Unwanted Truths

In this moving and highly effective novel, Trica Haddon follows the story of Jenny Porter.

Jenny is devastated when she discovers that she had been adopted. She confronts her parents, wanting answers to the questions that bedevil many adoptees. "Why? "Who am I really?" "Do I have family members? Siblings?"

But for reasons that are fairly obvious she feels that she can no longer trust her parents. She also feels unable to talk about the fact that she is adopted with her friends, so she pulls into herself and buried her feelings.

Sometimes later she falls in like with a man (yes, falls in like, in that she likes him, but doesn't actually love him) and she decides that this is a good enough reason to accept his proposal of marriage and she settles down to the fairly comfortable life of being a wife and a mother.

After the death of her adoptive parents, Jenny finds herself accidentally reunited with the one big, true love of her life, Martin Barretti, who had been separated from her when his family moved away from their home town.

Eventually, after Jenny finds herself starting to lie to her husband Robert, she and Martin begin a torrid and secretive affair.

Eventually they decide to abandon their spouses and set up house together, two lover reunited... for ever?

The story is set from the 1950s through to the 1980s, by which time the laws governing adopted children had been changed, enabling adopted children to trace their birth parents.

Jenny is thrilled at the opportunity to discover the truth about her origins, her birth family.

Yet when Jenny does, finally, learn the truth of her origins, she is devastated and appalled by what she learns.

Can she, dare she, tell her lover what she has discovered about the true origins of herself? If she did, would that risk destroying their future?

Or could she do as her adopted mother did, keep the dark secrets with her to the grave?

The book is published on May 28th by Matador and will be available from the That's Books and Entertainment book shop.