“Mary, if your great grandmother has learned one lesson, albeit the hard way, it is that the dish of revenge can never be sweet not even served cold.”

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“Absolutely fantastic… only disappointing this was finishing it” – Jennie J Khan

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Aware she is now living on borrowed time, Wilhelmina Potts knows she must act fast.  Suppose her family discover that awesome skeleton when she is lying in her coffin.  No!

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She must muster the courage for only she, no-one else, can tell that sorry, sordid tale.  Her geat granddaughter is called to her hospital bedside and there begins the slow, painful struggle revealing facts she had long ago carefully buried in dark recesses of her mind.

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How does one put into words when there are none to describe intense agonising pain that was beyond physical pain, when her arch nemesis took her pound of flesh?  Or, the moment she looked into her baby’s face, the fruit of rape, wanting to smother it when she saw her aggressor staring back at her.

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Driven by an all-consuming lust to avenge, Wilhelmina forgets ‘an eye for an eye will make everyone blind’.  Desperate to protect her other children, Wilhelmina commits the unthinkable, destroying their lives in doing so, only aware of her Machiavellian obsession.

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As the cancerous tumour slowly spreads its evil tentacles, it takes her into the realms of prostitution, extortion and sadism.

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By explaining the evil forces that drove her to commit heinous deeds, she hopes her family may at least then understand her motives.  Whether they will ever forgive is completely another matter.

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“Author is adept at sweeping you in and keeping you hanging onto her every word. Riveting!” – C Lovatt

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Author Bio

Lynn Evans was born in Leeds, Yorkshire, on the 17^th July 1948. In 1963 she studied secretarial skills at the North of England Girls’ College and went from there to work at St. James’s University Hospital in a busy medical/social work department. A keen volunteer with the Red Cross she worked weekends in a Leonard Cheshire Home which later inspired her to change course and join the ‘bedpan brigade’.

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Hungry to see the world, she decided on a nursing career in the Queen Alexandra’s Royal Naval Nursing Service and on qualifying then spent eight months nursing the sick in Malta.

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Before she left for the sunny climes of the Mediterranean she had met and nursed a certain Royal Marine whom she later married in 1977.  Four daughters later, after a turbulent marriage and struggling with stage three breast cancer, whilst at the same time grieving for the loss of her father cruelly taken away by cancer, in 2007 they went their separate ways and divorced.

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Her youngest daughter was just eighteen months old when Lynn was diagnosed in 1990 and told by the doctors ‘there are no guarantees we can get you better’. But she was a believer in ‘looking on the bright side of life’ though completely unaware then the disease would prove to turn out a blessing in disguise. It was through this she met an old lady, a fellow in-patient on the surgical ward, who also had experienced adversity having lost her mother at the age of four and never knew a single ounce of affection in her childhood. She inspired Lynn to write which, not only did she find therapeutic, but ultimately led to her dream to become a published author with her first novel Revenge is Sweet?

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In 1995 Lynn started working as a fundraiser for the Royal National Institute of Blind People, and over the years has helped to raise hundreds of thousands of pounds for the Charity, a cause dear to her heart having seen at first hand how sight loss can also ravage lives.

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She is now a proud grandmother of six grandchildren.

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EXCERPT

‘Hey! Careful Mrs! Y’ nearly took me eye out y’ did,’ pointing to my great grandmother’s unwieldy, five feet tall Umbrella Tree that went by the name of Fred after her late husband. I mumbled an apology to the stranger and clutched the plant, rocking precariously in its heavy ceramic pot, tightly to my chest whilst endeavouring to bury my blushes in its overgrown branches. I then waited patiently with the rest of the thong for the doors of Ward 18 to be opened on the dot at 2 pm.

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Most normal people were happy to receive a bunch of grapes or a bouquet, I reflected, when they were admitted to hospital certainly not a tree! There was no way my Great Granny Wilhelmina could ever slip into that category, I thought recalling her strange request. ‘Mary, dear, don’t bother bringing me flowers, I would much prefer to have my Fred beside me. He’s my pride and joy; I talk to him every day. Left in your hands he will no doubt wither and die.’ Eccentric, old, embarrassing, defined my great grandmother, definitely the latter, recalling how often I had wished for the floor to open up into a huge chasm and swallow me out of sight, not unlike now.

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I was suddenly jolted from my memories by an impatient push as the crowd surged forward. Holding on tight to Fred we made our way over to my great granny’s bedside, blissfully unaware of the earth-shattering skeletons she was to shortly tip out of her closet. Before I even had chance to sit down and give her the customary peck on her hairy cheek she took my breath away.

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‘My dear Mary, I have been on this planet nigh one hundred years and am certainly no saint; prostitution, violence, sadism, extortion, I have seen it all.

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Oh, and falling in love of course experiencing incredible moments of sheer euphoria only to be later plunged into utter desperate heartbreak. Yes, I have had my fair share of men too, but Wilhelmina Potts has witnessed things you would not believe, has done things you would not believe, and is ashamed of things you would not believe.’ She said with a slightly mischievous glint in her eye.

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‘Mary, if your great grandmother has learned one lesson, albeit the hard way, it is that the dish of revenge can never be sweet not even served cold. Indeed, how can it when vengeance leaves a legacy of hatred, bitterness, a twisted mind obsessed with a desperate urge to commit whatever it might take to satisfy that insatiable lust? Rape, torture, even one’s own flesh and blood forced to suffer indescribable agony, ‘an eye for an eye will make the whole world blind,’ and I was to remember those time-honoured words of that great Indian Statesman, Mahatma Gandhi, more times than you could ever imagine.’ She suddenly stopped to take a much-needed breath, before continuing.

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‘Now dear, I may have passed my sell by date, but while there is still a spark in these old embers I wish to record for posterity how I spent my days on this earth, and Mary I would like you to take some notes. Umm… you may be shocked at what I have to say, but say it, I must. My final curtain call could be just around the corner, that Grim Reaper could come for me tomorrow, so there is no time to lose.’ She looked away wearing a sad expression and allowed herself to daydream. If she could only turn back the hands of time. If only she had never chased after Horace Fortescue, a vile apology for a man, and ran into those dark woods. If only she had not driven Fred, the love of her life, away. Well, one of them, and seen the hurt in his eyes when she had later trampled on his fragile ego, if only they could have grown old together.

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All she had now were just memories, wistfully recalling when they were first wed how she loved to feel his strong, protective arms wrapped tightly around her whilst he passionately kissed her lips and whispered sweet nothings in her ear as he took her to the heights of ecstasy. That was before he had discovered her dark secret.

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Sitting there beside her, I was completely unaware my Granny Wilhelmina had an ulterior motive behind her request and that a can of worms was waiting to spring out when she lifted the lid off her Pandora’s Box.

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“Interesting well-developed characters anchored in a familiar world we can all relate to but constantly taking us out of our comfort zone into evil and gruesome realms where heinous deeds and surprises are laid before us at every turn!” – Amazon Customer

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