Slings & Arrows

by Julie Elizabeth Powell

Nobody expects to lose a child but when it happens what can we do? In the sea of grief that seizes the soul how can we swim against the tide? But when that loss is compounded in each minute of every day, what do we do then?

Slings and Arrows is a story about the consequences of a moment, a moment, which separates a mother and daughter in ways impossible to imagine.

It charts their parallel lives, each suffering, one knowing, one not.

It is brutally honest; an account filled with bewilderment, guilt, anger and pain yet it also holds the key to hope. That whatever happens, the bonds of love can never be broken.

Genres: Nonfiction

81 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2008

About the author

Hello everyone. If you haven't guessed by now I have a passion for words and have numerous books published in a variety of genres and lengths, in addition to short story anthologies with other authors in the Mind's Eye Series.

Several of my stories are also included within several box sets with Paper Gold Publishing.

Audiobooks are also available at Audible.

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http://julizpow.wix.com/julieelizabet...

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http://www.lulu.com/julizpow

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https://twitter.com/starjewelz

I cannot ignore my dreams, so many of them, with names and places and ideas that spark my imagination and compel me to write; to create stories, whether fantasy or horror, or mystery or psychological thriller or murder or even humour and adventure. So, my garden is sown, flourishing, with all manner of growth, and still the dreams come.


Julie Elizabeth Powell, my soul lingering within my imagination; maybe you’ll join me?

Reviews

[Julie Powell · Rating 5 out of 5]

'Slings & Arrows' was a difficult book to write but despite its subject matter, it is an important story, especially to those who have suffered loss.

So when my daughter, Samantha, was severely brain damaged at the age of two after her heart stopped and she died, then was brought back to survive for a further seventeen years, maybe you can understand why the story had to be told?

I could be no less than honest and it'll more than likely be disturbing to read yet it may also help others who are suffering in similar ways...that you are not alone.

This story is also the driving force behind 'Gone', itself one answer to the question that haunted me throughout those seventeen years: Where had my daughter gone?' because although her body was alive, her essence had vanished.

To anyone it helps - then it was worth the agony.

[Desert Rose Reviews · Rating 4 out of 5]

While non-fiction isn't generally a genre I read very often, I do enjoy it from time to time. The heaviness of reality can be good for a person who's used to escaping into fiction and fantasy. This novella certainly gave me a good taste of reality, and for a moment, allowed me to connect to another person in a very special way.

Every mother who's lost a child would be able to relate to this story somehow. Anyone who hasn't lost a child, won't be able to relate, but can sympathize easily. Written in a way that draws the reader into every emotion and thought of this experience, this author creates a true look into a mother's pain. Sharing her experience through fear, anger, confusion, and the finality of death, she has created a story that any mother who's experienced that loss can find comfort in.

This is certainly a hard book to read, and made my heart go out to this author. Reading about her experiences and her life through this situation was heart-wrenching, but something that I'm glad I read. I would recommend reading this book to anyone who's going or gone through a similar situation, and to anyone who's read or planning on reading the author's book Gone.

*I was given an ebook copy of this book, from the author, to read in exchange for an honest review.

[Maria · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was asked to read this book by the author, as I enjoyed her novel 'Gone'. 'Slings and Arrows' is the factual account of what happened to the author's daughter and the true story which inspired the author's fantasy novel 'Gone'. Anyone who has read 'Gone' will be curious to read 'Slings and Arrows' which is a heartrending and honest account of the tragic events leading to the death of her child. It is written from the perspective of a mother who is still to come to terms with the events even after many years have passed, and the idea is that this book will help those who have suffered or are suffering similar losses, or as in the words of the author 'For all those who have lost and are lost still'. I am told by the author that this was a hard book to write and I would say that it is also a hard book to read, but I hope that it achieves the author's worthwhile goal of helping others come to terms with loss.

