Amber (Working Girls #4)
by Heather Burnside
Blog Tour
Review

My thanks go out to the lovely teams at Aria Fiction and NetGalley, for including me in this Blog Tour

AMBER – (Working Girls #4)

NOBODY TO CALL

With a mother unfit for purpose and a brother who despises her, working girl Amber can rely on no one but herself – until the meanest pimp in Manchester, Kevin Pike, offers her his protection. Unfortunately, this attracts the fury of Cora, a prostitute no one wants to get on the wrong side of…

NOWHERE TO HIDE

When Cora is found strangled to death, the late-night city streets feel increasingly exposed with a killer on the loose. And as Amber grows closer to Kevin, she realises his security comes at a price she might not be willing to pay…

NOTHING TO LOSE

Amber is frozen in fear, knowing one wrong move will risk her life. But then she discovers a horrifying secret that forces her to choose: stay or run?

HEATHER BURNSIDE

Heather grew up in Gorton, a working-class area of Manchester, moving to Longsight, where she spent her teenage years on one of the toughest estates in Manchester.

During the 1990s the estate became the headquarters for one of Manchester’s predominant gangs. It regularly featured in the local press due to shootings and drug-related problems. Heather draws heavily on this background as the setting for many of her novels.

After taking a career break to raise two children Heather enrolled on a creative writing course. During that time she had many articles published in well-known magazines and went on to run a writing services business before focusing on her novels.

Heather now works full-time on her novels from her home in Manchester which she shares with her two grown-up children.

Heather has a lovely website where you can keep up with all her news

You can follow Heather on Twitter

You can also check in with Heather on Facebook

“This has been the most difficult one of my novels to write because of the sensitive subject matter of sexual abuse, particularly relating to a minor… I have taken great care to show the pain and suffering caused by sexual abuse rather than portraying these scenes in a tantalising or titillating way. Therefore, this novel is dark and gloomy in parts…. Sexual abuse takes place every day and is often swept under the carpet. I hope that by highlighting this issue through this novel I am playing my part in addressing it and showing the lifelong damaging effects that sexual abuse has on the survivors. This form of abuse should not be regarded merely as a sexual act but as a distressing emotional incident that causes feelings of shame, inadequacy, low self-esteem, lack of confidence, and vulnerability etc. It can also affect the survivor’s ability to form stable relationships in later life.”

FIRST LINES

CHAPTER ONE – SEPTEMBER 2015

“Amber stared at the grossly obese man in front of her called Bill as he held out the garments for her to wear. She shuddered when she realised what they were. This had been bound to happen sooner or later but the fact that Amber had been expecting it didn’t less its dire impact”

MEMORABLE LINES

“Prejudice didn’t just occur amongst the middle classes; it was rife among the working classes too. Her old world had abandoned her and the new one wouldn’t accept her. Loretta was stuck in the middle, in some kind of societal limbo where she no longer fitted into either group”

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“She’d been sucked into the whole meaningless existence: the drugs, the cravings and that endless need to earn money”

REVIEW

“Can she survive the city streets alone?”

I almost found myself reading this book, not as a work of fiction, but rather more like the script of a television documentary, which I thought might be almost as it was intended and would definitely be suited, especially given the current and very publicly focussed and sensitive nature of certain aspects of its storyline.  Author, Heather Burnside makes no apology for the harsh reality of this storyline and reading her heartfelt letter published at the beginning of the book, offered an honest insight into her reasons for pursuing her chosen premise for the series, as she genuinely does not want her intentions to have been misinterpreted.

Amber joins The Mark, Ruby and Crystal, as the fourth in the series of ‘Working Girl’ books and I have to come clean and admit, that whilst I have taken part in Blog Tours for all three of the earlier books, I have yet to read any of them. I have a feeling that I have joined the series with arguably the most dramatic and traumatising of the four stories and definitely the one which will probably spark the  most controversial debate and comment. Whilst part of a series which is linked by some common characters and places, Amber works  just fine as a stand alone story, as the backstory and commonality is well enough explained as events unfold, making it easy to connect and engage with at all levels.

