Download or read book My Mother s Shadow The gripping novel about a mother s shocking secret that changed everything written by Nikola Scott and published by Review. This book was released on 2017-05-30 with total page 455 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Addie thinks she knows everything about her mother. But when a stranger appears claiming to be her sister, she realises that her life so far has been a lie. But why? 'Intriguing, twisting... I loved it' Dinah Jefferies. 'A gripping family mystery told in lush, evocative prose' Erin Kelly. 'A well-written, intriguing read full of family secrets... Brilliant' Fabulous A NO. 1 BESTSELLER IN NORWAY A BESTSELLER IN ISRAEL Perfect for fans of BEFORE WE WERE YOURS by Lisa Wingate. Hartland House has always been a faithful keeper of secrets... 1958. Sent to beautiful Hartland to be sheltered from her mother's illness, Liz spends the summer with the wealthy Shaw family. They treat Liz as one of their own, but their influence could be dangerous... Now. Addie believes she knows everything about her mother Elizabeth and their difficult relationship until her recent death. When a stranger appears claiming to be Addie's sister, she is stunned. Is everything she's been told about her early life a lie? How can you find the truth about the past if the one person who could tell you is gone? Addie must go back to that golden summer her mother never spoke of...and the one night that changed a young girl's life for ever. 'A compelling family story... Beautifully written and evokes vivid pictures of an English summer in the 1950s' Sheila O'Flanagan. 'Trembles with family secrets' Victoria Fox What readers are saying about My Mother's Shadow: 'One of the most enthralling, heartbreaking books that I have read in quite some time' Goodreads reviewer, 5 stars 'The poignant storyline is deeply affecting. Definitely a book that is going to stay with me for a long time' Goodreads reviewer, 5 stars 'So beautifully written. In places it made me laugh out loud and in other places it made me cry. Poignant' Amazon reviewer, 5 stars 'I was hooked from beginning to end! Vivid characters and evocative scenes make this an enchanting read' Amazon reviewer, 5 stars 'Stunning and emotional' Amazon reviewer, 5 stars 'This novel absolutely blew me away! I was left emotional and teary. It had me gripped from the startand is loaded with scenes that pull at the heartstrings! I cannot recommend this novel enough' Goodreads reviewer, 5 stars 'A stunning read and I can't wait to read more from this author' Goodreads reviewer, 5 stars

Download or read book My Mother s Shadow written by Nikola Scott and published by Headline Review. This book was released on 2017-05-30 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 1958. Sent to beautiful Hartland to be sheltered from her mother's illness, Liz spends the summer with the wealthy Shaw family. They treat Liz as one of their own, but their influence could be dangerous ... Now. Addie believes she knows everything about her mother Elizabeth and their difficult relationship until her recent death. When a stranger appears claiming to be Addie's sister, she is stunned. Is everything she's been told about her early life a lie? How can you find the truth about the past if the one person who could tell you is gone? Addie must go back to that golden summer her mother never spoke of ... and the one night that changed a young girl's life for ever.

Download or read book Her Mother s Shadow written by Diane Chamberlain and published by MIRA. This book was released on 2019-04-15 with total page 391 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From a New York Times–bestselling author, a saga of mothers, daughters, family secrets and a woman trying to find herself in a small Outer Banks community. Annie A loving mother and wife, Annie O’Neill was the heart of the small community of Kiss River. But her generous nature hid a darker side that remained secret for years after her tragic death. Lacey When Lacey O’Neill finally learns the shattering truth about the mother she’s spent a decade emulating, the foundation of her life begins to crumble. Then her close childhood friend dies, leaving her teenage daughter, Mackenzie, in Lacey’s care, and Lacey unwillingly finds herself in the role of mother. Mackenzie Uprooted by her mother’s death, Mackenzie resents her new home of Kiss River. She wants nothing to do with the father who never knew she existed—and especially not her mother’s oldest friend. But the person who could understand her best might be the one she resents most: Lacey. Praise for Her Mother’s Shadow “Chamberlain . . . bridges the gap between romance and relationship novels in another tale of lost family and found love on North Carolina's Outer Banks. . . . Bringing in characters from past novels and introducing folks sure to show up in future ones, Chamberlain adeptly unfolds layers of rage, guilt, longing, repression and rebellion while gently preaching a message of trust and forgiveness. Complex, credible characterization raises her saga so far above soap opera that even readers who are not already fans will sympathize with the flawed but caring people she compassionately evokes.” —Publishers Weekly

