In the 1970s, beautiful but unhappy Celia Roxby Smith reaches a crisis in her life and seeks help from a famous psychiatrist. During her intense sessions, she reveals a painful past that includes a bleak childhood in the postwar fifties, neglect from her parents at home in Oxford, and constant bullying received while at boarding school.
Now Celia is in her thirties and finds herself in a tragic and loveless marriage that resembles the same one her parents had. She sees frightening parallels between the past and present events of her life and is desperate to break away from her abusive and controlling husband. With the help of her psychiatrist and her new lover, she takes the first steps toward freedom and independence. But a shocking turn of events changes everything and leaves more questions than answers.
As intense as it is real, Parallel Lines is the first book in the Three Lives Trilogy. Author Jane McCulloch permeates this absorbing story with deeply relatable characters and situations that will appeal to fans of Daphne du Maurier, Elizabeth Jane Howard, and Nicholas Sparks, along with anyone struggling to find their way in life.
About the Author: After leaving the Central School of Speech and Drama in London, Jane McCulloch has worked as both a director of theatre and opera and writer for television, theatre, radio, and the recording studio.
She has devised and written more than thirty works for her own theatre company, and other writing projects include the book and lyrics for three musicals and the Christmas carol "This Christmastide," first sung by Jessye Norman. She has also published two children's books and four slim volumes of verse.
Parallel Lines is the first book in the Three Lives Trilogy, with the remaining two books, Triangles in Squares and Full Circle, to be published in 2015 and 2016, respectively.
McCulloch has four children and ten grandchildren and splits her time between a residence in London and a houseboat on the Thames.