Multi-layered, well constructed and textured, but definitely not a story to escape into, or relax with, I could almost ‘feel’ the desperate passion and intensity of the gritty and honest writing. The need to encapsulate the distressing physical pain and suffering, together with the emotional angst and horrors, but with the minimum of wasted words and verbal embellishments, so that almost every syllable was made to count, had meaning, and needed to be read!

Although this is intrinsically a story about a way of life, it has at its core the tale of Amber and her journey, which eventually leads her down that dark and winding road to the depths of despair. Written with confidence and authenticity, rich in atmosphere and skilled in the imagery of words, the powerful and visually descriptive narrative and dialogue first drew me into Amber’s life when she was a young child of five. At this very impressionable time in her life, when she and her younger brother have already lost so much, the veneer of respectability and any other emotional stability they and their mother once had is cruelly taken away from them. As life becomes ever more intolerable, a vulnerable Amber never enjoys the protection, nurture, respect and love she and every other child has the right to expect from their parent, or indeed, any other adult. Wanting to stop reading, needing to get my hands on Amber’s mother, Loretta and beat her to a pulp, yet moved to continue with this profoundly touching and emotionally draining time in Amber’s life, I was a far from neutral observer and witness, to the total scheming and depravity which would bring about the eventual total destruction of her childhood, in the cruellest possible way, followed by the crude beginnings of a lifetime of emotional blackmail she is to endure, as she strives steadfastly and loyally until the very end, to win the mother’s love and affection she has always craved!

Circumstances and her mother’s malignant influence, continued to bear down on Amber’s teenage years, as she was unerringly forced down the dark road, deep into the unconventional, dysfunctional and altogether dangerous world of the ‘working girl’. Documented with compassion by the author, yet with an almost compelling need to shine a light on the daily traumas she faces, the tension is ratcheted up another notch, gripping and keeping me glued to the screen, as I watched an Amber filled with constant dread and fear, as her emotional vulnerability and the brooding shame of her exploitation is soon overshadowed by the menacing daily fight for her physical survival and the grabbing needs of her family for the monetary rewards she earns. In as much as their profession and competitive lifestyle allows, Amber makes a small core of ‘friends’ among the other girls, who whilst they will quite uncommittedly not interfere to save Amber from the odd beating, will warn her on the quiet of any impending trouble she needs to know about, which undoubtedly kept her out of harms way on more than one occasion.

The multi-faceted cast of well drawn and developed characters, were all so badly damaged, extremely vulnerable and emotionally complex, it made them very difficult to connect and engage with on any level. Although perhaps none of them should have been castigated by me for their way of life or their actions, as they were all so visibly under such hugely intolerable emotional pressures, it was so difficult not to pre-judge them and get hung up on their many transgressions.

Towards the end, there were a couple of really cleverly crafted, gasp out loud twists in the story, which I have to say I never saw coming. However that may have been that I was just so affected by the bigger picture, that I took my eye off the detail for a while. To say any more would give away ‘spoilers’, however ‘Like mother, like daughter’ might give you a clue to be going on with!

After a life spent searching for a sense of belonging and acceptance, there were one or two moments of unexpected respite for Amber over the years, when a few crumbs of kindness were thrown her way, compassion and comfort offered, often by the most unexpected of people. However, when she was at her lowest ebb, it was the value and kindness of a kindred spirit, who seeing through the facade of bravado and stoicism Amber has built into an invisible wall around herself, offers her a lifeline for a better future, should she choose to accept it – the rest is up to her!

This particular story ended on a relatively high note of optimism and hope, however for me, it was tempered and tinged with regret for those ‘working girls’, who still risk their lives on the streets of our towns and cities, often for reasons not of their own choosing and in circumstances not of their own making.

Heather has written this series of four ‘working girls’ books, specifically to highlight events which have brought each of the four girls to where they are today. I guess the real message of the books is:-

‘Don’t judge someone until you have walked a mile in their shoes!’

A complimentary kindle download of this book, for review purposes, was made available by the publisher and supplied by NetGalley.

Any thoughts or comments are my own personal opinion and I am in no way being monetarily compensated for this, or any other article which promotes this book or its author.

I personally do not agree with ‘rating’ a book, as the overall experience is all a matter of personal taste, which varies from reader to reader. However some review sites do demand a rating value, so when this review is posted to such a site, it will attract a well deserved 4 out of 5 stars!

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