Download or read book The Sense of an Ending written by Julian Barnes and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2011-10-05 with total page 158 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: BOOKER PRIZE WINNER • NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A novel that follows a middle-aged man as he contends with a past he never much thought about—until his closest childhood friends return with a vengeance: one of them from the grave, another maddeningly present. A novel so compelling that it begs to be read in a single setting, The Sense of an Ending has the psychological and emotional depth and sophistication of Henry James at his best, and is a stunning achievement in Julian Barnes's oeuvre. Tony Webster thought he left his past behind as he built a life for himself, and his career has provided him with a secure retirement and an amicable relationship with his ex-wife and daughter, who now has a family of her own. But when he is presented with a mysterious legacy, he is forced to revise his estimation of his own nature and place in the world.

Download or read book The Art of Being a Woman written by Patricia Volk and published by Hutchinson. This book was released on 2013 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Patricia Volk's glittering memoir, written with charm, panache and wit, juxtaposes the lives of two women - the iconoclastic fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli and the author's own mother - to tell the story of how young Patricia fashioned herself into a woman. Patricia Volk's mother Audrey was an upper-middle class New Yorker, a great beauty, a perfectionist, and a polished hostess who believed in women doing things the proper way. The iconoclastic Italian fashion designer, Elsa Schiaparelli, on the other hand, never found a rule she didn't want to break. One of fashion's most radical provocateurs, she was a cultural revolutionary who embodied the 'daring'. For Patricia, who read Schiap's 'scandalous' autobiography, Shocking Life, at a tender age, these two women offered fabulously contrasting lessons in everything from fashion, make-up, lingerie, family and entertaining, to love, sex, superstition and gambling - lessons that would stay with her for the rest of her life. Moving seamlessly between the Volks' 1950s Manhattan home and Schiap's astonishing life in New York, Rome and Paris (among pals like Dali, Duchamp, Picasso), The Art of Being a Woman weaves Audrey's notions of female domesticity with Schiap's groundbreaking creative vision to tell the witty, wise and utterly delightful story of how a young girl learned that there is more than one way to be a woman.

