Bea and her brother Sebastian, Helen, Sandra and John live with a foster mother as all of them come from families which have broken up for one reason or another. The misery that Miriam imposes on them is unimaginable and painful, degrading and horrible. The children however for one reason only did not complain to the authorities though they had ample opportunities to do so. Just because they did not want to be separated and they thought that the situation could be worse.
A freak accident which causes the death of Sebastian, paralyses Miriam sets them all free of her clutches in different ways. Some live in very nice homes after this, some dont. The driver of the truck Ronnie Moss shaken and drunk after the accident runs away to the Caribbean and is forgotton by the children, but not by the authorities.
Decades later, all grown up getting on with their lives, the bombshell that the truck driver has been found, is being sent back to England to trial and that Miriam may regain her memory of the incident is a ticking bomb for all of them. During the last few months of their stay with their foster carer, they came up with the brilliant idea of slowly poisoning Miriam with rat poison in order to weaken her and make her unable to physically abuse them the way she did. Will this secret hidden for so many years now come out and ruin all their lives.
Once again anxious, worried and on edge the four of them come together to face this new calamity in their lives and how to handle the situation carefully, not bringing any of them into suspicion with the authorities who have started interrogating each of them individually about their stay with Miriam.
The story highlights how easy it is for abuse to be in a system and for it not to be noticed by either teachers or fellow students or friends. All of them were severely underweight, all of them carried bruises and no one was any the wiser as to what was happening.
It was a sad story but with redemption at the end.
Sent to me by Netgalley for an unbiased review, courtesy of Aria.
I think we often ignore signs of abuse because we don't want to confront it. This sounds really good.
ReplyDeleteThis sounds like it might be sad but still a very good read. I’ll have to check it out.
ReplyDeleteInteresting story but I think I'll overlook this one.
ReplyDelete