Rose is the mother of two young children, and finds herself living a robotic life with an abusive and controlling husband. While she struggles to maintain a calm front for the sake of her children, inside Rose is dying and trapped in ‘Isolation Junction’.
She runs an online business from home, because Darren won’t let her work outside the house. Through this, she meets other mums and finds courage to attend networking events, while Darren is at work, to promote her business.
It’s at one of these events that Rose meets Tim, a sympathetic, dark-haired stranger who unwittingly becomes an important part of her survival.
After years of emotional abuse, of doubting her future and losing all self-confidence, Rose takes a stand. Finding herself distraught, alone and helpless, Rose wonders how she’ll ever escape with her sanity and her children. With 100 reasons to leave and 1,000 reasons she can’t, will she be able to do it?
Will Tim help her? Will Rose find peace and the happiness she deserves? Can Rose break free from this spiralling life she so desperately wants to change?
What does TWG think?
Welcome to one of several tour stops today, for the blog tour of Jennifer Gilmour’s debut novel; Isolation Junction!
I have been umming and ahhing about my review all day because, for once in my life, I had no idea what to say or how to say it. I kept going over the storyline in my head, trying not to steer too far away from the overall message in the book with my thoughts.
Domestic abuse – a subject close to many, many people’s hearts yet STILL considered as a taboo subject. It’s not the sort of topic you can openly speak about without someone judging you (trust me).
Rose has fallen in love with a man named Darren, and has been blessed with two children. Idyllic, yes? From an outsiders point of view, yes. But from where Rose is sitting? Not a chance. You see, Darren wasn’t the man Rose thought he was and soon enough, she became the human punch bag to emotional AND physical abuse. Rose’s life became a box with no hope; and Rose herself, became a shell. In the animal kingdom, shells are used as protection. If only it was the same where humans are concerned…
I am at such a crossroad with this novel (pardon the pun), and I cannot seem to get myself onto one side of the fence with my thoughts. It was pretty clear from the onset that the storyline was going to be a tough one to read, due to the sheer level of emotions and heartache behind the topic. It wasn’t easy to read about various events; but it’s never easy to go through it either. I applaud Jennifer Gilmour for having the strength to approach such a heartbreaking, taboo subject, in order to give awareness. Not many people have the guts to take on such a poignant and raw, yet terrifyingly relatable topic. Yet Jennifer Gilmour did.
For me as a fictitious novel, even though based on true events, I couldn’t gel with that side of it. The writing style felt a bit blocky and didn’t flow as well as it could have.
Overall, it’s clear that the author has achieved what they have set out to do; raise awareness about domestic abuse. Jennifer Gilmour has done herself justice with such a terrifying subject, in terms of getting it out there and having people take heed; even though the delivery of it wasn’t completely on point.
Thank you to the author.
About Jennifer Gilmour.
Born in the North East, I am a young, married mum with three children. I am an entrepreneur, running a family business from my home-base and I have a large readership of other young mums in business for my blog posts.
From an early age I have had a passion for writing and have been gathering ideas and plot lines from my teenage years. A passionate advocate for women in abusive relationships, I have amalgamated and fictionalised other survivors experiences alongside my own to write my first novel detailing the journey of a young woman from the despair of an emotionally abusive and unhappy marriage to develop the confidence to challenge and change her life and to love again. I hope that in reading my debut novel, I will raise awareness of this often hidden and unseen behaviour and empower women in abusive relationships to seek help for themselves and find the confidence to change their lives.
Links: Website // Facebook // Twitter
The Writing Garnet 
This one seems raw and heavy, too bad for the writing style.. Maybe some other time but I’m not in the mood for this right now. Thank you for your honest review!
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I was expecting to get rubbish for being rather honest, so thank you!
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Reblogged this on Don Massenzio's Blog and commented:
Check out this review of the book, Isolation Junction, by Jennifer Gilmour via The Writing Garnet blog.
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