Download or read book The Mother s Secret written by Kathryn Croft and published by Canelo. This book was released on 2022-05-12 with total page 381 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A dream come true, a nightmare that is just beginning Eve wanted nothing more than to be a mother. She and her husband, Aiden, planned to have a family, but with each devastating miscarriage her hopes dwindled. When she eventually gave birth to her daughter, Kayla, it should have been the happiest time of her life. Instead, it was a waking nightmare for Eve, and one she was desperate to escape. Now, Eve has left all that behind. She pretends that she never had a child, and keeps her secrets close. But someone knows the truth. They know that Eve told a lie, and the clock is ticking before her shocking decision is revealed. Once the story comes out, there’ll be no way out for Eve. If people learn about the crime she covered up, they’ll never look at her the same way again. She must get her little girl back, before it’s too late. If she can’t, running away won’t be an option. This time, Eve will face the consequences, and pay the price she should have paid years ago... A heart-stopping psychological thriller with an ending you won’t see coming from #1 bestseller Kathryn Croft. Perfect for fans of Shari Lapena, C. L. Taylor and K. L. Slater. What everyone is saying about Kathryn Croft ‘The first word that came to my mind after I read this book was OMG!!!!! ... Each secret did eventually come out and revealed that shocker of an ending. I was like WOW is this really happening. I had no clue that this book would take a twisted turn like that but I loved it.’ Goodreads review ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ ‘A beautiful marriage of 'whodunnit' with a cracking work of psychological fiction. Don't even get me started on those awesome plot twists!!’ Goodreads review ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ ‘Another very engaging suspenseful read from Kathryn Croft, this author just never disappoints me with her plots and twists.’ NetGalley review ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ‘Wow! Wow! Wow! Kathryn Croft at her best. She never disappoints. An excellent, captivating psychological thriller.’ Goodreads review ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ ‘Wow, wow is all I can say. This book has a twist in every chapter. I couldn’t put this book down!’ Goodreads review ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ ‘I read it in one day ... The ending is also fantastic and is a real gut punch for the reader. Highly recommended, a must-read novel!’ NetGalley review ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ ‘A great psychological thriller that had me guessing until the very end... Family secrets, lies and twists made this a page turner that I didn't want to put down. 5 twisty stars from me!’ Goodreads review ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ ‘Well written with a compelling storyline and well developed characters... I was gripped right from the start and couldn't put it down...twisty and unpredictable and kept me guessing until the end.’ NetGalley Review ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ ‘Croft clearly has that knack of hitting you with a cracking twist at the end.’ NetGalley Review ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ ‘Wow, this book is simply unputdownable! I inhaled the novel... the character of Eve is so brilliantly written that I wanted to know more. I was completely immersed in both the characters and the story.’ NetGalley Review ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Download or read book Sala s Gift written by Ann Kirschner and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2006-11-07 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Do you know why I write so much? Because as long as you read, we are together." -- Raizel Garncarz (Sala's sister), April 24, 1941 Few family secrets have the power both to transform lives and to fill in crucial gaps in world history. But then, few families have a mother and a daughter quite like Sala and Ann Kirschner. For nearly fifty years, Sala kept a secret: She had survived five years as a slave in seven different Nazi work camps. Living in America after the war, she kept from her children any hint of her epic, inhuman odyssey. She held on to more than 350 letters, photographs, and a diary without ever mentioning them. Only in 1991, on the eve of heart surgery, did she suddenly present them to Ann and offer to answer any questions her daughter wished to ask. It was a life-changing moment for her scholar, writer, and entrepreneur daughter. We know surprisingly little about the vast network of Nazi labor camps, where imprisoned Jews built railroads and highways, churned out munitions and materiel, and otherwise supported the limitless needs of the Nazi war machine. This book gives us an insider's account: Conditions were brutal. Death rates were high. As the war dragged on and the Nazis retreated, inmates were force-marched across hundreds of miles, or packed into cattle cars for grim journeys from one camp to another. When Sala first reported to a camp in Geppersdorf, Poland, at the age of sixteen, she thought it would be for six weeks. Five years later, she was still at a labor camp and only she and two of her sisters remained alive of an extended family of fifty. In the first years of the conflict, Sala was aided by her close friend Ala Gertner, who would later lead an uprising at Auschwitz and be executed just weeks before the liberation of that camp. Sala was also helped by other key friends. Yet above all, she survived thanks to the slender threads of support expressed in the letters of her friends and family. She kept them at great personal risk, and it is astonishing that she was able to receive as many as she did. With their heartwrenching expressions of longing, love, and hope, they offer a testament to the human spirit, an indomitable impulse even in the face of monstrosity. Sala's Gift is a rare book, a gift from Ann to her mother, and a great gift from both women to the world.

