The Unknown Bridesmaid
Margaret Forster, 2014
Europa Editions
256 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781609452223
Summary
Margaret Forster's twenty-sixth work of fiction is a subtle, psychologically probing of personal history, guilt, and redemption.
Julia, a troubled and isolated child with few friends, is tormented by the irreperable damage she believes she has caused her family during a seemingly innocuous outing with her cousin's newborn hild.
Haunted by guilt and anxiety, she becomes a child psychologst and, later, a magistrate. Yet as The Guardian (UK) notes, "It's a gripping read without being a thriller because we are drawn ineluctably into something darker that we sense is always floating just beneath the surface of what Julia chooses to tell us."
Executed with razor-sharp control and remarkable confidence, Forster's novel is a powerful case study on the consequences of self-deception and the unforeseen effects it can have on he rest of our lives. (From the publisher.)