Tori West is a breast cancer survivor, so who better to write a book about surviving cancer? This book takes us on the fictional journey of one woman’s story. We know it’s fiction, but you can feel the Author bleeding onto every page.
This is not bleak or depressing, though she tells it how it is, and, as somebody with the biggest vomit phobia in the northern hemisphere, it had me praying for the randomiser to choose heart attack or stroke for me over cancer. I can’t begin to imagine the joys of chemo.
What this book tells us above all is that cancer is not a guaranteed death sentence. For some—most even—life does go on. It’s automatic to call our heroine of the book brave, but brave is the wrong word because nobody chooses to fight this fight. Cancer chooses you, and there’s no choice but to deal with it.
This book is about that. The nitty-gritty of dealing with a life and working cancer around your schedule. When we imagine ourselves going through cancer, we perhaps think of a quick nip to the hospital for an appointment and then crips white sheets and indulging in your recovery for the other 22 hours a day. This book works into that premise coping with a demanding toddler and running her own business. It touches on the strain that the regime puts on a marriage and the people around the sufferer.
It’s a light-hearted look at how one lady copes. It’s a book of hope and love—and then we have Carla, who is two, with a vocabulary of 22. She’s adorable.
This book takes away a lot of the ‘scary’ of cancer. It’s informative without ever being preachy. This is not a self-help book. It is the fictional story of one fictional woman’s fight to see her child grown up—and we’re rooting for the Author as much as the character.
Katherine Black / Susan (Sooz) Simpson
Founder of Best Book Editors
Katherine has held almost every single job imaginable, from painting gnomes to zookeeper. She spent most of her life in the caring profession and has managed both a nursing home and a care agency. But her passion for the written language always brings her home to novel writing.
Born in Tyne-and-Wear, North-East England, she has settled in the beautiful Lake District, Cumbria, with her partner, two dogs, a cat, an iguana and a python (just don’t ask her which of those six things is her favourite!).
She specialises in content creation and social media outreach, and has been a developmental editor for hundreds of clients. She owns and operates bestbookeditors.com where she helps foundling authors polish their skills. However, after being diagnosed with a dramatic brain condition in 2022, she has had to let 23 staff go, and scale back the business. BBE is still very much open, we are just fewer and can’t take as much work on.
Katherine Black is the author of psychological thriller/detective/fantasy adventure novels.