Download or read book The Other Mothers written by M.M. Chouinard and published by Bookouture. This book was released on 2021-01-20 with total page 349 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “I was 100% hooked right from the start… A non-stop, heart-pounding suspenseful read!… Captivated me from page one all the way through… WOW!!” Misty’s Corner Reviews ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ It’s a crisp spring morning when the small-town community around Briar Ridge Elementary School is shattered by devastating news. Bright and shy five-year-old Nicole has disappeared at recess. When the phone call comes, Gia Marchand is suddenly living every parent’s worst nightmare. She feels like time has stopped and she struggles to truly understand it: she dropped her daughter at the school gate this morning and now Nicole is gone. In her big house all alone, she breaks down. Her best friend was in the playground at recess but when Gia begs desperately for any details, the woman won’t look her in the eye. Surely her closest friend wouldn’t betray her? Then Detective Jo Fournier says her husband was in the school building this morning but now she can’t reach him. Gia is left completely alone with her grief. As time slips away and Nicole hasn’t been found, Gia becomes utterly terrified: is she finally paying the price for a secret that she has been hiding for years? Or is someone she thought she could trust committing the ultimate betrayal? From USA Today bestseller M.M. Chouinard, The Other Mothers is a completely addictive psychological thriller that will not let you go until you turn the last heart-thumping page! Perfect for fans of Gone Girl, The Stepdaughter and The Girl on the Train. Readers are utterly addicted to The Other Mothers! “Wow, wow, wow!!!!! I’m speechless. Did I really just read that????… I truly would’ve never guessed it in a million years.” Goodreads Reviewer ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ “Holy buckets… Grabs you by the throat and won’t let go. There are not enough stars to accurately label how genuinely excellent this book is.” Goodreads Reviewer ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ “Right off the bat you are pulled in and are immediately hooked… Took me a while to get my racing heart back under control again.” Once Upon A Time Book Blog ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ “Addictive… Had me gripped from page one… I couldn’t stop reading… I can wholeheartedly recommend it.” Goodreads Reviewer ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ “Totally blew me away… I especially loved the ending. Never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined it.” Goodreads Reviewer ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ “A complete shocker… An absolute page-turner I could not put down.” Goodreads Reviewer “Absolutely thrilling from start to finish. A rollercoaster of a read. Heart thumpingly, stay-up-all-night-reading good. Loved this brilliant book.” Renita D’Silva, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ “Believe me you'll be stunned… Awesome.” Goodreads Reviewer ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Download or read book My Mother s Secret written by Julia Roberts and published by Bookouture. This book was released on 2021-01-27 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'They told me he died, but I never believed them. I'd have known, ' she says, her voice little more than a whisper and her eyes searching mine. 'A mother would know if her child died, wouldn't she?' The phone call comes in the middle of the night, rousing Danni from her safe, warm bed. The police have found her mother Diana wandering along the main road, miles from her house, confused and lost. Danni races to her mother's side, but when she arrives, as always, her mother doesn't seem to care. 'Go away, Danni, ' she says. 'I don't want you.' When she was a child, Danni would lie awake at night wondering what she had done to make her mother so cold. Now she is determined to put the past behind them and make Diana as happy as she can in the time they have left. But as some of Diana's memories are slipping away, others are forcing their way to the surface. One night Diana breaks down in tears and reveals her heartbreaking secret. Years before Danni was born, there was another baby who never got to see the world. Now there is one last thing Danni can do for her mother. She will find her brother's resting place, and bring Diana some peace. But good intentions can have unexpected consequences, and soon Danni's life will be changed forever. Are some secrets best left buried? A completely heartbreaking and compelling story of families, secrets, and the fierce love between mothers and children. Fans of Amanda Prowse, Ali Mercer and Jodi Picoult will smile through their tears. See what readers are saying about Julia Roberts: 'Fantastic... Fabulously written - I just couldn't put it down and had finished it within just 2 days!... You really get to know the characters and connect with them on an emotional level... There was one moment in particular that caused a lump in my throat and, had I not been on a train surrounded by strangers, there would have been tears.' Goodreads Reviewer, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 'Wonderful storytelling... Moments of joy, sadness and edge-of-the-seat drama... Such a great read.' Goodreads Reviewer, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 'Captivating from the first page... Really tugged on the heart strings and left you a little weepy.' Goodreads Reviewer

