Set in Victorian England, this is a thought-provoking and shocking
debut story for teenagers and adults of how a young woman with an
ambition to become a doctor (at a time when it was frowned upon for
women to have such thoughts) is sent away and incarcerated in an asylum
for mentally ill women.
In Wildthorn Hall Louisa is stripped of all she knows, including her
own name. But refusing to be cowed by the regime, she uses her time to
recall and record the story of how she was betrayed by those around
her. And, surprisingly, she also finds great friendship and love.
Louisa tells her story in intertwining strands from the past and the
present.
Seventeen-year-old Louisa Cosgrove longs to break free from her respectable life as a Victorian doctor's daughter. But her dreams become a nightmare when Louisa is sent to Wildthorn Hall: labelled a lunatic, deprived of her liberty and even her real name. As she unravels the betrayals that led to her incarceration, she realizes there are many kinds of prison. She must be honest with herself - and others - in order to be set free. And love may be the key . . .
Born firmly in the last century, too late to make the most of the swinging
sixties, I was an 'Essex girl.' But I have lived in the north for so many years
now, my loyalties and ties are here.
I have come late to taking my
writing seriously. After teaching English in secondary schools for long enough,
I decided something had to be done while there was still time. In my work, I'm a
Jekyll and Hyde, veering between the lightness of stories for children, which I
enjoy hugely, (my inner child is about four, I reckon) and fiction for adults,
in which I seem to produce atmospheres of menace and unease.
