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NEW: Online Book Club
more than books, books with messages
J
ennifer
Gilmour has launched a book club with a difference.
Read books that relate to domestic abuse. There will be
interviews, reviews, a chance to share your thoughts as talking
points and win exclusive signed copies of some of the books
featured. Any questions or want to get involved?
Email: JLJarratt@hotmail.com
Book for November 2017
Autumn Sky by Helen Pryke ????? on Amazon UK. FREE short story on Amazon:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Autumn-Sky-Helen-Pryke-ebook/dp/B01N4G80LN
The day Julia’s best friend Becky gives her a magazine article to read, her whole world falls apart.
After years of emotional and psychological abuse, is Julia ready to face the truth about her perfect
marriage to Simon or will she continue to hide her head in the sand? Autumn Sky is a short story of
7,000 words. It includes an excerpt of Walls of Silence, Helen Pryke’s debut novel. My own thoughts
on Autumn Sky: “What a powerful short story that makes an impact. Helen has done a fantastic job
on portraying the anxiety of a victim and I have to say I particularly valued how she has brought
some of the facts of domestic abuse through a magazine article in the book.
It is a challenging job to educate through fiction when you are using it as a piece of entertainment
and Helen has done this exceptionally well. I wanted to read more and find out what happened
further, I was kept intrigued and I related to the victim. Thank you Helen for this short piece which I
am sure will help those who are in abusive relationships realise they are worth more and that it’s
unacceptable behaviour. A must read”
I had the opportunity to ask Helen a couple of questions:
What would you like readers to gain from your short story?
I hope that my short story will reach readers from all walks of life, both male and female, and help
them understand what psychological abuse is like and why the victim can’t leave in most cases. I
hope that people who have never been in an abusive situation will come away from my story with a
deeper understanding and compassion for those who go through these things every day. Most of all, I
hope that someone who is experiencing this type of abuse will read Autumn Sky and it will give them
the courage, and the hope, to take the first step towards asking for help.
Is domestic abuse at the core of all your writing or do you write about anything else?
My books do have abuse at their core, but they are also about strong women who overcome terrible
situations, despite the odds. I’ve written a full-length novel, Walls of Silence, that deals with all kinds
of abuse – sexual, domestic, psychological, emotional. I wrote it just after having left an abusive
relationship, and it was a way to get rid of the anger and hurt inside me. My latest novel, The Healer’s
Secret, is also about abuse, and the effects it has on a family, but there are other elements interwoven
into the story. Sometimes I need to take a break from writing about such traumatic subjects, and I
have recently published a middle grade children’s book under a pen name, with another one due out
next year.
Thank you Helen for giving your time to answer those questions. Do you have thoughts on
Autumn Sky? Email me by the end of November at jljarratt@hotmail.com.
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