White Ravens’99/New Zealand/72696
Beale, Fleur 
 I am not Esther
 Dunedin: Longacre, 1998. 159pp
 ISBN 1-877135-10-0
 Religious sect - Single mother - Mother/Daughter - Abandonment 
 When the dark sad secret of her childhood, the reason for her banishment from her family and their
 fundamentalist religious sect, threatens to become known, a widowed mother sends her daughter Kirby
 back into that very family and disappears. The psychological strains which follow for both mother and
 daughter are gradually revealed through Kirby’s first-person narrative of her new life. The author creates a
 convincing tale about family relationships and how people deal with pain, authority and conflicting
 emotions, giving insight into various alternatives. (14+)

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