Kirjahaku

Nature or nurture? The impact of traumatic childhood experience reverberates into the grown-up world of Frank, Alice and Henry – children from three families suffering the fall-out from their early life. Frank, a working-class boy abused by his step-father, Alice, physically handicapped and frustrated, Henry, the less clever son of wealthy ambitious parentsFrom a rundown estate in Eastleigh, a small town in Darlington and an affluent Cotswold home, each character grapples with the life fate has handed them. Until by chance they all come together in adulthood, the repercussions are explosive.

Rose Gregory has suffered a devastating blow, a double bereavement from which months later she is still reeling. Sanctuary and rest are prescribed by her doctor. But when she arrives at her refuge, a dank and decaying Monastery, she finds it is not the haven promised. Despite the veneer of calm contemplation, the Monastery turns out to be a hotbed of intrigue and disharmony. Rose witnesses bullying and cruelty and ultimately in defence of the vulnerable turns to violence herself. Sylvia Colley’s extraordinary understanding of a woman’s struggle to deal with grief, the denial, the anger, the loneliness, is described without sentimentality. A beautifully written and moving story.