The Unknown Bridesmaid

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What to expect

When Julia was eight, she was asked to be a bridesmaid at her beautiful cousin Iris’s wedding. Her mother saw this as a chore – expensive, inconvenient – but Julia was thrilled. When the time came, even the fact that her bridesmaid’s dress didn’t fit, and was plain cream rather than the pink she’d hoped for, couldn’t ruin the day. But after this, things began to go wrong for Julia, starting with an episode involving her cousin’s baby, a pram and a secret trip round the block.

A lifetime later, Julia is a child psychologist who every day deals with young girls said to be behaving badly. Some are stealing, some are running away from home, some are terribly untidy, some won’t eat or get out of bed. Julia has a special knack with these girls. She understands which really are troubled, and which are at the mercy of the way they are seen by the adults around them.

But one day, Julia’s own troubled past starts to creep into her present. And as she struggles to understand her childhood self, she must confront the possibility that the truth may not be as devastating as she feared.

Critics Review

Remarkable...disturbing...fascinating
Independent
Nobody is better than Margaret Forster, with her clear calm prose, at delineating the fault lines of the ordinary, unexceptional and hidden lives
Daily Express
a mesmerizing, unsettling novel
New York Times
Makes such uncomfortable reading that at times you can barely turn the page, but it's so compelling that you have to
Mail on Sunday
Perfectly paced and with superbly drawn characters, this is a compelling story skilfully told
Choice
Margaret Forster is a brilliant and prolific writer... her latest novel is one of her best... It's a gripping read
Observer
Margaret Forster is a brilliant and prolific writer... her latest novel is one of her best... The book it most reminded me of, curiously enough, was Julian Barnes's The Sense of an Ending... Barnes, of course, won the Booker for his novel. I hope that Margaret Forster gets the recognition she deserves for this one
Observer
There is no one to match [Forster] for the way her assured,subtle and careful prose can detail the insecurities, torments and problems of what are, to all surface appearances, just nondescript, unremarkable and often half-lived lives
The Lady
Margaret Forster has a deft and idiosyncratic touch
Spectator
A story which becomes steadily more gripping
WI Magazine

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