“When Beatrice emerged from the quiet of the woods into the clearing around the terminal, she wished for the thousandth time that she had succeeded, in the face of her disability, in developing a strategy for dealing with people. It was what she expected her patients to do for herself. She remained raw and vulnerable, and though it hurt her pride, she had fled her problem instead of solving it.”
The Ghosts of Beatrice Bird by Louisa Morgan
I’ve only read one other book by Louisa Morgan (The Witch’s Kind), which I had really loved. Most of Louisa Morgan’s books feature witchcraft, but The Ghosts of Beatrice Bird was just a little different, but definitely not without the touch of the supernatural.
Beatrice Bird has left her life in San Francisco behind, moving to a small island to escape that which has been haunting her. All her life, she has had a gift, an intuition into knowing when something is wrong or is about to go wrong with other people. As an adult, she practices psychology while her partner Mitch is a medical doctor. The two build a life together, and they’re very happy. But it all shatters when Beatrice takes LSD to discover more about her powers. This makes it impossible for her to ignore the shadows of sadness, despair and loss that follow other humans around. So she flees her life, hoping for solitude and relief.
One day, a young woman Anne turns up on the island, seeking refuge of her own. She has also fled her past, but it’s one she cannot completely let go of. She escaped submitting to a sanatorium after facing years of abuse by her husband, but there is one person she has left behind that she is desperate to get back- her son, Benjamin.
Beatrice and Anne become friends out of proximity, but it isn’t long before they both realize they need each other and can help each other.
This book is beautiful and tragic at the same time. It was hard for me to read at times, and I found myself pausing after certain chapters to clear my head for a minute- the intensity of the story was so strong. There are a lot of struggles in this book- domestic abuse, child abuse and loss. But it is a story of two women coming together to help each other and themselves find a strength they didn’t know they had. I really loved this one. Louisa Morgan wove a brilliant tale of two strong women who truly took on the world and everything it threw at them. I can’t wait to read more by this author, this book will stick with me for a long time.
Of Worlds Forgotten 
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