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The Darkness Within
The Darkness Within
The Darkness Within
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The Darkness Within

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Angela, Beatrice and Millie are three little girls living in Holland in the 1950s. Their mother is a manic depressive making life frightening and traumatic for them. When their father leaves, Mummy takes fate into her own hands with near-tragic result. The girls are taken away from her and go to live with Daddy and his new wife Aunt Agatha. Aunt Agatha treats them cruelly while Daddy, unable to cope with any more domestic upset, refuses to get involved to protect his daughters. Then Mummy dies in suspicious circumstances.
Angela, Beatrice and Millie all escape in their own way through jobs, marriage and even moving abroad. For a while all seems well till Millie is diagnosed with a brain tumour. Angela and Beatrice look after her as best they can and she recovers only to be diagnosed with early-onset dementia as a result.
Again Angela and Beatrice unite in their care for Millie but while they try to stimulate her mind through pictures and stories of the past they unearth many unanswered questions about the fate of Mummy: What motivated her? How did she die? Have any of them inherited her disturbed mind-set? Will they ever find the answers and finally have peace of mind and closure? When Daddy dies he leaves no clues and it is up to the girls to find out what really happened. But has time erased vital evidence?
The reason Fionna is writing this book is that it is a fictionalised account of true events. For her the writing was cathartic and gave her a better understanding of the circumstances of the past. It also gave her a better insight into the psyche of her sisters. Fionna is a published author (short stories) and is well-qualified to write a comprehensive novel.
LanguageEnglish
Release dateMar 15, 2012
ISBN9781467889209
The Darkness Within
Author

Fionna Barr

I am qualified to write this book because it is based on autobiographical detail which is, naturally, familiar to me. I have qualifications in creative writing and I have done a lot of research for this novel in the fields of dementia, Down Syndrome, and why parents want to harm their children. Biography of Fionna Barr Fionna was born on the first of April 1947. She is a Dutch national who has lived in England since 1968. She is a retired language teacher and now works for Oxfam as a volunteer. Fionna is married to a man she first fell in love with in 1968 at the age of 21 while in his employ. She left after one year and had no contact with him for 37 years. They met up again in 2006 and were married three months later when she was 58. She has brought up nine children. Fionna speaks Dutch, English, French, German and Russian, but is most fluent in Dutch and English. Her hobbies are walking, dog breeding and amateur dramatics. Fionna has written this novel to come to a better understanding of the motives of parents wanting to harm their children and the effect this trauma has on the lives of all involved. Fionna is a published author, having won six prizes with short stories in various competitions in the last two years (Woman & Home runner-up for the Costa Award, WritersDesk 2nd prize, StoryFeedback.com 2nd prize, StoryFeedback.com 2nd prize, Dark Tales 3rd prize, WritersDesk 1st prize.) She has recently passed her MA in Creative writing and Authorship with merit at the University of Sussex. Her dissertation was based on a section of her novel The Darkness Within. Her next novel is about volunteers in a charity shop and the stories behind the second-hand garments they prepare for sale in the shop. She is also putting together a collection of short stories for publication. I live in East Sussex/ England with my husband and four terriers. We live right out into the country and spend our time walking, gardening and, in my case, writing. We have seven grown-up children between us and nine grandchildren.

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    The Darkness Within - Fionna Barr

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