Because of You I Am is not only Alice’s story, but a fabulous title.

Now, a title is tricky. It has to identify the genre, and spark the browser’s curiosity – all in tandem with the jacket. 

So, look at the title again. Complex, surely a thriller, but a straight forward Jason Statham type, or psychological? With the help of the jacket  would you say psychological? Then you’d be correct.

Alice grows up with her mother, Eileen, and her part-time father, Tom, who she adores. Tom has another family and a wartime secret. When we first meet Alice she is a eleven year old hunting rabbits with  Tom, and is already different – she is the only kid in The Street to go to the Grammar.

Then calamity, because at the age of 14 Alice,and her mother, are abandoned by Tom. Two years later Alice, driven by the need to find him, and the Beatles,  leaves her northern hamlet for London. 

Lost and alone she embraces 60s London: the drugs, the squats and a boyfriend. Twenty one years later, she meets Jake Oldfield, the man who makes her real. She finds love, at last, with him and and their son, Adam, born in 1985. Alice is 37.

Adam is an odd boy, brilliant in some areas, backward in others and obsessed with the stars.

He is accidentally killed outside the school. Rosamund Beresford, a successful barrister, is the driver of the car. It is something that ruins Alice’s relationship with Jake because Alice blames herself, but why?

This accident is  pivotal,  in Alice’s relationship, and her fragile psyche.  What path will she take now? How can she ever find her way back to peace? 

A compelling drama about guilt, revenge and  perhaps redemption? So yes, definitely a pyschological thriller and one that lives up to its title. Bravo …

eBook. Troubador. £3.99.  And Amazon.