Dare to Choose

Amy has ambition, with the intelligence and drive to achieve it. What, or who, could stand in her way? Amy takes steps far beyond her strict upbringing which challenge her confidence. Worse, she finds that it's not just the prejudices and self-interest of the big city world that lay traps for her. Her own longing for love and fulfilment leads her up some dangerous side-paths.

Set in the heart of the Australian Blue Mountains, the changing weather mirrors the turbulent passions of a naïve young woman towards a new knowledge of herself and the world around her.

The 1950’s:  a new society blooms with lots of jobs, clothes and wealth in the cities, but the old hierarchy and values hold on - a culture where men desire and decide, while women love and serve.

Somehow from the depths of a suffocating family she sees a different life for herself. She has intelligence, persistence and startling beauty. Gifts hinder and help her. In her ignorance she struggles to hold to her path of hard work and goodness, but her puritanical upbringing has trained her in self-doubt and obedience.

A newfound joy in sensual self-discovery traps her between shame, repentance and joy.

As she fights to achieve her ambitions, she finds a world of men who threaten to thwart her ambition while longing to own her.

Sally Forest exposes the darker side of society, the manipulation by the men in charge and the connivance or submission of the women behind them.

Is it a comment on 1950’s society? Or a story of earlier times, still resonant today?

Sally Forest has lived and worked in Australia as teacher, psychologist and now, writer. A lifetime of family and work – immersed in the passions of life: love, loss, fear, failure, hate, revenge, acceptance, giving, and resilience. Her writing follows these issues through the lives and relationships of ordinary people made special by the challenges they have to answer. Sally's only prize at school was the Reading Prize - she had so many novels listed her teachers could hardly believe it. Definitely the best background for her passion now, writing fiction.