Tag: Domestic Violence

Book Reviews, Find Your Next Read

When a mother disappears, everyone’s a suspect: She Didn’t See It Coming by Shari Lapena

Mandy Webster

What if your spouse vanished in the middle of an ordinary day, leaving behind their car, keys, phone—and no trace of where they went? That’s the unsettling setup of She Didn’t See It Coming by Shari Lapena, a novel that blends true crime grit with domestic suspense.

Get your copy of She Didn’t See It Coming from my independent online bookstore today!

Lapena’s latest reads differently than her earlier thrillers. This one feels more like a police procedural with a true crime edge, pulling readers into the investigation from both the detectives’ perspective and the world of amateur sleuths. I was especially intrigued by the way she wove in the true crime ecosystem—neighbors rushing to post their theories in Facebook groups, family members consuming crime podcasts for clues. Bryden’s sister, Lizzie, is a true crime addict who inserts herself into the search, raising an uncomfortable question: do amateur sleuths actually help an investigation, or do they only spread speculation that leads investigators off track?

Continue reading “When a mother disappears, everyone’s a suspect: She Didn’t See It Coming by Shari Lapena” →
Book Reviews, Find Your Next Read

Facing the long shadows: A review of Madwoman by Chelsea Bieker

Mandy Webster

Some novels get under your skin. Madwoman by Chelsea Bieker goes even deeper—straight into your bones—where it sits heavy, resonating with truths too often ignored.

Get your copy of Madwoman from my independent online bookstore today!

At its heart, Madwoman is a story about the devastating, lifelong impact of domestic violence, especially on children. Clove has carefully built a life meant to erase her past: a loving husband, two children, a safe home in Portland. She believes that with enough self-help tools, supplements, and daily gratitude meditations, she can outrun the terror of her childhood in a Waikiki high-rise.

Continue reading “Facing the long shadows: A review of Madwoman by Chelsea Bieker” →
Book Reviews, Find Your Next Read

Finding power in the dirt: A review of The Peculiar Garden of Harriet Hunt

Mandy Webster

In The Peculiar Garden of Harriet Hunt by Chelsea Iversen, a woman’s solitude, survival, and subtle rebellion are rooted—quite literally—in the soil beneath her feet.

Get your copy of The Peculiar Garden of Harriet Hunt from my independent online bookstore today!

Set in Victorian London, this gorgeously atmospheric novel tells the story of Harriet Hunt, a woman left to tend her crumbling family estate and the lush, almost sentient garden that surrounds it. Her father has mysteriously disappeared, and society has all but cast her aside. Her only companions are the magical plants she lovingly tends: wild vines, blooming plums, and a pulse of earth-bound power that seems to know her better than anyone else ever has.

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Book Reviews, Find Your Next Read

Annie Bot made me relive my abusive marriage—and that’s what makes it so powerful

Mandy Webster

In Sierra Greer’s novel Annie Bot, a robot girlfriend cooks, dresses, and has sex on demand—all at the pleasure of her human owner, Doug. She’s designed to be the “perfect” woman, built to fulfill his desires without resistance. But as her artificial intelligence evolves, so does her awareness, and what begins as obedience starts to feel like a slow, painful awakening.

Get your copy of Annie Bot from my independent online bookstore today!

I didn’t expect to find pieces of myself in a robot. But Annie Bot made me feel an immediate—and visceral—sense of recognition. Like Annie, I once existed solely to please someone else. My (now ex) husband didn’t see me as a person—only as the idea of a wife he wanted to mold me into. Over ten years of marriage, I was trained through threats, manipulation, psychological warfare, and physical violence to anticipate his moods, regulate my behavior, and suppress anything that didn’t align with his expectations. That Annie had to do the same—scan Doug’s tone, facial expressions, and body language, and modulate her responses accordingly—was deeply familiar.

Continue reading “Annie Bot made me relive my abusive marriage—and that’s what makes it so powerful” →
Book Reviews, Find Your Next Read

How to bury a husband—and the patriarchy: A review of The Best Way to Bury Your Husband

Mandy Webster

What do you get when you mix a cast-iron skillet, four fed-up women, and a global pandemic? A page-turner that asks whether murder might sometimes be the most reasonable option.

The cover of The Best Way to Bury Your Husband by Alexia Casale
Get your copy of The Best Way to Bury Your Husband by Alexia Casale from my online bookstore today!

Alexia Casale’s The Best Way to Bury Your Husband is a dark comedy with claws—and a heart. It opens with Sally, a woman who kills her abusive husband with a skillet and finds herself surprisingly calm about the corpse. Her kids are grown and out of the house, so her main concern isn’t about custody—it’s about what comes next. How do you dispose of a body? And what do you do when you realize you’re not the only woman in town asking that question?

