The Forgotten Woman Angela Marsons
Where do I start with a book as good as this?
I picked the book because I love Angela Marsons DCI Kim Stone series. I knew this was a stand-alone and I was thinking it would be a similar type of novel.
How wrong was I, and in a really good way.
The book has two protagonists who meet in an Alcoholics therapy group session. Both are women with a problem with alcohol, but that’s where the similarity ends.
Kit Mason has had a rough life. Without giving too much away she is from a loveless family and grew up in a rough working class area of Liverpool. Running from there she became a prostitute on the streets of London becoming hooked on drugs and booze.
Frances Thornton. A Barrister from a well-to-do family. Single, never married, apparently from a loving family, and very troubled.
The two women find each other at a meeting in Birmingham, how they both got there you will have to find out by reading the book, and become friends and confidants.
The story looks back at both of their lives and follows them as they emerge from the depths of their problems, not all of which were self-inflicted.
Kit and Frances could not be two more different people. Each is portrayed beautifully by Angela Marsons, the depth of depravity in Kits story is counter balanced by the comfortable life style of Frances.
Alcoholism is not fussy who it chooses to affect, and usually there is a reason people want to lose sight of reality. Angela identifies this and shows that even people from opposite ends of the spectrum can find a way of hiding away in its fog. But what she does really well here is show how difficult the recovery can be, how there are temptations every minute of every day, on every street, how a minute of letting your guard down can result in a stumble back to drink.
The story shows how these two women fight the temptations whilst trying to regain their lives.
Angela also tackles the problem of how recovering alcoholics struggle to form new relationships; When is it right? How much do you tell people of your past? What assumptions will they make? Both Kit and Frances have things in their past that might put people off, but will it.
The women don’t just struggle with what others will make of them, but have to come to terms with who they are.
I think this book is in the top half a dozen I’ve ever read.
Thinking back on the other books in that list they are all either the first book by an author, or the first of a series.
This is neither. This is a novel the author had been trying to get published for years.It was initially self-published with the title My Name Is. Now, following the success of the Kim Stone books, it is getting the fair outing it deserves under its new name.
I hope people who missed it first time around, like me, find it this time.
This book should be read, it deserves to be read.
It does make you wonder what exactly the publishers who rejected it were thinking of.
Thank you Angela Marsons for persivering.
READ AND ENJOY.
nigeladamsbookworm 