Disgraceful by Rachel Fox McLeod

When Grace Miller’s life implodes, she lurches from respectable supportive wife of an evangelical pastor to a footloose wild woman wanting to explore all the experiences she has missed out on in her thoroughly conservative life. With her friend Susie’s prompting, she develops a ‘f*ck-it’ list of ‘bad decisions’, sexual adventures, and first-time escapades that many would hesitate to engage with. But for Grace it is a release of pent-up emotions that have been stifled even from childhood.

While Grace’s gold-starred list of experiences make for highly amusing situations that will provoke equal measures of laughter, awe, and horror, Fox McLeod weaves in a dark story of domestic violence and repression that has fractured relationships between mother and daughter and also between sisters, and friends. She reveals how societal expectations of mothers and of wives, while rewarding on one hand, can also be fraught with anxiety and fear of failure. For Grace, freedom means rediscovering her identity and sense of self-worth, acknowledging her failures, and resolving to keep trying, keep taking the next step forward.

The message is to fully embrace life, reach out to friends and family, and seize the joy. ‘It’s never too late to be what you might have been’. Both hilarious and moving, this debut novel will resonate with the mature female reader.

Themes: Mothers, Domestic violence, Identity, Forgiveness, Friendship.

Helen Eddy