Diane Chamberlain is a master storyteller, able to blend romance with women's fiction in a seamless flow of words. In a trilogy set in North Carolina's Outer Banks, HER MOTHER'S SHADOW is the grand finale to a tale that began with KEEPER OF THE LIGHT and flowed flawlessly into KISS RIVER.

HER MOTHER'S SHADOW focuses on Lacey O'Neill, a woman in her late twenties who has spent the past decade molding herself into the image of her mother. When Lacey was thirteen, her mother, "Saint Anne," was fatally wounded in front of her, the result of a gunshot wound from a distraught husband coming to take his wife and son home from a women's shelter. For ten years, Lacey has done everything within her power to emulate the woman who could do no wrong-Annie O'Neill, the perfect mother, the doting wife, the community volunteer, the Mrs. America of North Carolina. She's living a good life, working as a stained glass artist with a man she admires, living with her brother, Clay, and his wife and daughter.

Lacey's life is thrown into turmoil, not solely with the arrival of an almost-teenager who resents being uprooted after the death of her own mother, but with the knowledge that her perfect mother, the bastion of North Carolina society, was not the woman she had thought her to be. Because suddenly everything she's ever believed to be true comes crashing down upon her.

Secrets are dangerous things to keep. And everyone involved in HER MOTHER'S SHADOW has secrets. Who is mysterious attorney Rick Tenley, and what is he doing in Kiss River? Bobby Asher, a fellow artist who brings out deep feelings in Lacey, spent a lot of time with Jessica, her young charge's mother. Could he be the father Mackenzie never knew she had? And what about Lacey's own father, the man who somehow forgot to mention for the last twenty years or so that his own wife engaged in acts with half the town's male population that were far less than saintly? Her boss and mentor suddenly takes on a new roll in her life, her brother, Clay, and his wife begin having marital problems over a young girl who should have nothing to do with them, and suddenly the lighthouse Lacey lives in is no longer the refuge it's always been.

HER MOTHER'S SHADOW is a wonderful book. Filled with characters as real as any you know in real life, it's a page-turner that will keep you reading long into the night. This book is a story of forgiveness, of redemption, of love, and most of all, of hope. How many children really know their parents? How many parents do outrageous things to keep their children innocent? And how many people, being as imperfect and human as they are, have secrets that are kept solely to protect those they love?

I'm sorry to see this trilogy end, but I'm looking forward to what Ms. Chamberlain comes up with next. HER MOTHER'S SHADOW is definitely not a book to be missed. ( )