The Daughters of Mersey Square (Mersey Square #3) by Pam Howes
(previously titled "Til I Kissed You")
Genre: Historical fiction, Sagas
Read: 10th October 2023
Published: 17th January 2024
★★★★ 4.5 stars
DESCRIPTION:
Mersey Square, Stockport, 1984. Can she find the courage to overcome a devastating tragedy?
Sammy and Roy Cantello have been inseparable since they were teenage sweethearts. Married for twenty years, their eldest son is the apple of Sammy’s eye. When the police arrive, telling her there’s been a devastating crash, it is the worst night of her life. Her boy had always been such a safe driver, what could possibly have gone wrong?
As her firstborn fights for his life and Sammy searches for answers, she realises there’s only one thing that could have been distracting her child: his father Roy’s recent affair with another woman, Olivia Grant. Sammy thought their relationship was over for good, but is there something Roy hasn’t told her?
Desperate for answers about her son’s accident, she goes to see Olivia. But as Sammy enters Olivia’s small flat, she is shocked to her very core: Olivia’s rounded belly tells her this woman is carrying her husband’s child.
As her own son slips away, Sammy is consumed by grief, but she realises that the other woman is struggling too. When Olivia decides she is not the best person to raise her child and begs for support, Sammy knows that her son would want her to help. Can Sammy find the courage to raise her husband’s child as her own?
Meanwhile, Jess Mellor and Nick Cantello are in love. Jess's half-brother Jon is also in love with her. Following a tragic accident, Jess turns to Jon and an incestuous relationship begins, but is it...?
Fans of Nadine Dorries, Diney Costeloe and Nancy Revell will absolutely love this heart-wrenching and gripping historical novel about courage, hope and the strength of friendship.
This book was previously published as 'Til I Kissed You.
MY THOUGHTS:
Can she find the courage to overcome a devastating tragedy...?
Oh my...what a tangled web of love, betrayal and yet more music. THE DAUGHTERS OF MERSEY SQUARE was originally published over a decade ago as "Til I Kissed You" and the entire Raiders series is being rebranded as the Mersey Square saga. And it is a saga...one big tangled saga. That began in the late fifties and continues in this one twenty five years later in the eighties. Only now the leather-clad lads indulging in plenty of sex, drugs and rock and roll are parents approaching middle age and now their children are at the forefront of this tale. And boy, was there a lot...and I mean A LOT...packed into this one!
Stockport 1984: Life has been good to Eddie Mellor and Roy Cantello since they found fame and the loves of their lives. Despite their rocky starts, Eddie and Jane have enjoyed twenty years of marriage as has Roy and Sammy - neither couple still able to keep their hands off each other...despite now having teenage children.
Besides having Jon and Jess, Eddie and Jane have now added Katie (8 - going on 18) and Dominic (7) to their little family. While Roy and Sammy have two sons born barely ten months apart - Nick (17) and Jason (16). Tim and Pat moved to the States some years back where Tim continued to work in the music business in Nashville. But after a health scare, the couple found they sought the solace of their close family and friends back in the UK and made arrangements to move back. This, of course, prompts talks of a Raiders reunion.
Eddie and Roy's teenage children have followed in their footsteps and have their own band The Zoo, managed by their fathers who also write their material. But things start to get a little heated when twenty two year old Glaswegian Livvy also desperately wants to join the band. Eddie and Roy agree that Livvy has the strength in her voice to front the band but the green-eyed monster in Jess wants only to scratch her eyes out for making eyes at Nick, with whom she is firmly involved with. Livvy is adamant that she has no designs on Nick and, honestly from where I was sitting, I could see nothing that suggested that either so I'm guessing it was Jess' insecurities. But then, she had been having some very strange dreams which left her feeling very unsettled and "as if someone was walking over her grave". Maybe it was that that made her insecure, not Livvy.
