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| Category: Fiction | |
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Free Excerpt From The Book (requires Adobe Reader) Your daughter is found dead, her baby asleep upstairs. Worse, the Pathology Report writes her off as "a known drug addict". You are determined to prove otherwise. The only person who can help is her father. A bitter divorce means there's no love lost between you. How do you cope with the guilt and recrimination? Yours? And his!This is the scenario facing Claire, mother of the dead girl, Katya. The cause of death is asphyxia. Morphine is found in the body, and at the house. Two people are arrested. Struggling with grief, Claire has to work through the procedures demanded by the Police enquiry, plus the conflict and mistrust that has built up between herself and her thrice-married ex-husband, Mark. Clearing Katya's house of her possessions, arranging custody of her child, and planning a funeral service, the two of them are forced to confront the shameful secrets of the past. For Claire, this means drawing on the faith she shares with husband, Richard – even when to do so necessitates admitting that you’re no better than the ex-husband who broke your heart. Mark's answer, as always, is to view his troubles from the end of a beer glass. And to fob off reality with barbed, black humour. Although a successful businessman, and the life and soul of any party, Mark knows himself to be a failure at deep relationships. With memories of his sexual infidelities gnawing at his mind, the insecurities of his childhood loom large. Recognising his anger in the demise of his marriage to Claire, he is surprised to find that he has an abiding affection for her – deep enough to threaten his current marriage. As the Inquest draws nearer, his one desire is to impress Claire with the skills he can offer: an aptitude for extracting information; an eye for detail; and a nose for putting two and two together. He wants to bowl her over; to show her what she’s missing; to put that twit of a husband of hers in the shade. Trouble is, standing in Court giving evidence to the Coroner, he’s reckoned without the speech impediment that has dogged him all his life . . . Rosie, Katya’s older sister, has her own demons to fight. "I hated Kat at times," she admits, weeping, while her husband, Steve, holds her in his arms. "She was always Dad’s favourite. And with his sense of humour, she was pretty adept at putting me down." In denial for decades, Rosie comes to realise that in her effort to be noticed, to be liked, she has become a “people-pleaser”. It is time, she thinks, to make her own mark on the world. But how will Steve react? And what of her children? As clearing Katya’s name becomes the imperative for all three, Claire, Mark and Rosie are confronted by an awful truth. Working through a painful post mortem in each of their lives, they are made to realise that the peace they crave comes at a high cost.
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| About the Author | |
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The author of eight published books (one a No 4 Bestseller), Mel is aware that life is more comfortable for her husband when she is writing. She describes herself as like a pressure cooker when she is not! An experienced speaker, she has appeared on TV, and radio chat shows. |
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