) My mother wouldn’t have been someone you gossiped about among yourselves none of you had an appetite for anything but the pleasant. Cecilia, of course, was never discussed you’d thoughtfully prefaced this with them before you brought me home. Their unquestioning acceptance about where my father was, and the lack of judgment when he declined their invitation to visit for the holidays, was a kindness I was grateful for. Sometimes it felt like she loved me as much as she loved you. The way your mother touched the ends of my hair made me want to crawl onto her lap. Their house smelled like warm, laundered linens, always, and I never wanted to leave when we visited. The generous gifts, the airplane tickets to be with you all somewhere sunny on vacation. This might not have been as important to other people, but with you came a family. Things that come to mind when I think about the beginning of us:

She lives in Toronto, where she and her partner are raising their two young children. Prior to Penguin, she worked in public relations. Audrain previously worked as the publicity director of Penguin Books Canada. To help combat that, read one of these other amazing psychological thrillers in the slides ahead.The following is excerpted from Ashley Audrain's debut novel, The Push, about a woman whose experience of motherhood is not at all what she had hoped. You'll want to read this book without stopping, but be prepared to feel a dizzy, emotional book hangover when it ends. When Sam is born, everyone is happy for a while until something changes their lives in an instant, forcing Blythe to face the truth. Blythe struggles with her own sanity - and readers fight through their own thoughts on the truth Blythe tells us. But motherhood is exhausting, especially when you are still in the newborn stage, and Blythe can't figure out if there's something wrong with her or if she's just imagining it like her husband, Fox, says. The Push is about Blythe Connor, who wants to be a good mom to her daughter, Violet, despite her less-than-stellar example from her own mom. It sounds dramatic, but that's exactly how I felt when reading The Pushby Ashley Audrain. Suddenly, it's all you can do to get back to the book. It's not often that you open a book and are drawn in so completely, so quickly, that you don't even notice the hours slipping by. If you buy a product we have recommended, we may receive affiliate commission, which in turn supports our work.

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