Hettie Ashwin

A Strange Kind of Paradise. Hettie Ashwin

Is a mother's love an unbreakable bond?

June Banner

never wants to find out.




June came to motherhood later in life, and the one thing she wants is to be the mother

her own mother could never be. That silent promise to be better will lead her

through her son's tumultuous young life until one of them must break. June and

her husband hear about their son's life through others, the hearsay of rumours,

secrets and trouble more than they can stand as parents.

Her son, Mitchell tests her love at every stage of his life, with drugs, police visits, charges of assault and then in a daring move, 'an accident'.

Denial at the event pitches June into a mother who cannot let go of her son. After all, every child needs their mother, or so she assumes.




As Mitchell finds makes his own way in life, trying to distance himself from his mother, it is a recipe to break his mother's heart. She has sacrificed her life to her child, and to share him might break them both.

When Mitchell is about to make, what she considers, the biggest mistake of his life, June knows what she must do.

The ripple

effect will make or break not one life, but many.

A strange

kind of Paradise is a collection of novellas about decisions, big decisions.