Betrayal by Sharon Brownlie opens with a violent rape that twenty-year-old Helen King appears to shrug off. She is a prostitute being punished by her pimp; she has withheld money he considers to be his that she needs to fund her drug habit. A chance...

Things Fall Apart: A Mother’s Plight by Sharon Brownlie is the story of Mandy, the thirty-five-year-old mother of teenage twins and Jakey, eleven. Divorced from an abusive husband and working hard to stay independent of welfare benefits, she thinks she has life licked. Her youngsters...