To make matters worse, although a happily married man, Roy has been having it away with none other than young Livvy. Devastated beyond belief, Sammy throws Roy out and shreds all his clothes and pours paint stripper on his prized lamborghini. But try as she might to hate him for what he's done, Sammy loves the very bones of her Roy and slowly but surely, they find their way back to each other. And it takes a tragedy that rocks their very world to bring them back together.
But then Sammy's world is about to fall apart even further when she goes to see Livvy and walks in to see the young woman's rounded belly. She's pregnant. Can things get any worse?
Meanwhile in the wake of their recent tragedy that affected both families, Jess finds comfort with her older (half) brother Jon. And that's when things start to get a little sticky...and a lot tangled. But will he learn the truth about his parentage?
Definitely a tangled web that's been woven by all involved...particularly by Roy, Jon and Jess. In the Roy situation, my sympathies lay firmly with Sammy and Livvy was no shrinking violet. She knew what she want and went out and got it. Roy's a man. They generally think with one part of their anatomy first and their brains later. She just had to flash a bit of leg at him, smile coyly and he was putty in her hands. While I could have slapped Roy to begin with, I felt sorry for him when although they were finished and he had made that perfectly clear, Livvy still wouldn't accept that and went on a mission to nail him. But Sammy, despite throwing caution to the wind, showed great strength and resilience through a very very difficult situation. First, her husband's affair, then losing her son and then discovering the girl was pregnant. I feel their story hasn't quite ended but I was quite satisfied with where it ended in this book and hope it stays that way...but I fear the past will come back and bite them.
As for Jon and Jess. We know from the previous book that they are not related BUT they have been brought up as brother and sister and, I'm sorry, but that storyline just didn't sit right with me. I don't care that they weren't related. They were brought up as siblings and thought of each other as such. Anything more was just wrong in my opinion. I honestly didn't like where that story arc went and didn't feel entirely comfortable with it given that they had always thought of each other as siblings.
My favourite part of the book was Katie and her incessant discussions about "men's naughty bits" and "twinkles". Since one of her friend's at school was a twin, Katie is adamant Eddie didn't twinkle right enabling her to be born a twin with Jess. It made for hilarious reading.
Like I said, there is so much packed into these 648 pages, making it so much longer than any of the others (probably why it took me a couple of days to read it). But despite my misgivings, I still thoroughly enjoyed the book and my time with the Mellors and Cantellos once again. We also see the re-emergence of Angie's mum and friend Cathy also returns with her now husband Carl.
I look forward to reading the next one in the series soon - "The Secrets of Mersey of Square". What? More secrets? Whatever else does Pam Howes have up her sleeve?
Another cracking read and a lot of tangled mess to unravel with this one, but another entertaining read.
I would like to thank #PamHowes for an ARC of #TheDaughtersOfMerseySquare.
MEET THE AUTHOR:
Pam Howes is an ex Interior Designer who loves creating stories, but only started writing seriously about twelve years ago. The idea for her first novel, set in the sixties, came from her time as a teenager, working in a local record store and hanging round with the musicians who frequented the business.
That first novel evolved into a series set in the fictional town of Pickford, based on her home town of Stockport. Three Steps to Heaven; 'Til I Kissed You; Always On My Mind; Not Fade Away, and That'll Be The Day, follow the lives and loves through the decades of fictional Rock'n'Roll band The Raiders.
Pam signed a second contract with the award winning publisher Bookouture with the first novel in her Lark Lane series, The Factory Girls of Lark Lane, published in July 2018. Her first series for Bookouture - The Mersey Trilogy featuring The Liverpool Girls, The Forgotten Family of Liverpool and The Lost Daughter of Liverpool - is also available in E book, paperback and as audio books.
Pam is a big fan of sixties music and it's this love and the support and encouragement of her musician partner that compelled her to write the series. Pam has three adult daughters and seven grandchildren. She lives in Cheshire and as well as writing novels, writes short stories, which have appeared in charity anthologies and online e-zines, and poems, many of which are published.
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