[Yvonne Crowe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Julie Elizabeth Powell, courageously and honestly bares her soul so the reader can feel the anguish she feels at her daughter’s harrowing journey through life. This would not have been an easy thing to do and I applaud her courage and the love she had, and still has, for her daughter Samantha who was born with a heart defect and after major heart surgery began a life of hell on earth.
I can understand when Julie is torn between her daughter remaining alive in such a painful existence as our society demands; or assigning her to the peace of death, which surely the child herself must have yearned for even in her vegetative state. To have seen Samantha, in the first two years of her life, discovering the wonders of life, only to be terminated by one of life’s perverse turns of fate must have been beyond torment.
All this borne together with the travails of life, and Julie and her husband certainly experienced more than their fair share of these. Her husband is unemployed, they live in a dangerous crime riddled area, her parents leave to live in Cyprus and then Florida. Doggedly they pressed on until Richard finally found work, which improved their financial status and at least restored in some measure, their sense of dignity.
But there was to be no dignity for their daughter Samantha. Far from it. Thank God for the Home they did find for her where she was loved and looked after by caring staff.
It would have been so easy under these circumstances to fall into the depths of despair and depression and remain there, yet Julie pushed out, educated herself to University level and launched her dream of teaching and helping others in their writing endeavors.
I feel her anguish, as my second son came dangerously close to the same fate as Samantha’s, but we were spared.
I could not put the book down until I finished it. Julie is a talented writer, who has told this heart wrenching story with such simplicity of style that the reader is saved from being dragged down into a morbid tale of tragedy. I found it so magical that my next step will be to buy her fantasy novel GONE, which evolved from this journey she has been on.

[Sheri · Rating 5 out of 5]

Slings and Arrows (julie Elizabeth Powell)

This is the true story of the loss of a child. Written from the heart, this tells of a mothers anguish and mixed emotions as she watches helplessly as her child suffers from an early age. Helpless and lost in thought and actions...this is an emotional read, and it left me thinking what would I do in this situation. I can honestly say I would have a lot of the same feelings as Julie had. As a mother I can relate to every word she wrote. I highly recommend to all.I look forward to reading:
Gone

[Jean Carver · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very moving story about the uninvited and unfair judgements we often suffer at the hands of others who have not experienced the trials we have faced.

[Susanna Mahoney · Rating 5 out of 5]

This story was so powerful and wrought with many emotions and conflicting beliefs. It is about a mother who struggles through losing her two year old baby to brain damage that destroys the brain and deforms the vessel to create a non-response child. She is a shell of a human being, who is encased in a vessel that no longer functions without medical supervision. She is vaguely aware of her environment and stimulus does not awake her from her vegetative state. The mother's heart is breaking, with the many decisions that have to be made, the guilt, the anguish, and the emotional roller coaster of experiencing moments of sanity to insanity as each event the daughter may or may not live through a cardiac arrest or an infection tugged at this reader's heart.

This author has taken a plot of a person’s life's storm and wrote with an such intensity a sincere in-depth compassionate story that touches an individual soul to empathize with the mother and her personal battle of giving birth to a beautiful girl, losing her to an illness, struggle through her recuperating but not recuperating, and the incidents of life and death, and the agony of losing her for the final time at the young age of two and then again at 19.

This story is very emotional and poetic as the writer describes the journey through the darkness and expressing the mother’s deep pain trying to release the anguish and sharing to heal and help others who not fully acknowledging the tragedy of living in this distraught mother’s shoes, may find solace in reading this inspirational and heart wrenching story. The story explains the many decisions involved from placing her in a medical home that can take care of her needs on a 24 hours basis and the overwhelming guilt that a mother is in one way abandoning her child but at the same time is a warrior. Accepting this was in the best interest of the daughter. As well as the other responsibilities any parent of a disabled child may have to encounter to give their daughters or sons the rights they deserve, even against difficult circumstances.

This author has written a powerful description of the seven stages of grief, with her heart and thoughts to help others heal through their darkness and share an inspiring journey through the birth, life and losing a child at a young age of 19, this book could be utilized as a therapeutic method of helping others through the seven stages of grief and give hope to parents in similar situations.

This book should be read first and then the amazing one titled Gone, which is based on this powerful catalyst and is phenomenal with a supernatural plot of this mother pondering where her beautiful teenager daughter will go (… in the afterlife…), first when she suffer s through the first event at the young age of two, the in-between years and the concluding of her precious life at 19. It is a reality and fantasy tale that is magical and full of mystery that inspires one to open their minds to the possibility of "what if's".

This is an upcoming author that has amazing insight in herself and is able to express it in a unique writing style creative, honest and refreshing and invites readers to read her other fantasy stories, all in one way or another awakens a reader's mind, heart and soul to the wonders and the unknowns of life and the journey we all travel called life. And what destiny has in store for us and will we be as courageous as this non-fictional mother was in opening her world for all to learn from, strengthen by and entertained by.

