Betrayal

Lesley Pearse

EVE'S violent husband Don Hathaway is a bully and an abuser, and she know she should never have married him, but she has two children and that means Eve must tread warily if she is to finally ditch Don and give them the future they desperately need.

Fortune, however, doesn’t always favour the brave... Don won’t give in easily and one disastrous act threatens to undo all her efforts to give her family that elusive fresh start.

With a life lived as rich with incidents, setbacks and joys as any found in her novels, bestselling author and master storyteller Lesley Pearse (pictured below) has both the personal experiences and the hard-gained wisdom to enthral her army of fans.

Her gripping and immaculately researched stories often feature human drama, domestic discord and powerful emotions, and Betrayal – Pearse’s thirty-first book – immerses us into the desperate world of a woman fighting to free herself and her children from the iron grip of her aggressive husband. So many people – not least her dour and difficult widower father – had warned Eve not to marry plumber Don but his fiery temper and anger had never been directed at her, yet just a week after their honeymoon, he started hitting her.

The violence did not get any better despite the birth of their two children, Tabitha and Oliver, but she told no one what was happening because of fear for her now frail dad, fear of what her neighbours would say, and the fear of having to bring up her family alone.

It was when Don became violent with Oliver, and she was badly injured in one drunken rage too many, that Eve knew she had to flee their home and take the children to safety... somewhere he would never find them.

But she has no money of her own, resents leaving Don in the house that had been paid for with her now late father’s money, and is so desperate that she has even contemplated the different ways she could murder him.

Finally she summons up the courage to leave him after a warning from a police medic that ‘every day you let your children stay in that toxic home, they are learning bad things,’ and the family are sent from London to a women’s refuge in Sidmouth in Devon. Eve is warned that it’s a difficult path ahead but she wants to give her children hope for the future. Don, however, is bitter and getting away entirely from him proves impossible. Until the day Eve tries to

teach him a lesson... and it all goes horribly wrong. Eve loves her children but now she carries a terrible burden that she dares not share. Has she betrayed her own future, and the future of her children too? 

It’s no surprise that Pearse is one of the nation’s most prolific and best-loved authors. From the brutal first pages, Betrayal is a twisting, turning and often harrowing tale of domestic abuse, grooming, the pain of guilt, and the dark shadow of violence and cruelty. Pearse does not shy away from exposing the harsh realities and hardships of life for battered wives and their children as Eve, Tabitha and Oliver begin their rollercoaster journey through refuges and the ongoing struggle for a life free from fear.

Using her astute psychological insight into the complexities of family relationships, the tensions that arise from domestic upheaval, and the uncertainties and traumas that life inevitably throws our way, Pearse brings us a cast of beautifully drawn, authentic characters, each with their own emotional turmoil. Gritty, painful and packed with surprises, but also brimming with the sensitivity and empathy that have made Pearse a readers’ favourite, this is a story that grips from first page to last.
(Michael Joseph, hardback, £22)