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A "superb debut"* novel--based on the story of the author's grandmother--following an aristocratic woman who abandons her family and her money in search of a life she can claim as her own. (*The Guardian)
Finalist for the Desmond Elliott Prize A "superb debut"* novel—based on the story of the author's grandmother—following an aristocratic woman who abandons her family and her money in search of a life she can claim as her own. (*The Guardian) Enid Campbell, granddaughter of a duke, grew up surrounded by servants, wanting for nothing except love. But when her brother died in the First World War, a new heir was needed, and it was up to Enid to provide it. A troubled marriage and three children soon followed. Broken by postpartum depression, overwhelmed by motherhood and a loveless marriage, Enid made the shocking decision to abandon her family, thereby starting a chain of events—a kidnap, a court case, and selling her son to her sister for £500—that reverberated through the generations. Interweaving one significant day in 1964, when it seems the family will reunite for one last time, with a decade during the interwar period, A Perfect Explanation explores the perils of aristocratic privilege, where inheritance is everything and happiness is hard won.
Most of one's life is not always memorable. I spent a fair amount of my past just chasing the wind, however, I can recall certain events, some of which I will share. I'll stick to glimpses.
Upside In is a white-knuckle true story of a life to date, which takes you through every emotion imaginable in the life of Scott Hughes
Mark has an unusual history. After losing his hearing as an eighteen-month-old infant, the next six years were silent as he honed his way of watching.
Judy Simons thought to leave her grandchildren a legacy of reminiscences about her Jewish upbringing in 1950s Sheffield. But when her mother died shortly before her hundredth birthday, Judy discovered a treasure chest of papers hidden at the back of the wardrobe. Reading them, she realised she had unearthed a gripping family saga.
Nomad Girl is a memoir, it is about the 60s, the decade that wanted to change the world, and it did. It is about 'The Finjan', a folk/blues music club I ran with my partner in Montreal — the coffee house/music club culture being at the heart of the 'changing times'.
At 10am on the 3rd of May, 2013, Paul walked into the therapy room. The sense of fear was immediate and palpable. He was shaking, hadn’t slept meaningfully for weeks, was barely able to function and in unbearable psychological and physical pain. However, this story of everything that had led up to this moment and what happened next, is being told from the other end of the therapist’s couch. A first-person account of Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, the life that led to it, and the challenges faced together by Paul his daughter Natasha during the fight back. With nothing held back, this is an intimate and up-close look at how childhood abuse, trauma led to a spiral of self-destruction until the reunion of father and daughter starts a journey on the long, hard road back to health. This isn’t a story of recovery or cure. This is learning to adapt and overcome from severe psychological injury and to accept that the struggle continues. It is written for all those who never stood a chance, all those without a voice who are still hidden behind the veil of silence, and all those held mute by the stigma of abuse, trauma and mental illness that pervades our society.
The book is about me being born in Tottenham to working class parents and subsequently growing up in the Tottenham area and the schools I went to and the 'drinking establishments' I frequented in the area.
The year is 1846. In a cold parsonage on the gloomy Yorkshire moors, a family seems cursed with disaster. A mother and two children dead. A father sick, without fortune, and hardened by the loss of his two most beloved family members. A son destroyed by alcohol and opiates. And three strong, intelligent young women, reduced to poverty and spinsterhood, with nothing to save them from their fate. Nothing, that is, except their remarkable literary talent. So unfolds the story of the Brontë sisters. At its centre are Charlotte and the writing of Jane Eyre. Delicately unraveling the connections between one of fiction's most indelible heroines and the remarkable woman who created her, Sheila Kohler's Becoming Jane Eyre will appeal to fans of historical fiction and, of course, the millions of readers who adore Jane Eyre.