Matilda Windsor is Coming Home by Anne Goodwin

Matilda Windsor was locked away as a teenager, condemned to a life in a psychiatric institution without any proper diagnosis. Over the decades she's made her own little world at the home, imagining it as a grand house or hotel, and explaining away the nurses as 'staff'; maids to serve tea, or butlers to keep undesirables out.

But it's now the early 1990s, and with the introduction of 'care in the community' all is set to change. A new social worker, Janice, is determined that Matilda deserves a chance to experience life 'outside', and, whatever others think, is prepared to bend the rules to make that happen.

Henry, Matilda's much younger brother has been waiting most of his life for his glamorous sister to return to the family home. This waiting has put his life on hold. The family home is too big for him alone, but he daren't move just in case his sister returns one day. 

From these three points of view, Anne Goodwin weaves a story of heartbreak and mischances, in the course of which Matilda and Henry cross paths so many times without actually knowing. Would one casual meeting have changed things? 

Matilda's tale is a sad but seemingly all too frequent one - that young girls who couldn't quite explain their pregnancy, and produce a young man to make everything right by marrying them, were hustled away to the confines of a psychiatric institution, and then somehow just forgotten.  Henry, too, is a victim of sorts. He can't commit to a relationship, or move on with his life, because of that overwhelming feeling that one day his sister will return and things will be just as they always were.

Among this tragedy, Janice appears as a comedy character. She dresses in a colourful, flamboyant way  which makes Matilda think of a circus girl. She squabbles and jostles for importance with her fellow social workers, trying to get her plans accepted even when they're not for the best. She may be well-meaning but she's definitely inexperienced and I was left feeling Matilda deserved someone more capable on her side.

Becoming Someone by Anne Goodwin

review by Maryom

I know Anne Goodwin primarily from her two novels - Sugar and Snails, and Underneath, but she's also a prolific writer of short stories. Now, together with publisher Inspired Quill, she's brought together forty-two stories, written between 2004 and 2018, many of them previously published in literary magazines and websites.


To call these stories 'psychological studies' might not be quite accurate, but it's close. In a multitude of scenarios, Goodwin examines how we become ourselves - straining to conform to what family or society expects, rejecting the opinions of others, finding a path for ourselves. All of them share Anne Goodwin's perceptive, sympathetic insights.

The collection is divided into six sections - Stranded in the Dark, No Through Road, No Way Back, Spinning Signposts, Forging a New Path, Into the Light - and, as you might guess from their headings, as you progress through the book the stories become more hopeful, the characters more determined to create the life and identity THEY want, not endure that forced on them by parents, friends, society. The characters - from a young single mum to a dying grandfather - try to reconcile the idea of what they should be with what they are. Some take refuge in an imaginary world. The lucky few refuse to accept society's image of how they should behave and feel, and create an identity to suit themselves.



Maryom's review - 4.5 stars 
Publisher - Inspired Quill 
Genre -adult fiction, short stories

Anne Goodwin - Underneath - blog tour

Today we're welcoming Anne Goodwin as part of a blog tour to promote and discuss her latest novel Underneath. To get an insight into it check out Maryom's review but here's a little synopsis from the publisher ... 

"He never intended to be a jailer …

After years of travelling, responsible to no-one but himself, Steve has resolved to settle down. He gets a job, buys a house and persuades Liesel to move in with him.

Life’s perfect, until Liesel delivers her ultimatum: if he won’t agree to start a family, she’ll have to leave. He can’t bear to lose her, but how can he face the prospect of fatherhood when he has no idea what being a father means? If he could somehow make her stay, he wouldn’t have to choose … and it would be a shame not to make use of the cellar.

Will this be the solution to his problems, or the catalyst for his own unravelling?"

Maryom; I think my first question has to be, What was the starting point for this novel? Was it the thought of an underground room, and the purposes it might be put to, or did it grow from Steve's character?

Anne; It’s always difficult to be completely accurate about where a novel started, but I’d been thinking about insecure attachment and extreme forms of vulnerability, such as the experience of a baby totally dependent on unresponsive caregivers. When some shocking reports came to light of women imprisoned in a hideaway, within, or attached to, an ordinary house, I thought the emotional experience might be similar. I’m not entirely sure how that got turned around to writing from the point of view of the jailer, except that I had the image of an unhappy little boy in mind and I’m curious about the way in which vulnerability can be expressed in actions that seem, at least on the surface, to come from strength and power.

As I said in my review Underneath isn't the domestic noir or thriller that a reader might expect from its synopsis. Were you ever tempted to go down that route? 

