Don’t Let Me Go – by Susan Lewis
When Charlotte becomes her social worker, she risks everything to ensure that 3 year old Chloe is kept out of care, and can live with her. After witnessing a terrible crime they have left their troubled pasts behind in Britain, and have immigrated to New Zealand to live with Charlotte’s mother and step family. After years of being estranged, Charlotte and her mother, Anna, have started to reconnect again. Both Charlotte and Chloe are starting to feel safe and settled, until unexpectedly their secret identities are revealed, and Charlotte fears she may never see her little girl again.
I enjoyed reading this book overall. I found it a bit slow moving at the beginning, but after reading the first two chapters, I got into the storyline, and I was interested to know what would happen next. I haven’t read a book by Susan Lewis before but I will definitely continue to read her books. I could especially identify with Charlotte, and relate to her maternal instinct to protect a child no matter what the consequences would be for her. It also highlights how the department of social work and child protection services can be harming a child by placing her in and out of different foster parent homes, instead of with someone who really loves the child. I would give this book 8 out of 10.
This is a crime/thriller style of writing. The dialogue was eloquent and I thought the interaction between the characters was very realistic. I did however think that the author used too many adjectives to describe things. This I felt caused my concentration to lapse at times. The theme of this book is love, determination and courage.
Susan was born in Bristol in 1956. She worked in television for 18 years and is now a bestselling author. She has written 29 novels and two memoires about her childhood. When she was 50, she met her husband James and became a stepmom to his two sons, Michael and Luke. She is currently living in Gloucestershire in England with her family.
Susan’s memoire ‘Just one more day’ is about Susan’s mother being diagnosed with cancer and the impact it had on her, and on the rest of the family. Her second memoire ‘One day at a time’ is about how her mother’s death affected her when she was just 9 years old. Her father sent her to boarding school because he couldn’t care for her. She resented her father for this for years, but eventually she forgave him.
