Bashed But Not Trashed - Paperback

by Aphrodite Phoenix (Author)

The ten short stories each star a woman, and each faces a heartrending situation. In one, a mother of three, married to the stepfather of her first two, knows she must break up the family because her husband's cruelty to the children not his is escalating, as is favoritism for his own. In another, a single mother of three with no child support, no help from family, no earning power, and with her eldest child turning punkish, must struggle to survive the overwhelming. This is followed by the tale of a mother who loses her gifted son in a daredevil accident, and must learn to bear the unbearable.

In another motherhood narrative, the single mom of a psychopath faces his blatant solution to kill her for a life insurance payout.

A grandmother stars in one story. She helps to heal her traumatized granddaughter with an understanding garnered from her own very tragic childhood.

One tale dives into the emotional interior of a mistress deeply in love. Her lover is an exceedingly unhappy married man. It starkly reveals the abject pain of "other woman" sufferers, and sheds light on those wives who are indifferent to crucial needs in their men.

The last group of stories, four in all, are each about a sex worker who doesn't walk the street, is independent of pimps, feels empowered by her work, has come to see it has value, but must live in relentless terror of a culture that misperceives her and funds the cops to arrest her.

For two of the heroines, their fate is left open-ended; the reader must ponder whether happiness, or even survival, will ensue. For the other eight, a clear and heady milestone has been reached by the last page; a definite uplift for some, and for the others, at least a breath of fresh air enjoyed in the break between their trials.