I wasn’t aware of domestic noir as a genre when I started writing this novel in 2010 but, even if I had been, I doubt I’d have wanted to write one, despite their popularity. With some exceptions, I’m not drawn to thrillers as a reader because of the way in which character and credibility can be compromised for the sake of plot. But the potential for overlap is tricky in describing Underneath: I think the synopsis is a fair reflection of the story but appreciate that some readers will be disappointed that it falls short on the twists and turns of the classic thriller; others, like yourself, will be pleasantly surprised it takes a different route. But, given the difficulty of predicting reader responses, I’m content to take the themes and ideas that are of interest to me and crafting them into the best story I can manage.


How much do you draw on your experience as a clinical psychologist when creating characters? and  do they appear fully formed or develop along with the story?

Having studied psychology in one form or another for over a decade, and worked as a clinical psychologist for twenty-five years, that experience – and perhaps even more the style of thinking – is integral to who I am. My background gives me empathy for my characters – even the villains like Steve – and an awareness of the complexities and contradictions of the human condition. But, like many people who gravitate to the helping professions, my own vulnerabilities aren’t so different to those of the people I’ve worked with, so I draw on my own demons too.
I couldn’t imagine a character arriving fully formed unless I’d based them on someone I knew, which doesn’t particularly appeal to me, so they develop over various rewrites in conjunction with the story.

By the end of the novel, I felt that, although I wouldn't condone Steve's actions, he was more a victim of his childhood and upbringing than an out and out villain. Is this how you saw him as his character unfolded? How much responsibility for his adult character can be laid on his mother and sisters? Do you think there was a point in his life at which events could have taken a different path?

I’m pleased Steve had that effect on you, Mary. Although I have little experience of working with offenders, I generally found as a clinical psychologist that, if I could support clients to be open and honest with me, I felt a significant degree of warmth and compassion even if I wouldn’t have been drawn to them in ordinary life. Steve first took root in my mind as a sad little boy, so I was always conscious of his vulnerability and, while I was writing, I was very much – perhaps too much – on his side, wanting him to get his own way. In fact, even though I’ve stepped back from him now, I still have a soft spot for Steve. However, although I think he’s partly a victim of his circumstances, he does have choices, and sometimes he’s taken the wrong ones. While his mother’s grief and emotional neglect, and his sisters’ bullying, have shaped his character, they too were doing their best in difficult circumstances and I don’t see them as responsible for what he does. I’ve written in more detail about these issues in some other guest posts:

Fictionalising the Mentally Disordered Offender

Child, lover, jailer: The three faces of Steve

Compassion for the Criminal, Condemnation of the Crime

Victims, villains and vulnerability

The Child in the Clothes of the Criminal

Finally, I like your question about whether there was a point at which his life could have taken a different course. Psychological support for the family when the mother is briefly hospitalised and the children taken into care might have helped, and there’s a huge gap in our knowledge of Steve as an adolescent and young adult where a sympathetic teacher might have channelled him into a more stabilising career. (Perhaps he could have become a clinical psychologist, or an art therapist like Liesel!) But relative to a lot of children and families who come to the attention of services, he wouldn’t appear particularly disturbed and I think there’s an element of bad luck in how things turned out.

Thank you, Anne, that was a fascinating chat, and I'm looking forward to reading your other posts in this tour.

Underneath by Anne Goodwin

review by Maryom

By any reckoning, Steve should be happy - he's finally decided to settle down after spending most of his adult life travelling the world; he's won enough on the lottery to buy a nice house; he's got a new attractive girlfriend who's willing to move in with him. How could it all go wrong? But somehow it has, because the reader knows from the outset that Steve has a woman imprisoned in his cellar ...

It sounds rather like the set-up for a psychological thriller or domestic noir full of improbable emotions and outrageous violence, but Anne Goodwin's Underneath couldn't be further away from those stereo-types. Instead it's a quiet novel that gradually unpicks the past to discover what lies behind the facade that Steve presents to the world.
The story is told in the first person from Steve's viewpoint, and so the reader is privy to his current thoughts and hopes, and his flashbacks to childhood, a time which should have been full of love and happiness, but wasn't.
On a superficial acquaintance, Steve is an average guy, perhaps a little more interesting than some even because he's spent most of his life travelling the world, working in undeveloped countries, not sitting at an office desk, but behind that facade he's a troubled man, permanently damaged by his upbringing. His father died before Steve was born, and, with a mother consumed by grief, and older twin sisters who bullied him throughout childhood, Steve's childhood lacked the love and kindness that most of us take for granted. Obviously drawing on her experience as a clinical psychologist, Anne Goodwin takes what could have been a dry case study and builds it into a compelling read.

