years after World War II. ( )

I tried hard to finish this. It became so melodramatic in the middle and I realized I didn't care about the characters. I wasn't concerned with how they might make things work. I also couldn't see any "mystery" aspect to it. ( )

This is the story of Ann Prentice and her daughter, Sarah, an only child. But this story is all the more captivating for the insights provided through Agatha Christie's creation of characters, Ann's friend and Sarah's godmother, Dame Laura Whitstable and Ann's long-time housemaid, Edith with over 20 years of service to the family. The story may have been first published in 1952 but it is an ageless story of a mother and daughter's relationship that turns to turmoil as the mother announces that she will marry again.

Don't miss reading more about the novels by Christie's daughter, Rosalind Hicks...
https://www.agathachristie.com/about-christie/family-memories/the-mary-westmacot...

I am looking forward (and yet a little sad too!) to reading the next and last romance written by Agatha Christie as Mary Westmacott titled, "The Burden." ( )

This is a novel that was originally published under Agatha Christie's pseudonym Mary Westmacott, this is a book full of tension and emotion. Set over 3 parts, spread over nearly 4 years, it is focused on the lives of Ann & Sarah Prentice. Ann is widowed and the book starts as Sarah, her only child, departs to Switzerland for a 3 week skiing holiday. At that she feels a pang of loneliness, which overwhelms her. During the 3 weeks, however, she meets a man and comes to fall in love. Only then does the trouble begin. Sarah returns and is not at all taken by her prospective step father. At the same time, Ann is less than impressed with Sarah's beau, and so the two are, unconsciously, echoing each others thoughts from different directions. Then the emotional games begin and the tension ramps up between them until a breaking point is reached. The subsequent 2 parts are set 2 and 3 years later and deal with the aftermath of the first part.
The tale is facilitated by Ann's friend and Sarah's Godmother, Dame Laura, being some kind of therapist (exact details undisclosed) such that there is a sense of having a knowledge of what is to come. Laura's probing questions and probing allow the subconcious to be revealed by more than just interior monologue.
This was really very good. ( )