Continue reading “How to bury a husband—and the patriarchy: A review of The Best Way to Bury Your Husband” →
Book Reviews, Find Your Next Read

The Bandit Queens by Parini Shroff: A Darkly Hilarious Tale of Justice and Sisterhood

Mandy Webster

What if the worst rumor about you turned out to be the best thing that ever happened? That’s the wickedly clever premise of Parini Shroff’s debut novel, The Bandit Queens. This book is a wild mix of dark comedy, razor-sharp social commentary, and a thrilling tale of justice—one that will have you laughing even as it tackles deeply serious issues.

Get your copy of The Bandit Queens by Parini Shroff from my online bookstore today!

Geeta, our protagonist, has been living under a cloud of infamy for years. The village whispers that she killed her no-good husband, and while the truth is that he simply vanished, she finds that the rumors work in her favor. No one dares harass her, pressure her to remarry, or cheat her out of money. But soon, the women around her start thinking, “If Geeta got away with it, maybe I can too.” Suddenly, she finds herself in the uncomfortable position of being a murder consultant—whether she wants the job or not.

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Essays, Novel Writing, Saving the World One Story at a Time

How to tell your own authentic stories while also supporting marginalized voices

Mandy Webster

As an author, I believe that I have a responsibility to create diverse works that do not present the world as a one-dimensional space where only certain people are welcome to exist. This can be a tricky balancing act for a white writer like myself. I want my novels to be diverse, but I also do not want to unknowingly reinforce stereotypes that I may not be aware of. I do not want to cross the line into cultural appropriation or telling stories about experiences that may not align with my own. For the past few years, I have been taking an #ownvoices approach to this subject, and I feel like I have learned a lot from the experience.

My novel If You Didn’t See It Coming is an example of an #ownvoices book even though people of color are not at the forefront of the story. It’s an accounting of marginalized characters (namely women) involved in domestic violence situations, many of which are inspired by my own experiences with a violent abuser. Although the characters are fictional, and their stories are not a retelling of my own story, it still illustrates the struggles of a marginalized group of people.

Because I was telling the story from my own perspective, the main characters are all white. There is very little intersectionality of identities because I was telling the story from the perspective of a cis white woman. However, I did consider representation and intersectionality while writing the novel. I considered making my main characters more diverse, but I didn’t feel right about trying to write what I consider to be someone else’s story.

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Domestic Violence

When they say, “It’s not a gun problem, it’s a mental health problem”

Mandy Webster

I am so tired of waking up each morning and turning on the news to yet another mass shooting in the United States. I’m even more tired of hearing people argue that “It’s a mental health problem, not a gun problem.” Oh yeah? So what are ya’ll going to do about that mental health problem, then?

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Domestic Violence, Novel Writing

Hi, my name is Mandy Webster, and I survived domestic violence.

Mandy Webster

My sister survived domestic violence too, as have several of my aunts and cousins, whether they care to admit it or not. I have a vivid memory of visiting an aunt when I was child, of one of my cousins showing me a hole in the wall and telling me, “My dad did that.” I am currently watching a niece grapple with a coercive control situation that will likely become violent, if it hasn’t already. If we don’t find a way to help her escape, she might end up like our cousin who didn’t survive domestic violence. In 2019, that cousin’s ex-husband murdered her in cold blood, shooting her in the back and head multiple times while their five-year-old played in the next room.

Yes, I am quite familiar with domestic violence. But I don’t let my experiences with domestic violence define me. Instead, I have worked hard to define it. I’ve talked to lots of survivors, read books on the subject, and even took a criminal justice studies course on intimate partner violence to try to understand how this could have happened to me. I watched The Perfect Victim and consumed Maid (both the book and the Netflix series), and read countless memoirs written by my fellow survivors. I want to understand and expose family violence in the hopes that I can help someone else save themselves the same way I saved me.

I saved me.

I’ve often considered writing a memoir about my experiences and might still do so. The problem is, like many PTSD suffers, I struggle to pin down the memories of what happened through those ten years of trauma. Sometimes it feels like my body remembers more than my brain does. The memories often come in disjointed flashes when I care to think about them the least.

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Domestic Violence, Essays, Memoir

Single, Never Married

Mandy Webster

I’m a dedicated Swagbucks addict, which means I participate in online surveys on practically a daily basis. As most surveys do, these usually collect your typical demographic data, such as sex, race, gross annual income, and marital status. These should be relatively easy questions to answer, but I’ve often hesitated when I came upon the marital status question. I know what the technical answer is, but I have strong feelings regarding what I feel is my “real” answer.

The marital status question typically gives the survey respondent the options of married, divorced, something regarding living with someone you’re not married to, and single/never married. Technically, I was legally married at one time, and I was then legally divorced after about ten years of said legal marriage. However, when I look back upon that marriage, I don’t feel as though I was ever actually “married.” Continue reading “Single, Never Married” →