It's a novel I'd highly recommend for Book Clubs. there's much to discuss about Steve's life and his relationship with women - is his travelling part of an un-rooted feeling? is he permanently searching for home? is his girlfriend unreasonable in her demands, and would they have lived happily ever after if she hadn't been?

It's frequently said that to understand all is to forgive all, and strangely, by the end, although I condemned the way he acted, I felt rather sorry for Steve - he should have been the villain of the piece but it seemed that he was so influenced by events beyond his control that he was more a victim of circumstances.


Maryom's review - 4.5 stars 
Publisher - Inspired Quill 
Genre -adult fiction

Anne Goodwin - guest post

Today we're delighted to welcome Anne Goodwin to the blog to talk about her debut novel Sugar and Snails and the changes it underwent between first draft and finished book....

Three generations of a novel: the transformations of Sugar and Snails from inception to publication

When I worked as a clinical psychologist, I met many people who were disturbed by their failure to live up to their own ideals or the standards set by others. It wasn’t until I moved to a small town in the former Nottinghamshire coalfields that I saw this perceived failure in terms of gender stereotypes. The 1984 miners’ strike had torn communities apart, and the failure of the strike to prevent the pit closures brought both economic and psychological depression in the area and a sense of emasculation among the men.
Around the same time, the country was marking the fiftieth anniversary of the end of the Second World War. Amid the pomp, reports began to filter through of elderly men being re-traumatised by repressed memories of their wartime experiences coming back to haunt them. As my own father was of this generation, I was touched by the notion that the stiff-upper-lipped version of masculinity might be unsustainable and curious about its impact on the offspring of such men.

I was inspired by Evie Wyld’s impressive début, After the Fire, a Still Small Voice, to have a go at writing something similar. Like her, I would explore masculinity and war across three generations but, instead of being set in small-town Australia, my novel would feature the rise and fall of a mining community in England.
My main character was Leonard, the clever only child of solid working-class parents, brought up to want to be more than a miner like his father, yet always a little ashamed at his mental and physical unsuitability for a job underground. Going straight from school to the army, and from there to a German prison camp, he dreams of the life he’ll have when the war is over: a steady job with a wife and kids.
As I delved more into Leonard’s character, the less need I felt to flesh out the parents who had made him who he was. I was more interested in how he’d fare as a husband and father, and what it was about his wartime experience that he so needed to forget.

So what began as a story of men across three generations was transformed into one about a man, his wife and their problem child. In the early drafts of Sugar and Snails, the story unfolded through alternate chapters set in different time bands: the tale of Leonard and Renée’s marriage over almost three decades interspersed with that of Diana, one of their children, a socially-awkward university lecturer in the early years of the twenty-first century, with a secret troubled past.

One of the problems with this structure was that, because Diana had gone by a different name in childhood, it was difficult for readers to trust that the two strands of the narrative would eventually connect. Furthermore, as Diana’s backstory developed, it came to eclipse Leonard’s, unbalancing the novel as a whole. I was advised to rewrite the novel solely from Diana’s point of view.

I didn’t relish the prospect. It wasn’t so much the extra work – I was starting to appreciate that writing a publishable novel requires numerous re-workings and repeated drafts – but that I had grown attached to Leonard and was reluctant to let his story go. Furthermore, as Diana’s life-changing experience occurs at age fifteen, her parents’ beliefs, attitudes and behaviours have a significant impact on who she becomes. In particular, Leonard’s ambitions for his children are shaped by an event of which Diana would have no direct knowledge, it having occurred at the POW camp before she was born.

Cutting Leonard’s scenes was painful. I’d so enjoyed his solitary hikes in the Peak District; his impatience as a father; his confusion at the funeral of his friend from his army days. But the incisions, and the reworking of some elements, make Sugar and Snails a much better novel. Different readers will find different things within it but I was gratified that one early reviewer felt that “One of the best parts of the novel is her relationship to her father, who is himself troubled by his own actions in the past.” Others, if they look closely, might still detect the theme of masculinity across three generations. But this is very much Diana’s story. I hope you enjoy following her journey towards narrowing the gap between the woman she is and the woman she feels she ought to be.


Anne Goodwin writes fiction, short and long, and blogs about reading and writing, with a peppering of psychology. Her début novel, Sugar and Snails, was published last week by Inspired Quill. Catch up on her website: annethology or on Twitter @Annecdotist.

