Starting anew while hiding dark secrets never goes well, especially when those secrets threaten to shatter your family’s peace.
Lily needs to make an excruciating decision and leave her family behind when her past seems to catch up to her. The Imposter Bride follows Lily and Ruth’s story, as the mother and daughter part ways when the latter was only three months old.
Ruth never copes with losing her mother, thus she tries her best to uncover the truth. But is she ready to actually know her mom’s secret?
The Imposter Bride is a terrific novel who will stir a great deal of emotions within you. There’s love, deceit, heartbreak, sorrow and even hope, despair, regret and surrender. In the end, both women have to learn to be happy without asking too much from the other.
You can also read The Substitute Bride
- Part 1: The Dramatic Story Of The Imposter Bride
- Part 2: Polyperspectivity In The Imposter Bride
- Part 3: Read This Book, Apart From The Imposter Bride
Part 1: The Dramatic Story Of The Imposter Bride
Assuming another woman’s identity, Lily comes to Montreal to meet Sol and get married. The man is reluctant to an arranged marriage, thus he changes his mind just as the girl gets off the train.
Sol’s brother, Nathan, is smitten with Lily’s beauty and takes his brother’s place. He marries the gorgeous girl without thinking twice.
As time goes by, Sol comes to regret his decision to refuse a marriage to Lily and gets infatuated with her. Both brothers dote on her, yet Lily avoids them most of the time, staying alone in her room.
Nathan believes that Lily’s attitude derives from the things that must have happened to her during the war and never pressures his wife. He even starts suspecting that she isn’t whom she pretends to be, yet he never voices his concerns. He patiently awaits for his spouse to open her heart.
Even more, Nathan hopes that once their child will be born, the woman will finally feel at home. Overcome by grief and guilt, Lily flees when her daughter, Ruth, is three months old. She pretends to go out to buy milk and only leaves a note, apologizing for running off like that.
Nathan is heartbroken, but he knows that he needs to take care of their daughter, now that her mother is gone.
Six years go by without a trace of Lily. Suddenly, Ruth receives a package of her birthday and everyone believes that it’s from her mother.
As time goes by, more and more packages arrive, but the expeditor never reveals his identity, prompting everyone to believe that Lily was the one behind the parcels.
Growing up, Ruth has a great deal of unanswered questions about her mother. She starts seeking for the truth, but, just as she is about to learn everything about Lily, Ruth takes a step back and decides to stay in the dark.
Will Ruth ever know the truth about her mother? Will Nathan ever get his wife back?
Part 2: Polyperspectivity In The Imposter Bride
Most novels are being narrated from the protagonist’s point of view or the author uses an omniscient third person narrator in order to accurately display all the significant facts of the novel.
In The Imposter Bride novel, most characters take turn in being the narrator. But, although we get so many points of views, we still end up with little information in the end. I don’t know about you guys, but I still wonder why Lily left in the first place.
Lily does have her turn as being one of the narrators, but we mostly get the insight regarding the pain and grief she experienced during the war, with no real answer as to why she abandoned her husband and three-month old baby.
Ruth also narrates some of the chapters and we get to understand her need to find out about her mother’s whereabouts and her reasons for walking out on her family, yet as she gets closer and closer to the truth, she backs down and even leaves us, the readers, in the dark.
The author has beautifully displayed the novel, so it’s quite a pity that, by the end of the novel, the readers still have so many gaps to fulfil. And which, let me be honest with you here, will never be filled.
I guess that in the end the novel teaches us a lesson about selfless love and shows her that knowing the whole truth doesn’t necessarily bring peace to us. Sometimes, we need to embrace what we have and who we are and just be happy with it.
Part 3: Read This Book, Apart From The Imposter Bride
Seeking for a book similar to The Imposter Bride? Check out The Substitute Bride on Dreame.
Alex wakes up alone in a room with only one letter in her hand. Her twin sister had run away and she begged the girl to take her place and marry Uriel. Being her substitute would only last for a little while as she would come back and take back her rightful place.
Loving her twin sister too much, Alex agrees to help her and marries Uriel for her. The trick is that she is nothing like her sister. She is not used to luxuries and she is also a little clumsy, thus the chances that Uriel would find out the truth are quite high.
Uriel is cold, but Alex’s fresh personality will eventually spark his interest and he will fall in love with her. When the real bride will come back, will Uriel be able to tell the difference? Will he realize that the woman he actually loves is Alex and not Alexa?
