Blood Ties by Peter Taylor-Gooby
Ritchie’s life is shadowed by the death of his wife, Cat, in a car accident twenty-two years previously. He was the driver. He loves his children – Nic, who is bi-polar and often impulsive, and Jack. Both are active in the campaign to welcome asylum-seekers and refugees to Britain. His life comes to a crisis as he realises how much his children despise his trade in advertising and how much the loss of Cat still means to them all.
Ritchie abandons his career but achieves new success in driving Britain’s treatment of refugees up the political agenda. This earns him the respect of his children but brings him to the attention of Makepeace, the populist Home Secretary. Nic, his daughter, strives to show she can overcome her disorder. She infiltrates a people-trafficking gang but is arrested as a criminal. Makepeace uses this to blackmail Ritchie to help him in his political schemes. Ritchie is horrified to discover that his task is to sell the reintroduction of forced labour, modern slavery, to the public. As a result he is once again rejected by his children.
Ritchie has reached rock bottom. He is desolate but believes he can outsmart Makepeace. Blood Ties shows how he finally resolves the situation, embraces the causes his children hold dear and reunites his family.
Author Bio
I enjoy talking to my children, holidays, hill-walking and riding my bike. I've worked on adventure playgrounds, as a teacher, as an antique dealer and in a social security office in Newcastle.
Before that I spent a year on a Gandhian Ashram in Vijayawada, supporting myself as assistant editor on a local English-language newspaper. In my day job I’m an academic but I believe that you can only truly understand the issues that matter to people through your feelings, your imagination and your compassion. That's why I write novels.
My first novel, The Baby Auction, 2017, is a love story set in a fantasy world where the only rule is the law of the market. That someone should help another because they care for them simply doesn’t make sense to the citizens of Market World, any more that auctioning babies might to us. My second, Ardent Justice, 2018, is a crime story set in the world of high finance and city fat-cats, where money rules, but greed can trip even the most successful. My third, Blood Ties, 2020, is about the ties of love in a troubled family, and the bonds of debt that chain illegal immigrants to people-traffickers, and how they can be broken through self-sacrifice. I hope you enjoy them.
Buy Link
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B08775ZBDK/?ref=exp_kellysloveofbooks_dp_vv_d
Review
It was the description of this book that really pulled me in before I had even read this book and I was excited that I was going to have the chance to do so. I love books that make a social commentary and this definitely did that with aplomb. At times it was heartbreaking to read some of the parts in this book. Hidden slavery IS all around us. I refuse to go to those ‘USA nail bars and car washes’ as I don’t know the working the conditions but I bet you they aren’t great. It’s a sad state of affairs when this issue isn’t shouted about. But nah brexit brexit brexit. By not allowing genuine workers into this country you can bet that there will be a rise in people being forced into slavery in order to enable things like food to be picked in the fields, to construction and many more roles.
The family dynamic is really weird in this book as the father still feels guilty about a car crash which killed his wife. His daughter Nic is bipolar and his son John is in politics. I enjoyed (the feeling not the words) the impact from the crash from 20 years ago. The kids are very passionate about the issue of slavery and it is heartening that maybe there are some people in the world like them.
The world which is created by the legislation in this book is horrifying. Please let it never happen here but with numpties with like Boris who knows?? Basically, what is the power and strength in this book was the fact that you can see it so easily coming into fruition. I really enjoyed that it was packaged up as a thriller as it means more people might pick up the messages in this book. Yes, it’s a light read which you can fly through but it also packs a punch with its message. People need to read this book.
