I liked so many things about this story – the characters, the linear narrative, but most of all the message that we can overcome tragedy, and we can be forgiven for our mistakes and, most importantly, that we can learn to forgive ourselves, and move on to a more hopeful future. She goes to the police and gets in touch with a social worker who helps her leave London to flee to a refuge in Sidmouth. Only, Don isn't capable of moving on, instead he harrases her every night until she decides to teach him a lesson - which goes very, very wrong.

The book does slow its pace in the middle part of this book as Eve and her children try to live a new normal life but once again the book takes a dramatic turn of events towards the latter part of the book and we are thrown into despair and the adrenalin flows as everything comes to a head. reaction which shuts down honest conversation and applies a passive aggressive guilt to the victim, regardless of sex. Her honest restructuring of a life and finding her self worth is reflected in how her two children grow into themselves away from Don, and I liked how her original training as a curtain maker reflected her circumstances.Don is angry at his family’s departure and this anger compounds when Eve and the children are granted access to the family home. We see that sometimes the people closest to us can hurt us the most and how total strangers can become the best of friends! With her father in the Royal Marines, Lesley and her older brother spent three years in grim orphanages before her father remarried - a veritable dragon of an ex army nurse - and Lesley and her older brother were brought home again, to be joined by two other children who were later adopted by her father and stepmother, and a continuing stream of foster children.

The reader is forced to sit up and start forming their own judgements and it was fascinating to see how things were unfolding. Setting up a new life for herself and her children isn't easy for Eve but with sheer grit and determination she takes them out of poverty and into a more settled existence except that Eve is burdened by a dreadful secret which overshadows her future happiness. But then here’s the contrasting thing…the book highlighted some really difficult subjects including marital abuse, grooming and suicide, to name but a few, and didn’t shy away from them, in fact it is a brutal start to the book…. Eve snaps and decides to take revenge on Don, endeavouring to teach him a lesson which doesn’t go to plan.Betrayal follows the story of Eve, a mother doing everything she can to keep herself and her children alive while in an abusive marriage.

If you are looking for a decent read to take away on your summer holidays this year then this is the book for you.

I won't say I loved the topic, or the situations some of the characters found themselves in, but I loved how it was written and found myself unable to put it down. Gone were the chapters where I was growing a bit bored (I hate saying that but that was the way the book was making me feel) and bam here we have an unpredicted twist that really shook things up. It is a neat device as what she made could be an allegory for hiding the things which happen behind closed doors, or could be used to frame a beautiful view. This is an emotional roller coaster read that had me fully invested from beginning through to the end.