Bøker av Angela Howe

Father Damien has reached a crisis in his life. For fifteen years he has been a well-loved priest, pastoring a little parish in Africa, having left behind his homeland, Ireland, and the girl he loved and thought he would marry. Mary Rose O'Mara was his childhood sweetheart, the girl he'd cared for since her mother died when she was four and his sister Maeve's best friend. No one knows why she suddenly married Seamus Rafferty while Damien was at university, planning his future with Mary. It had always been Mammy's wish that he become a priest so when Mary betrayed him, he entered the seminary. If he couldn't marry Mary, he would marry the church.Full of despair after ten years in Africa immersing himself in his love of poetry and music and denying his true feelings, he realises with alarming clarity that he has lost his vocation, along with the woman he loved, his family and his freedom and has reached a crossroad.The decision he makes will forever change his destiny.

Since the eighteenth century, feminists have been fighting for equal rights with men, while men like Bert Morris and George Broadbent have been fighting to maintain their male dominance and privilege. Caught in the crossfire is Doreen - daughter of Bert, long-suffering wife of George. She has watched her mother submitting silently to her father and has been taught that a woman's role is to satisfy her husband. She has relinquished her dream of becoming a psychologist and has settled for a 'small life', suppressing her frustrations while crying on the lavatory, or escaping to the movies and dreaming of Mykonos, while self-medicating with Ouzo.Bert and George blame 'German' Greer and The Female 'Transvestite' and a bunch of angry 'ball breakers' who think they are better than men and seek to emasculate them. While they question men's roles in a changing world, Doreen recognises that she has been emotionally repressed and abused all her life and escapes to England to become a carer.She slowly metamorphoses into a confident, independent woman while George, following a visit from Doreen's sister, Shazza and her partner, Les, begins to reassess his beliefs and to acknowledge his failure as a husband. He spends more time with his son and daughter, attends to the maintenance issues in the home and even relinquishes the La-Z-boy chair that Doreen loathes (although he has spotted another one in Furniture City).While a reformed George waits expectantly for his wife's return, she contemplates her future. Will she risk sacrificing her newfound freedom and self confidence for an uncertain future as Mrs Broadbent?

'Stick with your own kind', says Mother, 'people like us. East is East ... 'Behind high walls, in the big white house with the manicured garden, live the affluent Carter family. Max major, his wife, Abby, and their three children, Max minor, Tom and Charlotte (Lottie). Shielded by the privet hedge ('we don't want Africa on our doorstep' says Max major) are the servants' quarters where Wellington and Gloria live. Next door, in a faded little bungalow, live the Peters family - Selwyn, Nellie, Cheslin and Oupa.Abby arranges flowers and hosts tennis mornings and bridge parties for her friends, Juju, Moo, Clicky and Barb (whose homes and gardens are tended by 'house girls' and 'garden boys'), all the while agonising about their hypocrisy, her husband's increasing arrogance and entitlement, Tom's sensitivity and Lottie's friendship with 'the coloured boy'.'Nip it in the bud', says Mother, 'before she gets herself in trouble. East is East.'And then something unimaginable occurs, changing their lives forever.