Here is the author's Amazon Link and you can Google her name Julie Elizabeth Powell and see more remarkable works by this talented author and mother.

http://www.amazon.com/Slings-Arrows-O...

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Slings-Arrows...
http://www.lulu.com/shop/julie-elizab...

[Fiona Wilson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have previously read and reviewed some of this authors stories. Following on from those reviews I started to chat to the author via Facebook, and I found out a bit more about her. After one of these chats I downloaded this book, part of a double edition. I have held back from reading it for quite a while, due to the content I knew was in it. But I decided finally I owed it to the author to read this and give my thoughts.

Julie has 3 children. Other people may say she had 3 children, but in my mind that's not right. Regardless what this book is about, this woman has 3 children.

This book is a true story, told by the author herself, about many years in her life, but is about just one particular event. Julie's second daughter, Samantha, was born with several health problems, all related to her heart. At a very young age doctors operated, giving Samantha a much better outlook on life. This life continued as normal until she reached the age of 2.

These 2 short years had seen a lot of upheaval in this families life. They had faced unemployment, eviction, had to live in a mobile home during extremely cold winters. Yet they had made it, with everything life threw at them, as a family.

One fateful day near the end of November 1984 all that changed, in a tragic way. The author describes it as the day Samantha died for the first time.

Samantha became ill suddenly, stopped breathing. She was brought back by the doctors, but suffered irreversible brain damage in the process.

What follows is heartbreaking to read. The author tells us, in detail, exactly how she felt following this event. She tells us how she accepted she couldn't help her daughter when it was time to bring her home.

The honesty within the pages of this book is astonishing, and I take my hat off to the author for sharing this. What she has written is something which a lot of people will find extremely hard to accept. But all I will say is that, unless you have been in the same shoes, the author shouldn't be judged for her decisions. Reading this book will show you exactly how hard the author's decisions were, but they were the ones right for her at the time. She still struggles with her emotions now, and I hope by sharing her story she can accept some kind of closure.

For 17 years life continued the same for Samantha. Life moved on, however, for the rest of the family.The author gained educational qualifications, and also became a mum for the third time, to a son. She saw her eldest daughter marry. She battled with her decisions with regard to Samantha, but moved on with her life as much as she could.

Near the end of December 2001 Samantha died, finally, for the second time in her life.

This left her mum with one main thought - during those 17 long years, where was her daughter? Not physically, but mentally where had she gone? This led the author to write the second part of the double edition I bought, and she created Gone. I will read that part shortly.

Yes this is a difficult book to read, much as it must have been a hard one to write, but it is a story which had to be told. One of the most heartbreaking things within the pages of this book, for me at least, was that the author shares 2 photographs of Samantha, before the event which changed all their lives. I already had so much respect for this author due to her ability to write stories from different genres equally well. Reading this book has made that respect something more, something deeper, and I can honestly say that she is now on my list of favourite authors.

[Angela · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Slings and Arrows" is a moving account of the loss of a child. Julie Elizabeth Powell’s second daughter, Samantha, was born with major heart defects and having survived surgery, the hope was that she would be able to recover fully and lead a normal life. However, this was not to be. Samantha’s heart stopped beating when she was in her third year, and although she was resuscitated, she suffered a huge amount of brain damage. She eventually died, for a second time, when she was seventeen.

This account is far from being a straightforward chronicle of events in the lives of Samantha and her family: it is an honest examination of the author’s emotions and feelings during all of her precious child’s life and after. The guilt that she had not given birth to a perfect child; the fear that she would inadvertently harm her delicate baby; the relief when the initial surgery seemed to work so well - these are all feelings that many mothers have felt to a greater or lesser degree. However, the terrible escalation of these emotions after Samantha’s first death and the introduction of so many others, comprise our worst nightmares.

This is a courageous and moving book. We can feel the author’s pain throughout and there is so much to admire in the way in which she has coped with living. I was glad to read that she found some solace in her family, in studying and that writing has provided such a lifeline for her. What could have been a purely bleak read proved to be a thought provoking and, in, many ways, inspirational experience.

