What's the name of this book?

[LetThereBeRock]

I read this book a few years ago and I'd like to find it again.

It's about a couple who have just had their first child. The husband is from an upper middle class family which the wife isn't.

The woman's mother in law is a bitch and tries to tell her that she's doing everything wrong,and the husband sides with his mother.

She gradually takes over everything particuarly the care of the baby and the mother develops depression as a result.

Her MIL accuses her of neglecting the baby and the mother does seem to develop PND and I think she may even have been admitted to a psychiatric ward as the MIL convinces her son that the baby's mother is a danger to her son.

The only other detail I can remember is that at the end the mother has had enough and wires the lawnmower up so that when her MIL goes to use it she is electrocuted.

Any suggestions would be much appreciated.

[JeffVadar]

I think you might mean 'Mother Love' by Domini Taylor. They did it on TV as well; it wass ages ago, with Diana Rigg as the awful MIL.

[LetThereBeRock]

That wasn't it but that sounds rather intriguing I'll have to read that.

I eventually found it. It's called 'The Little House' and they're apparently making a tv adaptation of it.

'ITV today announced it has commissioned a drama adaptation of Philippa Gregory?s best selling novel, The Little House.

Independent producer TXTV will film the story of The Little House in two episodes on location in Bristol and at Pinewood Studios.

Adapted by Ed Whitmore, creator of new ITV drama Identity, the story focuses on the lives of four characters, Ruth, a young woman whose parents tragically died in a car crash when she was a child, her career-minded husband Patrick and his wealthy, all-consuming parents Elizabeth and Frederick.

With no family to call her own, Ruth is carried along on a tide of apparently well-meaning family gestures which leave the previously independent teacher pregnant and living in ?the little house? at the end of her in-laws driveway. It?s an idyllic place, and it seems ungrateful to complain when Elizabeth and Frederick have given the picture book cottage to their son and his wife as a generous gift.

Despite initial reservations about moving so close to her in-laws, within months Ruth has, on the surface, settled into her new, apparently perfect life. But she soon realises she?s completely isolated, living in a house she never wanted and with a baby she hadn't planned to have.

In the early weeks of her baby?s life, Ruth struggles with postpartum depression and the unresolved feelings she has about the premature deaths of her parents. It appears as though her mother-in-law, Elizabeth, is manipulating information and situations to take control of Ruth, Patrick and their new baby. Or is she?

Throughout the drama, the character of Elizabeth and her relationship with Ruth are subtly developed as they both try and take control of their connected lives until, inevitably, and very dramatically, they reach a point of no return.

Consequently, the viewer will continually question: Is Elizabeth playing mind games with Ruth? Could she really be waging psychological warfare on her daughter in law? Or is Ruth hysterically distorting events in her own mind?

[Mummig]

www.amazon.co.uk/Little-House-Philippa-Gregory/dp/0006496431/ref=sr_1_16?ie=UTF8&s=books&tag=mumsnet&ascsubtag=mnforum-21 1265043617&sr=8-16

It's by Phillipa Gregory .

[DuelingFanjo]

wouldn't you have to be a little mad to electrocute someone with a lawnmower!?!

[cocolepew]

No point watching it now.

[LetThereBeRock]

LOL. Sorry Cocolepew but I'm afraid spoilers are an inevitability when one is trying to describe the few details one can remember about a book.

[MadOldCrone]

farking hell

is it a comedy?

[LetThereBeRock]

Thankyou Mummig.

No it's certainly not a comedy.

[JeffVadar]

Wow, the two plots do sound incredibly similar. If I was Domini Taylor I would be a bit !

[Littleover]

It sounds like The Other Woman by Jane Green. The lawnmower bit made me laugh...my MIL is a keen seamstress but after 15 years of her "help" I find myself daydreaming about an accident involving her and a sewing machine.

Not really.

[loopylou2]

I recognised this instantly as The Little House. It's a fantastic book- very powerfully written. Really goes to extremes to show the strength of female power struggles. I loved this book and have read it several times.