Danielle Steel
AFTER her childhood was scarred by the tragic death of her
sister, Zoe Morgan is determined to jealously guard her own daughter’s precious
early years. But can a mother’s love be too powerful… and when does
over-zealous care turn to serious harm?
Danielle Steel, one of the world’s most popular authors,
turns her considerable talents to a gripping and haunting tale featuring a dark
and disturbing side of motherhood that is rarely talked about.
The innocence of a child’s formative years jostles
chillingly with the terrifying reality of a mother whose boundaries of parental
protection tip into a well of unfathomable harm. The result is a harrowing
story full of menace, white-knuckle psychological tension, and a twisted
intensity that will have readers turning the pages with shaking hands and a
sinking heart.
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| HAUNTING TALE: Danielle Steel |
Zoe Morgan and her younger sister Rose were always chalk and
cheese siblings… Zoe, ‘long and angular,’ and Rose, round, small and smiling
with ‘no sharp edges.’ But aged just three, Rose was diagnosed with leukaemia
and life for both girls changed forever.
Almost overnight, Zoe’s idyllic childhood in San Francisco
became a nightmare as her family watched Rose ‘slip away inch by inch’ over the
next four years. Zoe witnessed how her parents dedicated themselves completely
to Rose’s final days and when the end came, they were too ‘stunned and broken’
to deal with Zoe’s grief as well as their own.
The pressures of caring for a dying child proved too much
and her parents divorced, leaving Zoe to care for herself both physically and
emotionally.
As a young woman, Zoe sets the bar high for herself, giving up
her training at medical school to pursue a career in a New York charity shelter
for abused children where her deep compassion for disadvantaged youngsters
finds a focus.
And when she marries caring child advocacy attorney, Austin
Roberts, and has her own daughter, Jaime, Zoe is determined to be a perfect mother
to the child who has filled ‘the aching void in her life without Rose.’
But, haunted by ghosts of the past and increasingly obsessed
with rigid child-rearing theories, Zoe’s long-dormant scars begin to pull her
to the edge of an abyss which becomes more sinister and more deadly by the day…
The Dark Side is not an easy read… it’s a story full of
emotional and domestic upheaval, mental disturbance, and events that are hard
to contemplate, but it is also searingly honest and psychologically astute, allowing
readers a glimpse into a dangerously damaged and troubled mind.
Zoe’s journey from a childhood marred and manipulated by
extreme grief to an adulthood in which the past becomes the catalyst for
catastrophe is exquisitely observed by a writer perfectly attuned to human
vulnerabilities.
Devastating illnesses of both body and mind, terrible
tragedies, and the malign influence of painful, unexpressed memories all play
major roles but so too do the eternal strengths of love and shared experience,
making this one of the best novels yet from a world-class storyteller.
(Macmillan, hardback, £18.99)
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