Download or read book Dreaming in Cuban written by Cristina García and published by Ballantine Books. This book was released on 2011-06-08 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Impressive . . . [Cristina García’s] story is about three generations of Cuban women and their separate responses to the revolution. Her special feat is to tell it in a style as warm and gentle as the ‘sustaining aromas of vanilla and almond,’ as rhythmic as the music of Beny Moré.”—Time Cristina García’s acclaimed book is the haunting, bittersweet story of a family experiencing a country’s revolution and the revelations that follow. The lives of Celia del Pino and her husband, daughters, and grandchildren mirror the magical realism of Cuba itself, a landscape of beauty and poverty, idealism and corruption. Dreaming in Cuban is “a work that possesses both the intimacy of a Chekov story and the hallucinatory magic of a novel by Gabriel García Márquez” (The New York Times). In celebration of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the novel’s original publication, this edition features a new introduction by the author. Praise for Dreaming in Cuban “Remarkable . . . an intricate weaving of dramatic events with the supernatural and the cosmic . . . evocative and lush.”—San Francisco Chronicle “Captures the pain, the distance, the frustrations and the dreams of these family dramas with a vivid, poetic prose.”—The Washington Post “Brilliant . . . With tremendous skill, passion and humor, García just may have written the definitive story of Cuban exiles and some of those they left behind.”—The Denver Post

Download or read book A Little Life written by Hanya Yanagihara and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2016-01-26 with total page 834 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A stunning “portrait of the enduring grace of friendship” (NPR) about the families we are born into, and those that we make for ourselves. A masterful depiction of love in the twenty-first century. NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST • MAN BOOKER PRIZE FINALIST • WINNER OF THE KIRKUS PRIZE A Little Life follows four college classmates—broke, adrift, and buoyed only by their friendship and ambition—as they move to New York in search of fame and fortune. While their relationships, which are tinged by addiction, success, and pride, deepen over the decades, the men are held together by their devotion to the brilliant, enigmatic Jude, a man scarred by an unspeakable childhood trauma. A hymn to brotherly bonds and a masterful depiction of love in the twenty-first century, Hanya Yanagihara’s stunning novel is about the families we are born into, and those that we make for ourselves. Look for Hanya Yanagihara’s latest bestselling novel, To Paradise.

Download or read book Shocked written by Patricia Volk and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2014-04-22 with total page 314 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An NPR Best Book of the Year A Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year How does a girl fashion herself into a woman? In this richly illustrated memoir, writer Patricia Volk juxtaposes her two childhood idols to find her answer. Her mother, Audrey, was an upper-middle-class New Yorker and a great beauty—meticulously groomed, proudly conventional. Elsa Schiaparelli was an avant-garde fashion designer whose creations broke every rule and elevated clothing into art. While growing up in Audrey's strict household, Patricia read Schiap's freewheeling autobiography and was transformed by it. Shocked weaves Audrey's traditional notions of domesticity with Schiap's often outrageous ideas, giving us a revelatory meditation on beauty and on being a daughter, sister, and mother—and demonstrating, meanwhile, how a single book can change a life.

