Fourteen-year-old Kathleen is walking home from a concert on a dark Liverpool night in 1974 when she's violently raped. The attacker, unimaginably, is her trusted parish priest. Terrified, Kathleen never tells her pious Catholic mother, and when she discovers she is pregnant, she pays a terrible price for her silence.
Her mother believes Kathleen to be a fallen child and sends her to have her ill-begotten baby in Ireland. Kathleen toils in a notorious Magdalene Laundry, where heartless nuns dole out merciless penance on shamed girls.
Kathleen never recovers from her trauma, and years later she's become the overprotective, paranoid mother of a second child. Meanwhile, Faye, a widowed mother of three worries about her teenage son, Tim. He's increasingly withdrawn, but when several parcels are mysteriously delivered the shocking truth about what is going on in his life is slowly revealed. She turns to an old flame believing he is at the root of Tim's problems and as the couple rekindles their love, Tim's troubles deepen. Faye pours out her sorrows in letters to a friend, and slowly, shocking family secrets and interwoven relationships reveal themselves. As it turns out, Kathleen isn't the only fallen one in this story of love, forgiveness, and powerful family ties.
Every Family Has One is the anticipated sequel to The Catholic Woman's Dying Wish. It can be read as a stand-alone sequel.
About the Author: Joanna Warrington is a novelist and a funeral celebrant. Having attended a Catholic secondary school in the 1970s as a Protestant (who craved a drop of communion wine!), she now conducts funerals-several of the deceased having grown up in the Catholic faith in Ireland and in Liverpool, England. Through her work she has gleaned an insight into the social history of Liverpool and met the family of a woman who was incarcerated in the Magdalene laundries. As a divorcee and social historian, Warrington has learned about depression, child abuse, and stepparenting from her own experiences and through the people she's encountered.
Every Family Has One, the anticipated sequel to The Catholic Woman's Dying Wish, further explores the complicated relationships and past hurts that define and haunt one British family.
