Book Review: Tell Me Of Brave Women

Laura Riley

This is a stirring book. It is well-crafted, telling the stories of three different women who heroically face their male abusers. The author has incorporated her knowledge and experiences from her work as a clinical psychologist into an inspiring novel about women who find their power.

You understand many things from an author's writing. Firstly, how well-educated they are (Riley has a Ph.D.) by how well edited and how fluent the writing. Not that she has used many $50 words (as I used to tell my students!), but that they are well chosen and she isn't afraid  of adjective, simile and metaphors.

It's a long book, nearly 500 pages, but as she slowly ties each of the three women's lives together, you start to read faster, and longer into the night!

The reader understands that Riley is a reader, as well as a writer. She isn't just working to present a mystery, plot, characters and setting. It is an adventure and a journey. I often found some wonderfully painted imagery in her words:

Sissy Lou "limped toward the house, met the skinny boy half-way, and winced when he leapt on her like a koala bear on a eucalyptus tree, legs and arms wrapped tight around her."

(Story teller) "Samara slowly unwrapped her gift of fantasy, ribbon by ribbon, and layer by layer. Her eyes caressed the room..."

Iron shackles chafed her soul. 

Yellow headlights pushed a fan of light before them, and dragged a purse of blackness behind them. 

Riley has crafted characters you love, some you feel sorry for, and some abusive male characters you love to hate, in the men who abuse the women. The novel moves across the ocean, and vicarious travel is the kind I can currently afford to make.

I really enjoyed this book!

Tell Me Of Brave Women by Laura Riley

 (May 2014, HB Stowe Press) Samara, a famous storyteller, creates Secret Sisters, an underground society that shelters battered women in the Middle East. She’s hunted for her beliefs and stalked for her beauty. Thelma, a tough waitress in Appalachia, witnesses a beating, gets a gun, and changes Samara’s destiny forever. Evangelina, a South American teen, is forced to be a drug lord’s sex-slave until she’s emboldened to flee to Secret Sisters. To escape, she must use a killers own tactics against him. Through escalating dangers, the three heroic women battle abuse and wage their lives for liberty. For more information about Laura and her work, please take a look at her blog: tellmeofbravewomen.com.