Download or read book Watch Me Disappear written by Janelle Brown and published by Random House. This book was released on 2017-07-11 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The disappearance of a beautiful, charismatic mother leaves her family to piece together her secrets in this propulsive novel for fans of Big Little Lies—from the bestselling author of All We Ever Wanted Was Everything and the upcoming Pretty Things. “Watch Me Disappear is just as riveting as Gone Girl.”—San Francisco Chronicle Who you want people to be makes you blind to who they really are. It’s been a year since Billie Flanagan—a Berkeley mom with an enviable life—went on a solo hike in Desolation Wilderness and vanished from the trail. Her body was never found, just a shattered cellphone and a solitary hiking boot. Her husband and teenage daughter have been coping with Billie’s death the best they can: Jonathan drinks as he works on a loving memoir about his marriage; Olive grows remote, from both her father and her friends at the all-girls school she attends. But then Olive starts having strange visions of her mother, still alive. Jonathan worries about Olive’s emotional stability, until he starts unearthing secrets from Billie’s past that bring into question everything he thought he understood about his wife. Who was the woman he knew as Billie Flanagan? Together, Olive and Jonathan embark on a quest for the truth—about Billie, but also about themselves, learning, in the process, about all the ways that love can distort what we choose to see. Janelle Brown’s insights into the dynamics of intimate relationships will make you question the stories you tell yourself about the people you love, while her nervy storytelling will keep you guessing until the very last page. Praise for Watch Me Disappear “Watch Me Disappear is a surprising and compelling read. Like the best novels, it takes the reader somewhere she wouldn’t otherwise allow herself to go. . . . It’s strongest in the places that matter most: in the believability of its characters and the irresistibility of its plot.”—Chicago Tribune “Janelle Brown’s third family drama delivers an incisive and emotional view of how grief and recovery from loss can seep into each aspect of a person’s life. . . . Brown imbues realism in each character, whose complicated emotions fuel the suspenseful story.”—Associated Press “When a Berkeley mother vanishes and is declared dead, her daughter is convinced she’s alive in Janelle Brown’s thriller, calling to mind Big Little Lies and Gone Girl.”—Variety

Download or read book What My Mother and I Don t Talk About written by Michele Filgate and published by Simon & Schuster. This book was released on 2020-08-11 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “You will devour these beautifully written—and very important—tales of honesty, pain, and resilience” (Elizabeth Gilbert, New York Times bestselling author of Eat Pray Love and City of Girls) from fifteen brilliant writers who explore how what we don’t talk about with our mothers affects us, for better or for worse. As an undergraduate, Michele Filgate started writing an essay about being abused by her stepfather. It took her more than a decade to realize that she was actually trying to write about how this affected her relationship with her mother. When it was finally published, the essay went viral, shared on social media by Anne Lamott, Rebecca Solnit, and many others. This gave Filgate an idea, and the resulting anthology offers a candid look at our relationships with our mothers. Leslie Jamison writes about trying to discover who her seemingly perfect mother was before ever becoming a mom. In Cathi Hanauer’s hilarious piece, she finally gets a chance to have a conversation with her mother that isn’t interrupted by her domineering (but lovable) father. André Aciman writes about what it was like to have a deaf mother. Melissa Febos uses mythology as a lens to look at her close-knit relationship with her psychotherapist mother. And Julianna Baggott talks about having a mom who tells her everything. As Filgate writes, “Our mothers are our first homes, and that’s why we’re always trying to return to them.” There’s relief in acknowledging how what we couldn’t say for so long is a way to heal our relationships with others and, perhaps most important, with ourselves. Contributions by Cathi Hanauer, Melissa Febos, Alexander Chee, Dylan Landis, Bernice L. McFadden, Julianna Baggott, Lynn Steger Strong, Kiese Laymon, Carmen Maria Machado, André Aciman, Sari Botton, Nayomi Munaweera, Brandon Taylor, and Leslie Jamison.

