Synopsis
Unspeakable Things is a chilling mystery about motherhood and madness.
You’re pregnant.
You find out there’s madness in the family.
What are you going to do now?
Sarah moves back into her abandoned childhood home, hoping to connect with what’s left of her family. She is thrilled to learn about her long-dead mother from Uncle John, who runs the Woodlands Clinic nearby.
Then he tells her that her mother tried to kill her and died a mental patient at Woodlands. But is the truth even more shocking than that?
Sarah’s desperate search for what really happened to her mother rocks her marriage, career, and friendships. Can she discover the family’s bitter secret before her baby is born?
Or will she go mad trying?
Trailer
Thoughts from the Author
The Secret Behind the Title
I used to call my novel, The Gatehouse.
‘It’s a working title,’ I’d say when people looked doubtful.
‘Yeah. Definitely change it,’ they’d say.
When I hit upon Unspeakable Things, I got much better reactions. The phrase raises an immediate question: ‘What unspeakable things?’ and if you’re asking that, I’ve got you, and you’re not even on the first page.
The title comes from an unforgettable conversation I had years ago with a colleague – let’s call her Delia.
She had married young, with the blessing of her parents. The marriage broke down, but Delia’s mother really liked the husband and wouldn’t stop bemoaning the fact that Delia had left him. Delia got so fed up with this that she invented a reason for the break-up to get her mother off her back:
‘But Mum, he made me do unspeakable things.’
Her mother did not look as shocked as she had expected. ‘Oh men are like that, darling,’ she said.
It made Delia her look at her father in a completely different way.
About the Author
Sophie Kersey worked in publishing for almost thirty years before going freelance to pursue her lifelong writing ambitions. She is now a freelance writer and editor. Her articles have appeared in counseling and parenting magazines and in the US collection Enduring Love. She is the author of The History of Halstead School. Unspeakable Things is her first novel. She lives in Kent with her husband, Jon, and has two grown-up sons.
