I’m really excited to say I am part of the Compulsive Readers blog tour for Sorry Isn’t Good Enough by Jane Bailey. Published in hardback by Orion Books on the 3rd of February. Thanks to both Tracy Fenton and Orion Books for both the invitation and the copy of this book to take part.
‘The trouble is, we don’t recognise every danger when we see it. And that’s how Mr Man manages to creep into our lives.’
It is 1966, and things are changing in the close-knit Napier Road. Stephanie is 9 years old, and she has plans:
1. Get Jesus to heal her wonky foot
2. Escape her spiteful friend Dawn
3. Persuade her mum to love her
But everything changes when Stephanie strikes up a relationship with Mr Man, who always seems pleased to see her. When Dawn goes missing in the woods during the World Cup final, no one appears to know what happened to her – but more than one of them is lying.
May 1997, and Stephanie has spent her life trying to bury the events of that terrible summer. When a man starts following her on the train home from London, she realises the dark truth of what happened may have finally caught up with her.
A dual timeline novel told from Stephanie Townsend’s perspective. We are transported to 1966, Stephanie is nine years old. Living with her lay-preacher father and her strict mother. She isn’t allowed a TV because they brainwash you (according to her parents).
Stephanie also has a wonky walk due to her father not believing in vaccinations, so she caught Polio. As a result, she is unable to play like other children, but she does have Dawn. A spiteful, mean girl who uses Stephanie as a scapegoat at any opportunity. As the summer arrives, Dawn goes missing, and everyone is suspect in her disappearance.
Fast forward to 1997, and Stephanie is at a works conference. We see her thinking she is being followed and convinced that the events of that summer are catching up with her.
A novel that is perfectly paced. I loved having the time to really get to know the characters and being able to form my own opinion in each and every one. I took Stephanie to my heart right away. She is such a forlorn character who just wants to be loved and appreciated. This is a deep-rooted issue that we see carrying on through her adult life also. Dawn, on the other hand, was a girl who shocked and attracted attention in a negative way, giving the reader more than a glimpse of how needy she was.
The build-up of the story really played on the suspense as events started to play out. I couldn’t have guessed which direction it was going to go in. This is, at times, a dark, intense story that made me want to hold Stephanie, I was that invested.
A character driven novel showing us how events through our childhood can shape who we are as adults. A plot that slowly rises to a crescendo, which is emotional and shocking too.
Author Bio
Jane Bailey was born and brought up in Gloucestershire, where she now lives. She has written seven novels, including Lark Song, What Was Rescued and Tommy Glover’s Sketch of Heaven, and has been shortlisted for the Dillons Fiction prize and the RNA award. She has edited four anthologies of work by young people as Writer-in-Residence for Cheltenham Festivals, First Story and Gloucestershire Hospitals Education Service
sharonbeyondthebooks.uk 