Download or read book She Left Me the Gun written by Emma Brockes and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2013-05-16 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "One of those memoirs that remind you why you liked memoirs in the first place... It has the density of a very good novel... As you do with the best writers, you feel lucky to be in Ms. Brockes’s company." --Dwight Garner, The New York Times A chilling work of psychological suspense and forensic memoir, She Left Me the Gun is a tale of true transformation: the story of a young woman who reinvented herself so completely that her previous life seemed simply to vanish, and of a daughter who transcends her mother’s fears and reclaims an abandoned past. “One day I will tell you the story of my life,” promises Emma Brockes’s mother, “and you will be amazed.” Brockes grew up hearing only pieces of her mother’s past—stories of a rustic childhood in South Africa, glimpses of a bohemian youth in London—and yet knew that crucial facts were still in the dark. A mystery to her friends and family, Paula was clearly a strong, self-invented woman; glamorous, no-nonsense, and frequently out of place in their quaint English village. In awe of Paula’s larger-than-life personality, Brockes never asked why her mother emigrated to England or why she never returned to South Africa; never questioned the source of her mother’s strange fears or tremendous strengths. Looking to unearth the truth after Paula’s death, Brockes begins a dangerous journey into the land—and the life—her mother fled from years before. Brockes soon learns that Paula’s father was a drunk megalomaniac who terrorized Paula and her seven half-siblings for years. After finally mustering the courage to take her father to court, Paula is horrified to see the malevolent man vindicated of all charges. As Brockes discovers, this crushing defeat left Paula with a choice: take her own life, or promise herself never to be intimidated or unhappy again. Ultimately she chooses life and happiness by booking one-way passage to London—but not before shooting her father five times, and failing to kill him. Smuggling the fateful gun through English customs would be Paula’s first triumph in her new life. She Left Me the Gun carries Brockes to South Africa to meet her seven aunts and uncles, weighing their stories against her mother’s silences. Brockes learns of the violent pathologies and racial propaganda in which her grandfather was inculcated, sees the mine shafts and train yards where he worked as an itinerant mechanic, and finds in buried government archives the court records proving his murder conviction years before he first married. Brockes also learns of the turncoat stepmother who may have perjured herself to save her husband, dooming Paula and her siblings to the machinations of their hated father. Most of all, She Left Me the Gun reveals how Paula reinvented herself to lead a full, happy life. As she follows her mother’s footsteps back to South Africa, Brockes begins to find the wellsprings of her mother’s strength, the tremendous endurance which allowed Paula to hide secrets from even her closest friends and family. But as the search through cherished letters and buried documents deepens, Brockes realizes with horror that her mother’s great success as a parent was concealing her terrible past—and that unearthing these secrets threatens to undo her mother’s work. A beguiling and unforgettable journey across generations and continents, She Left Me the Gun chronicles Brockes’s efforts to walk the knife-edge between understanding her mother’s unspeakable traumas and embracing the happiness she chose for her daughter.

Download or read book Circling My Mother written by Mary Gordon and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2008-10-14 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bringing her exceptional talent for detail, character, and scene to bear on the life of her hard-working single mother, a bestselling author gives us a deeply felt and powerfully moving book about their relationship. “A daring and perceptive work of memory, catharsis and literary grace.” —Los Angeles Times Anna Gagliano Gordon, who died in 2002 at the age of 94, was the personification of the culture of the mid-century American Catholic working class. A hard-working single mother—Mary Gordon's father died when she was still a girl—she managed to hold down a job, dress smartly, raise her daughter on her own, and worship the beauty in life with a surprising joie de vivre. Toward the end of Anna's life, we watch the author care for her mother in old age, beginning to reclaim from memory the vivid woman who helped her sail forth into her own life.

Download or read book Little Secrets written by Jennifer Hillier and published by Minotaur Books. This book was released on 2020-04-21 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: National Bestseller! "Unflinching and unforgettable. Little Secrets has everything you want in a thriller" —Riley Sager, New York Times bestselling author of Lock Every Door Overwhelmed by tragedy, a woman desperately tries to save her marriage in award-winning author Jennifer Hillier's Little Secrets, a riveting novel of psychological suspense. All it takes to unravel a life is one little secret... Marin had the perfect life. Married to her college sweetheart, she owns a chain of upscale hair salons, and Derek runs his own company. They're admired in their community and are a loving family—until their world falls apart the day their son Sebastian is taken. A year later, Marin is a shadow of herself. The FBI search has gone cold. The publicity has faded. She and her husband rarely speak. She hires a P.I. to pick up where the police left off, but instead of finding Sebastian, she learns that Derek is having an affair with a younger woman. This discovery sparks Marin back to life. She's lost her son; she's not about to lose her husband, too. Kenzie is an enemy with a face, which means this is a problem Marin can fix. Permanently.