Can she escape the hardships of her past?Growing up in London’s tough East End, young Sara Porter has had to learn to take care of herself. Her mother resents her maternal responsibilities and has never shown her daughter the slightest bit of love.Starved of affection, Sara vows not to let anyone get close and focuses instead on getting out of the East End. But still she hopes that one day she’ll find a real family to call her own…( previously published as The Angry Heart by Elizabeth Lord)
First published with short stories, went on to writing novels, family sagas and historicals around 1980s. First novel published by Piatkus, London, in 1992. Since then there has been 22 novels published with one in the pipeline and one with my publishers Severn House. You can check out my books avaialable on Audios and CDs
This book was good, but the ending was weird - I kept expecting more, does he live or die? And what happens next? I even looked on google to see if it was part of a series
It feels like this book has been somewhat mislabelled. The first half actually focuses on Sara’s Mother Harriet, rather than Sara.
As far as characters go I absolutely detested Harriet and felt no pity for her whatsoever. I feel like I should have empathised with her, but I found this to be entirely impossible.
As for Sara, yes she was badly treated, but I found I didn’t care all that much for her story. In fact it was only in the final chapter that I was able to engage emotionally and shed a tear for Jonathan.
This book talks about abuse (not detailed), the effects of it, the trauma it causes the victims. Sara’s mother was abused by her first husband. She didn’t want the child - Sara - because she saw her husband in her. She remarried but because of trauma, wasn’t able to show her affection for two whole years. Her second husband, Matthew, was so patient, but there came times when his longing for affection led him to commit sins. He loved Sara even if she wasn’t his daughter (by blood). Sadly, as Sara grew he took for granted of Sara’s innocence. I liked him at first, but then, I hated his character in the end. He died, still not being able to redeem his image. His wife’s lacking of showing affection led him to find “love” from others.
There are lots of deaths in this book. Sara’s mother lost so many people. She even suffered from mental illness because of all the losses. Her son went to the war, was missing (they eventually learned that he was captured).
Part 2 focuses on Sara, now and adult woman, and a man from her workplace named Jonathan. She knew she loved her but couldn’t express it because of Matthew, her stepfather. But then, she realized that she needed to go to France and take the risk of going to the war to show her love for Jonathan.
The stories about abuse, deaths, sins are not told in detail. BUT there are some ⚠️Trigger Warnings ⚠️ when the characters show effects of the abuse (how Sara’s mother talk to her) and trauma from all her losses (mental illness). These were stated in detail, I just skimmed through these parts.
I quite enjoyed reading this book at first, then it seemed it completely changed into another story with characters never mentioned again! Unfortunately there was no end ....it just stopped abruptly, with no outcome!!!! Do not recommend this book!
On the whole I enjoyed this book and it was certainly a little different from most of the romantic stores I have read. I tend to like books set in WW1 so to have a little of that too was a plus. I shall try more by Maggie Ford.
Took an age to get into any sort of story about the girl on the blurb, and ended very abruptly. The last 200 pages were the best, but what happened at the end?!