See photo above for more of Anne's blog tour, read Maryom's review of Sugar and Snails here,  or catch up on the book's launch

Anne Goodwin - Author Event

By The Mole

Saturday saw the launch of Anne Goodwin's début novel, Sugar and Snails, at Nottingham Writers' Studio - which has been published by Inspired Quill. Inspired Quill is an independent publisher, happy to publish books that deal with social issues and in this case the issue is gender identity.

As with most book launches the evening started very informally with milling, wine, nibbles and cake (of course cake). We got to chat with the publisher about some of the books they publish and the model under which they print them - a model that relies on modern technology but still enables a high level of quality control that the self published market so desperately lacks.

We also got the chance to chat with the author as well as other independent publishers who had come along to support as friends and colleagues. One subject broached was that of reviewing poetry and we were in agreement that this is a difficult area as just because you don't "get" poems or they wash over you doesn't mean they're not good - or perhaps even brilliant - just that they don't work for you. It's because of this fear - yes that's the correct word - that we tend to keep clear of poetry except for the very young, and so - apparently - do many bloggers.

The formalities then started with the publisher introducing Anne and Anne then talking a little about her road to publication. She then read the first chapter. Before she read she asked if anyone had a "blood phobia" which people seemed to take light heartedly but when she read the chapter I was very uncomfortable-not for the blood but because here was a character who needed support and needed it now yet trusted no-one to give it. I have read other books where issues like this happened and even found myself putting the book down for a while to come to terms with it. Perhaps it's a being a dad thing - perhaps I'm wired wrong. But in order to affect me like this it meant the story was drawing me in - even on the first chapter. Time permitting I shall try to pick this book up some time in the future - it certainly seems like it would be worthwhile and Maryom recommends it.

After the reading there was a question and answer session which may well stand Anne in good stead as several questions were asked which she hadn't considered the answers to before. Forewarned is forearmed for future author events.

The evening ended with further whine, nibbles and cake.

An extremely interesting evening and a great start to what will hopefully be a successful start to career for Anne as a novelist.

Anne will be visiting our blog on Thursday to talk about "Three Generations of a Novel" as part of her blog tour.

Sugar and Snails by Anne Goodwin

review by Maryom

Diana is a forty-something, set-in-her-ways university lecturer; an intensely private person, she lives alone with only a cat for company, and even her closest friend who has known her since their university days isn't aware of the secrets hidden in Diana's past. For thirty years she hasn't told anyone about the momentous event which altered the course of her life completely but now, entering into a new relationship which offers the hope of lasting happiness, that past seems back to haunt her.

Sugar and Snails is a portrait of a woman in crisis; at first Diana's actions seem extreme but as I got to know her, and her back-story, I came to understand her reaction. There's a feeling throughout that Diana is as uncomfortable with who she is now in the present day as she was as a child. Her work as an academic psychologist leads her to suspect the decision she made as a teenager was wrong, to think that maybe, at fifteen, she was too impulsive and ill-informed, and that her actions haven't really led to a happier life. Now Diana has a chance of happiness, but to grab it she needs to step out of her comfort zone and face down her fears. Advised as a teenager to forget about the past, and 'put it behind her', that was exactly what she did but, never truly happy and always frightened that someone would find out, she's put much of her life on hold for 30 years; relationships, as such, have failed and, rather than risk change and scrutiny, she's stayed in one job settling for the familiar but unchallenging and dull.
So, what was the traumatic event 30 years ago? It's kept a secret for much of the book but I'd spotted an accidental reveal in the publishers media-pack. Now this isn't the ideal way to approach a story - it's always nice to have the big reveal sprung upon you the first time through, whether it's the plot twist in Bruce Willis' film The Sixth Sense or not knowing whether Elizabeth and Darcy will get together in the end. Knowing before hand loses some of the tension and build up, but both books and films have to stand up to a second read/viewing and I find myself in the curious place of having read Sugar and Snails once but being able to say that it's a re-readable story; that it doesn't just rely on that one surprise element. Through the flashbacks to Diana's increasingly troubled childhood and adolescence, I could stand back a little and appreciate how the author had cleverly built up hints at what is to come without actually giving anything away, while still being immersed in the unfolding of Diana's life.

This is the story of one specific person and her problem, but it raises a lot of wider issues from gender identity and stereotyping, and the way society forces us to conform, to how impetuous decisions made when young can affect our whole lives. Although she's written many short stories, this is Anne Goodwin's debut novel - I hope to read many more by her.



Maryom's review - 4.5 stars
Publisher - Inspired Quill
Genre -adult, LGBT