You can buy "The Memory"...Here
You can follow Judith Barrow...Here
You can follow Welsh women's publisher "Honno"...Here
- The Blurb...
Rose was Irene's little sister, an unwanted embarrassment to their mother Lilian but a treasure to Irene. Rose died thirty years ago, when she was eight, and nobody has talked about the circumstances of her death since. But Irene knows what she saw. Over the course of 24 hours their moving and tragic story is revealed – a story of love and duty, betrayal and loss – as Irene rediscovers the past and finds hope for the future.
- Our Review...
Every chapter has two sections. The first takes place during the course of one day, where we follow Irene caring for her dementia suffering, incontinent mother. Irene does this with a mixture of love and resentment, all whilst being physically and emotionally exhausted.
The second part of each chapter deals with the story of Irene's life and how she came to be where she is now. It also tells the tale of her Downs syndrome sister Rose and the deadly secret that Irene and her mother silently share, that comes out into the light towards the end.
Very relevant in today's climate of unaffordable housing, super expensive care homes, crumbling NHS. Society in general may be forced to going back to a time where you lived at home with your parents and when the time comes you give them end of life care.
This genre is very different for me. I think it's fair to say its target audience is female. It hammers on the emotional heartstrings. It effects one more than your bog standard crime thriller. I had at least three emo speed wobbles leading to occular seepage. In short if you want a good old sob this is the book for you.
The author definitely has a gift for sweet, melancholy, nostalgia. Its painful and warming at the same time, like a deep muscle back massage, picking a scab or sticking a thumb into a day old bruise. A glorious ache. Heartbreaking at times uplifting at others, Irene's life is grim intertwined with a small strand of love and happiness, probably like most people's. It's a tale of duty, of doing the right thing even if it is for the wrong person and even if it costs you your happiness. Think Remains of the Day but with mother and daughter rather than master and butler.
The book will wring your heart like a dishcloth.
- Selected Quotes...
"He says I’m beautiful. I joke that he’s looking at me after one too many pints of beer but he doesn’t drink that much and besides it’s not funny. It’s as though I’m rushing towards old age before I’ve actually lived."
"Sometimes I think I’m only getting through life on memories."
"I rolled the last of my cornflakes around my mouth with my tongue, holding them long enough to soften, so that when I chewed it didn’t sound in the silence."
"Once, in desperation and to my shame, I even forced them into her mouth and tried to make her have a drink of water. She nearly choked. After that I gave up. So now I wait with Sam. This woman will be the death of me. Or me her."
- If You Like This Then You May Like...
Emmet and Me by Sarah Gethin
Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
- About The Author...
Although I was born and brought up in a small village on the edge of the Pennine moors in Yorkshire, for the last forty years I’ve lived with my husband and family near the coast in Pembrokeshire, West Wales, UK, a gloriously beautiful place.
I’ve written all my life and have had short stories, poems, plays, reviews and articles published throughout the British Isles. But I only started to seriously write novels after I’d had breast cancer twenty years ago.
Four novels safely stashed away, never to see the light of day again, I had the first of my historical family saga trilogy, Pattern of Shadows, published in 2010, the sequel, Changing Patterns, in 2013 and the last, Living in the Shadows in 2015. The prequel, A Hundred Tiny Threads was published in August 2017. All published by Honno
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