Review – There’s Always Tomorrow by Pam Weaver

This post was originally published at Novelicious.com and is now at WritingTipsOasis.com. WritingTipsOasis.com acquired Novelicious.com in June 2022.

REVIEWED BY DEBS CARR

It doesn’t seem to matter what Dottie does, or how devoted she is to her husband, Reg, she never manages to please him. Reg isn’t the same man she married. He’s changed by his terrible experiences during World War II and far from being the kind, loving husband she remembers, he’s now violent and spiteful. Dottie has been brought up by an aunt who taught her that you have to find a way to live with your choices and marriages are supposed to be worked at and not given up on.

Desperate for a baby, Dottie knows that she is never going to experience motherhood with her relationship the way it is with Reg. One day Reg receives a letter and Dottie learns that he has fathered a child during the war. Reg decides to take on his newly orphaned daughter and whether Dottie likes it or not, she is forced to accept his eight-year-old child into her home. Things don’t turn out how Reg expects them to and it soon dawns on Dottie that the care of this child is going to be down to her. There are many aspects to Reg’s nature that she is oblivious to and as time goes on Dottie realizes that the man she thought she married is capable of cruelty she could never have imagined.

This book is set in the fifties. Dottie and Reg live in their cottage in a small village where everyone knows one another and each other’s business. Their lifestyle is quiet and gentile and their home is comfortable. Appearance is everything and people are quick to make assumptions about each other. Behind the scenes though, Dottie’s life is very different to the one she shows publicly. The story begins with Dottie welcoming her husband home from work and immediately we see his vicious, cruel streak and apparent need to humiliate his devoted wife. Reg has a dark side that becomes clearer as the story moves along. The reader learns before Dottie the depths he’s willing to stoop to, to get what he wants from life and those around him.

I must admit that I started reading this book thinking it would be a gentle story about two fairly average people in England, but as Reg’s true nature becomes clear and we discover more about his past we also see Dottie beginning to acknowledge just how bad things really are between them and how little she really knows about her husband.

I really enjoyed, There’s Always Tomorrow, and despite focusing on the darker aspects of one of the main characters, the author also brings the atmosphere of the fifties vividly to life, with the fashions of the time and the simple pleasures that people seemed to enjoy in that less frenetic era. The story might deal with a darker side of human nature, but it also includes devoted loyalty and strength to over come the odds when it seems that there’s no way out. The ending was uplifting and satisfying and I definitely want to read Pam Weaver’s other books.

8/10

There's Always Tomorrow on Amazon

You can find out more about the author and her other books here.