[Kristi · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was asked to read and review this story for I Heart Books. When I started the book I thought oh no I can not read this no matter how short the story. As I kept reading I felt as though if I were to stop reading simply because it is a difficult "emotional" read then I would be shaming the author as well as her daughter. This book is amazingly written, and I'm sure one of the hardest things to write. Would I recommend this book to everyone, no. Not because it isn't well written, I wouldn't because I don't think everyone could receive it properly nor understand it. I can relate personally from helping my mother care for a young boy named Lucas when she was an in home nurse, he was "gone" as well from shaken baby syndrome caused by his father. His mother wouldn't/couldn't let him go and then he grew and became a part of our lives as well until he was 12 and passed. Julie my sincere condolences for your daughter. My utmost respect for your courage in your journey and being able to write these words to help others as well.

[Martha Rodriguez · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the true-life account of Julie and her daughter Samantha, who was born with several heart conditions. As you journey through the book with Julie you will feel every emotion possible: a mother's joy at the birth of a beautiful child, her anxiety when she realizes how delicate her little girl's body is, and the horror of watching her daughter become confined to a bed; twisted and unable to communicate.

How does a parent cope with the death of a child? What if her child died not once, but twice? As Julie says in her introduction, "Many will not want to read on..." but I suggest that you do. A powerful book!

[Darcia Helle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Most of us can't imagine losing our child once. Julie lost her daughter twice. The first time Samantha died, she was brought back too late and lived in a vegetative state for nearly two decades. This is Julie's account of events that would have sent many of us to the brink of madness. She tells her story with unflinching honesty and a complete absence of self-pity. I found this incredibly moving, horrifying, sad, but also inspirational.

** This is the counterpart to Gone, Julie's fictional and wonderfully magical tale of Avalon, the place where people go when they're not quite dead, but also not quite alive. I highly recommend both. **

[Adrian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well I read the fantasy book Gone, personally I preferred this one. I like the way it was written, its a hard read, traumatic in fact, worse still when you know that what you are reading is not fiction. Having had a sister who's child died as I arrived at the hospital from a similar problem, and then not knowing what one should say or do is a difficult life / death experience. I guess knowing God would give me different answers, but still would leave me loads of questions as I guess it has the author. I think though its helpful to have books that share such experiences, so glad I read it.

[Nicole · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very heart wrenching. I loved this story even though it was sad.

Julie Elizabeth Powell opens herself up to her readers as she tells the story of her daughter Samantha. The struggles that she has just in order to survive day to day. The pain that she was put through as her body changed and basically betrayed itself. The whole family was put through a constant state of worry after Samantha's heart stopped the first time.

This is one of those books that just leaves you at a loss for words. There are no words I could say to put this book to justice.

[Samantha · Rating 5 out of 5]

This novel was gifted to me by the author in exchange for a fair and honest review.

A heartbreaking true story from a mother who has lost her child. Her body remains, but her spirit has left. The day to day struggles and emotions of not wanting to let go, but not wanting her to suffer anymore. The guilt and the grief.

Thank you Julie for sharing your story with the world. Truly inspiring.

[Kaye Lynne Booth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Slings & Arrows is a brutally honest depiction of the stress, confusion, loss and grief which comes with watching a loved one slowly waste away long after their ‘life’ has ended. Kudos to Powell for baring her soul so openly in this tale of a loss that lingered on for years, consuming everything she has to give, and taking all that she has left.

Read my full review here: https://writingtoberead.com/2023/04/2...

[Georgiann Hennelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was given a free copy in exchange for an honest review. This is a true factual account of what happened to the author's daughter. It is hard to lose a child , It is written from the heart, with all the anguish and mixed emotions as she watchs her child suffer from an early age. A very emotional read. It left me thinking what would i have done or would i do if this was my child. As a mother myself i can honestly say i would have the same feelings as Julie had. I look forward to reading more books by Julie Elizabeth Powell

[Dianne Astle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Slings and Arrows is a powerful book which tells the true story of the author’s struggle with grief and guilt and despair after her beautiful two year old daughter suffers brain damage due to a heart problem. Julie Elizabeth takes the reader on an intimate journey with the kind of honesty that makes you feel like you are present in the story. Julie’s book would be a powerful case study for those going into the medical profession who think they might be working with severely disabled children and their families.

[Rosie Zayne]

Check out my review here!