Review: Nice Girls Don't by Sue Barnard

Nice Girls Don't by Sue Barnard

Release Date: 8th July 2014
Publisher: Crooked Cat Publishing

Genres: Contemporary Fiction

Who knows what secrets lie hidden in your family’s past?

Southern England, 1982.

At 25, single, and under threat of redundancy from her job in a local library, Emily feels as though her life is going nowhere – until the day when Carl comes into the library asking for books about tracing family history.

Carl is baffled by a mystery about his late grandfather: why is the name by which Carl had always known him different from the name on his old passport?

Fascinated as much by Carl himself as by the puzzle he wants to solve, Emily tries to help him find the answers. As their relationship develops, their quest for the truth takes them along a complicated paper-trail which leads, eventually, to the battlefields of the Great War.

In the meantime, Emily discovers that her own family also has its fair share of secrets and lies. And old sins can still cast long shadows…

Can Emily finally lay the ghosts of the past to rest and look forward to a brighter future?

A tale of discovery, love and fate.

About Sue Barnard

Sue was born in Wales some time during the last millennium.

After graduating from Durham University with a degree in French, she returned to Manchester (where she had spent her formative years) and got married, then had a variety of office jobs before leaving the world of paid employment to become a full-time parent.  If she had her way, the phrase “non-working mother” would be banned from the English language.

Sue has dabbled with writing for most of her life.  Her first success was at primary school, where she won a competition run by Cadbury’s which involved writing an essay about chocolate.  Her prize was a tin containing a selection of Cadbury’s products.  She still has the tin to this day, and keeps it as a reminder of her humble writing origins.  The chocolate is long since gone, but the tin is now home to her supply of pens and pencils.  In recent years she began to take writing more seriously and studied a series of writing courses with the Open University.  As well as having work published in Best of Manchester Poets (Volumes 2 and 3), her achievements have included winning a T-shirt for writing a limerick (which summed up the plot of Macbeth in five lines) and winning first prize in Writing Magazine’s 2013 poetry competition for new subscribers.  In 2013 she joined the editorial team of Crooked Cat Publishing, who also published her debut novel The Ghostly Father (a new interpretation of the Romeo & Juliet story) in February 2014, and her second novel Nice Girls Don’t (a romantic intrigue set in 1982) in July 2014.

Sue’s mind is sufficiently warped that she has also worked as a question-setter for BBC Radio 4’s fiendishly difficult Round Britain Quiz – a phase of her life which caused one of her sons to describe her as “professionally weird.”  She lives in Cheshire and Anglesey (thought not at the same time – she isn’t THAT weird) with her husband and a large collection of unfinished scribblings.

Nice Girls Don't is a fascinating book that will lead you on a quest to find the truth. I love books that have an underlying mystery around them. With this book, there are two mysteries! In her efforts to help Carl uncover the mystery surrounding his late grandfather, Emily discovers more about her own history than she could ever have imagined. Sue Barnard has written a clever story with a poignant theme throughout. Taking us back to the history of the Great War and the horrors associated with it, the reader becomes totally engrossed in Carl's hunt for answers. Working together to figure out just who Carl's grandfather was and helping Emily to figure out just who she is, a romance blossoms between the couple. Its a sweet story of two people who, in their search for answers, find one another. I simply could not put this down. Hooked from page one right through to the last page. Highly recommended read from the very talented Sue Barnard.