What if the one thing that kept you together was breaking you apart?
All Linda wants to do is sleep. She won’t look at her husband. She can’t stand her daughter. And she doesn’t want to have this baby. Having this baby means moving on, and she just wants to go back to before. Before their family was torn apart, before the blame was placed.
Alienated by their own guilt and struggling to cope, the Sadler family unravels. They grow up, grow apart, never talking about their terrible secret.
That is until Linda’s daughter finds out she’s pregnant. Before she brings another Sadler into the world, Bea needs to know what happened twenty-five years ago. What did they keep from her? What happened that couldn’t be fixed?
A devastating mistake, a lifetime of consequences. How can you repair something broken if pieces are missing?
Missing Pieces by Laura Pearson was published by Agora Books in paperback on 21 June 2018. My thanks to the publisher who sent my copy for review.
Part one of Missing Pieces begins on 5 August 1985, and the reader is told that this date is '21 days after'.
After what?, you may ask. Well, this author certainly knows how to draw in her readers and as soon as we learn about the devastating accident that has torn this previously happy family apart, your heart will begin to break.
Tom and Linda were incredibly happy, their two small daughters were the light of their lives and when they discover that another baby is on the way, things seem to be getting even better. However, their lives will never be the same again and Linda begins to dread the birth of the new baby. She distances herself from her small daughter, and her loving husband and can't even begin to think of becoming a mother again.
Part two of the story takes place when that new baby; Bea is an adult and expecting a baby herself. Her pregnancy has evoked a curiosity about what happened before she was born, and shows so clearly how the effects of her early life have impacted on her as an adult.
Laura Pearson writes incredibly well, it's really difficult at times to believe that this is her debut novel. Her ability to depict the utter heartbreak and after effects of a tragic accident is powerful and so very moving. Readers may not always understand Linda's behaviour, but it would be impossible not to empathise with her feelings.
Missing Pieces is a brave, yet heart-breaking book that is sensitively done with a narrative that is painfully intimate in places. The reader feels almost voyeuristic at times. This is a moving and harrowing, yet enlightening story of grief, family relationships and love.
Laura Pearson has an MA in Creative Writing from the University of Chichester. She lives in Leicestershire with her husband and their two children.
Missing Pieces is her first novel.
Website: www.laurapearsonauthor.com
Twitter: @LauraPAuthor
Facebook Author Page
No comments:
Post a Comment