It feels like it has been ages since I last read an Amanda Prowse novel! Many thanks to Sarah for asking me to be involved in the blog tour for ‘The Day She Came Back’, and to the publisher for supplying me with a review copy.
From the bestselling author of The Girl in the Corner comes a story that asks: how do you forgive the family that lied to you, and love the mum you never had?
When her loving, free-spirited grandmother Primrose passes away, Victoria is bereft, yet resilient—she has survived tragedy before. But even her strength is tested when a mysterious woman attends Prim’s funeral and claims to be the mother Victoria thought was dead.
As the two women get to know each other and Victoria begins to learn more about her past, it becomes clear that her beloved grandmother had been keeping life-changing secrets from her. Desperate for answers, she still struggles to trust anyone to tell her the truth.
To live a full and happy life, Victoria knows she must not only uncover the truth, but find a way to forgive her family. But after so many years, is trusting them even possible?
What does TWG think?
Can you imagine being told one thing for the duration of your life so far, only to then be told that it was a complete lie? I don’t mean being told that your favourite Teddy has been binned, despite being told that it was in the loft, or some other not so important lie. I’m meaning a massive, your mother is dead, oh wait….she’s not, type of lie. I cannot even begin to think about how Victoria felt after being betrayed by the person she trusted the most.
Obviously there are two sides to every story, and the reasons behind the betrayal become a lot clearer as the storyline progresses. However, being the cynic that I am, i couldn’t quite see how the lie was justified at all. Yes, Victoria’s grandmother had her best interests at heart, I’m not disputing that at all, but to say that her mother was dead when she wasn’t, is a step too far in my eyes.
Just to clarify, my points so far are not spoilers because they’re in the blurb….just incase anyone was thinking that I had ruined the book!
I’ll give Victoria her due, I certainly couldn’t have done what she did by meeting up with the new found person in her life. Then again, I can definitely see how being intrigued about any information she could have been given, would have been enough to go through with it.
For a young adult, Victoria seemed to have a good head on her shoulders….well, until the one night where she didn’t. Don’t blame her though, grief does weird things to your mind! What I am curious about though, is if Primose stayed alive, would Victoria be able to forgive her? Was the death of her grandmother enough to build the bridge between betrayal and moving on?
Betrayal is such a personal thing, something which nobody can truly understand unless they are the people, or person, going through said thing at said time. Nobody has any right to tell you how to feel, or that your feelings are unjustified all because they are different to how they would act. The thing is, with a topic so deep routed such as this, surmising our own reactions to it would be nion impossible because, think about it; if Victoria struggled to work out what to do and she was slap bang in the centre of everything, how would we, people who are outsider’s looking in, manage to work it out?
What I loved most about this book was the way in which Amanda Prowse made her characters come to life, and the way in which she believed in their journeys. A lot of the topics discussed in this book are ones of the quite serious nature. Topics which need to be fed well in order to be believable and realistic, and I felt that Amanda Prowse went above and beyond to make that happen. Now, I’m not entirely sure whether the author has been through similar things in her life, however I felt like she had a connection to her characters that comes with understanding what they are going through or what they have been through. That sort of understanding comes with life lessons and not through Google – I may be wrong though! Either way, I truly felt what Amanda Prowse was trying to convey. I would even go as far to say that it was magic.
‘The Day She Came Back’ is a wholesome, enlightening, thought provoking, hopeful read that takes you down paths you probably never expected to go on. The beauty of this novel is the sense of being understood, something that is so simple to say, yet one of the most complicated things to do. Amanda Prowse nails it, brilliantly.
The Writing Garnet 
Thanks for being part of the blog tour today Kaisha X
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