I am thrilled to announce that my partner – Pat Barrow – has her first novel published next week!
Pat is retired from work now but spent decades working in the family courts with families enmeshed in high conflict private law cases about post separation arrangements for children. In the course of that work she met many, many people – children and adults – who were very damaged and even heartbroken by their experiences.
Pat had an incredibly effective way of working with these families and was often able to find ways through seemingly intractable difficulties enabling parents and children to have an ongoing relationship that at one time looked most unlikely.
Love that lasts forever is a fictional tale based upon the work that Pat did and it shows some of the behaviour patterns that individuals can fall into when they are in dispute over their children. Pat was always very aware that a child’s age and developmental stage plays a crucial role in their understanding of their family’s dynamics and whether or not they are able to cope with what is happening to them. As the narrator of the story looks back over her young life she recognises that as a young child she was utterly inequipped to cope and reflects on the consequences of being forced into experiencing an anguishing conflict of loyalties between her parents.
This book is for anyone who has experienced this type of painful family breakdown whether as an adult or as a child, or anyone who has watched helplessly from the sidelines as their friends or loved ones go through such pain. It is also for any of us who care about how families work and would like to have some idea of how to help when they don’t.
It is available in paperback and ebook format and if you want to buy a copy it is available through Austin Macauley the publisher (who at the moment have the best price, much better than that well known online giant) and also through Waterstones in the UK and Barnes and Noble in the US.
gardens of delight 