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Sorry Isn't Good Enough
On sale
3rd February 2022
Price: £18.99
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Hardcover / ISBN-13: 9781398704930
‘Richly textured, compelling, emotionally complex’ Tammy Cohen
‘The trouble is, we don’t recognise every danger when we see it. And that’s how Mr Man manages to creep into our lives.’
It is 1966, and things are changing in the close-knit Napier Road. Stephanie is 9 years old, and she has plans:
1. Get Jesus to heal her wonky foot
2. Escape her spiteful friend Dawn
3. Persuade her mum to love her
But everything changes when Stephanie strikes up a relationship with Mr Man, who always seems pleased to see her. When Dawn goes missing in the woods during the World Cup final, no one appears to know what happened to her – but more than one of them is lying.
May 1997, and Stephanie has spent her life trying to bury the events of that terrible summer. When a man starts following her on the train home from London, she realises the dark truth of what happened may have finally caught up with her.
‘The trouble is, we don’t recognise every danger when we see it. And that’s how Mr Man manages to creep into our lives.’
It is 1966, and things are changing in the close-knit Napier Road. Stephanie is 9 years old, and she has plans:
1. Get Jesus to heal her wonky foot
2. Escape her spiteful friend Dawn
3. Persuade her mum to love her
But everything changes when Stephanie strikes up a relationship with Mr Man, who always seems pleased to see her. When Dawn goes missing in the woods during the World Cup final, no one appears to know what happened to her – but more than one of them is lying.
May 1997, and Stephanie has spent her life trying to bury the events of that terrible summer. When a man starts following her on the train home from London, she realises the dark truth of what happened may have finally caught up with her.
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Reviews
Told from the perspective of a nine year old embroiled in tragedy that shapes her whole life, childhood memories carried with her that resonate on so many levels, it evokes the past in glorious technicolour. I absolutely loved it and cannot do justice to the goldenness it contains, bitter-sweet and touching.
Wonderful. Literally (literally!) couldn't put it down, to me it reads like Joanna Cannon/Maggie O'Farrell with a slice of Stand by Me era Stephen King.
Sorry Isn't Good Enough was gripping and surprising, and at turns chilling and heartbreaking. Stephanie's story will stay with me for a long time.
What a wonderful book; it swept me back to the sixties and my own childhood. Touching and gripping - a story that will stay with me.
The heart of this emotionally-literate coming-of-age story is Stephanie who, with her eccentric take on the world, yearning for love and unexpected bursts of wit, is as believable as she is sympathetic. What seems like a gentle story on first glance soon reveals itself to be much more: full of life's sorrow, joy and misunderstanding. I always love Jane Bailey's books and this is her best yet.
Richly-textured, compelling, emotionally complex. Squeezes your heart until the very last page.