You’ll Never See Me Again

Lesley Pearse

One young woman’s battle to escape heartbreak and forge a new destiny takes centre stage in a thrilling and drama-packed novel from one of the nation’s most prolific and best-loved authors.

 For over twenty-six years, Lesley Pearse has been delighting her army of fans with gripping and emotionally powerful novels featuring tales of courage and adversity, and giving a voice to women from every walk of life.

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Over ten million of Pearse’s books have sold worldwide, earning her a reputation as a master storyteller, and this new page-turner features an enthralling and exhilarating adventure story full of the author’s trademark rich historical detail, wisdom, warmth and heartfelt passion.

Set in the tumultuous years as the First World War drew to a close, and social change spread rapidly throughout the land, You’ll Never See Me Again has an all-star cast of compelling female characters, from a wife on the run and a vengeful mother, to a charming young illustrator and a charismatic psychic.

In 1917, young Betty Wellows dreams of settling down to an ordinary life in the Devon coastal village of Hallsands with her fisherman husband Martin. But when he returns wounded, shell-shocked and haunted from the Great War in France, she finds herself persecuted by his cold-hearted and mean-spirited mother Agnes, and yearns to escape.

ON TOP FORM: Lesley Pearse

But it is not until a devastating storm sweeps through their small fishing village and endangers her life that she sees her chance to escape and takes it, leaving the village community believing that she was swept away to her death in the sea. 

Fleeing to Bristol, she changes her name to Mabel Brook and takes a position as a maid of all work, posing as a war widow from Plymouth. She feels ‘sick with guilt’ but Mabel knows that her past has gone. ‘Today, tomorrow and the future were what counted now.’ But tragedy strikes again after the sudden death of her mistress and she is cast back on to the streets. Penniless and alone, Mabel suffers a brutal attack before being rescued by a psychic named Nora Nightingale.

When Mabel gets her first taste of those who receive messages from the dead, she is shocked to realise that she may have this gift herself. And it isn’t long before Mabel receives her own message and is forced back to the place she escaped, a place of heartache, persecution and perhaps even murder.

To secure her future, she must confront her past one last time…

Pearse is on top form in this exciting, suspense-packed story which follows Mabel’s rollercoaster journey from a small fishing village in Devon, and the menacing back streets of Bristol, to a charming cottage in rural Dorchester, and then a full circle return to the place where she was born.

Along the way, she must reinvent herself, live through the best of times and the worst of times, endure terrible cruelty, discover love, romance and kindness in the most unexpected places, and learn that ‘holding bitterness inside you’ will never bring happiness.

Steeped in the spirit of adventure, with real-life history at its core, and brimming with emotional intensity, danger and suspicion, this is an entertaining and enjoyable story to relish from first page to last.

(Michael Joseph, hardback, £20)