Published: Harlequin Australia
Date: 7th September 2022
Source: Publisher via NetGalley
Since adolescence, 58-year-old Beth has lived her life with blinkers on, repressing the memory of a teenage trauma. Her mother, Marian, took control of that situation, and of all else in their family life – and as much as she could in the small town of Miner’s Ridge as well.
Now Marian is dead, and Beth, unemployed and in the middle of a humiliating divorce, is living with her gentle-hearted father in the family home. Beth feels obliged to take over her mother’s involvement in the local town hall committee, which becomes a source of new friendships, old friendships renewed, and a considerable amount of aggravation.
Researching town hall history, Beth finds photographs that show Marian in a surprising light; sorting through Marian’s belongings, she realises that her mother has left a trail of landmines, cruel revelations that knock the feet out from under her supposed nearest and dearest. Beth struggles to emerge from the ensuing emotional chaos … in middle age, can she really start anew?
Beth has returned home, and at present is living with her elderly Dad, after the death of her mother. Becoming Beth by Meredith Appleyard begins languidly in the post pandemic era in Miner’s Ridge, Australia. It presents Beth in a bit of a rut, her marriage has fallen through, her husband left her for a younger man and now divorced, Beth is forced to start asking herself a few questions.
She slowly finds herself becoming a part of the local community and makes some good friends. On the town hall committee she becomes part of a hard working team who want to keep the town hall alive so that it can be used by the community. It needs a new roof and that means a lot of fund raising.
Beth has a back story that eats away at her and it feels to her that there is at present no resolution. Step by step though she is facing it and finding the ability to share about it with some significant people. She begins to pick up her life again, finding purpose in some work and the possibility of a new relationship.
I liked the characters, although not really Beth’s mother, even though at the opening of the book she has died. It is her part that has been at the root of difficult situations. Beth’s dad though is someone special.
Beth is on her way to finding her feet again, I did feel the book ends rather abruptly, I felt it could have been rounded out a little more but that’s probably a debatable point.
The Book Date 