Manipulated Lives Pressed to Publicize

I discovered a team of book reviewers on Rosie Amber’s website. Cathy Ryan wrote an excellent review of Manipulated Lives. Thank you, Cathy and Rosie for allowing me to feature your review on Always Write.

Today’s team review is from Cathy Ryan, she blogs at http://betweenthelinesbookblog.com Cathy has been reading Manipulated Lives by Helene Leuschel.

This is a unique concept for me – a collection of stories based around a particular personality type. The stories are all diverse, depicting the different, elaborate and sometimes dark methods parents, children or peers use to manipulate each other for their own gains and/or agenda, shown from the perspective of the manipulator and also from the manipulated.

Manipulated Lives is the stories of those people and how the darker aspects of human nature change and damage their lives, and also the consequences for the manipulators. The eventual coming to terms with the psychological slant affects them each in different ways, some stories having more of an impact than others but each giving pause for thought.

There’s enough conveyed in the narratives for the reader to build a picture of the characters. They’re given depth and interest, and their circumstances give rise to a host of emotions. Depicted realistically, each story shows the different ways people can be manipulated, whether through naiveté, loving too much or weakness. Anyone is susceptible.

I enjoyed all the stories but my favourites are ‘Tess and Tattoos’ and ‘Runaway Girl’. All of them are written extremely well and appropriately for the particular characters. Tess’s unfolding story is very touching, a compelling and lonely old lady who lost everything, reliving parts of her life to a sympathetic listener.

‘She was heartbroken each time she looked around her four walls. In the not too distant future, her relatives would all board a plane and travel thousands of kilometres, however, not in order to chat and spend time with her, but so that they could lower her urn into the hard Scottish ground.’…

Source: Rosie’s #Bookreview Team #RBRT MANIPULATED LIVES by @HALeuschel #TuesdayBookBlog

About the Author

Helene Andrea Leuschel was born and raised in Belgium to German parents. She gained a Licentiate in Journalism, which led to a career in radio and television in Brussels, London, and Edinburgh. Helene moved to the Algarve in 2009 with her husband and two children, working as a freelance TV producer and teaching yoga. She recently acquired a Master of Philosophy with the OU, deepening her passion for the study of the mind. Manipulated Lives is Helene’s first work of fiction.

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