New Release: MISCONCEPTION by Rebecca Freeborn
Pantera Press
In Australia, one in 137 women who reach 20 weeks’ in their pregnancy will have a stillborn baby. While the death of an unborn child has a major psychological impact on parents and even though there are six stillborn babies a day in Australia, it continues to be something that is not spoken about openly.
It was the silence around stillbirth and miscarriage that led Australian author Rebecca Freeborn to write an autobiographical piece for an anthology, The Sound of Silence: Journey Through Miscarriage.
Now, ten years later, she explores the pain and impact losing a child can have on a relationship in her novel Misconception.
“The idea for this book came to me when I was going through my third miscarriage,” says Freeborn. “Outside of dealing with the now familiar sense of failure, I was preparing, once again, to hold it all inside and pretend everything was normal. And I’d had enough of it. I didn’t want to participate in the culture of silence that surrounds pregnancy and infant loss anymore.”
Misconception is the story of Ali and Tom, a high-achieving couple who are madly in love and have a baby on the way. Their picture-perfect life is shattered when their first child is stillborn and neither are equipped to deal with the grief they feel, both individually or as a couple.
The emotionally charged novel explores whether a marriage can overcome the worst, the complexities of modern motherhood, the different ways in which grief is expressed, and the role our childhood experiences can play in our adult lives.
“The story poured out of me,” says Freeborn. “I wrote and rewrote it through two pregnancies and while it became something else in the process, the underlying theme was always of the damage that can be caused by not speaking openly about these losses.”
Rebecca Freeborn also works as a communication and content editor for the South Australian Government. She lives with her husband and three children in Adelaide.
Rebecca Freeborn
RELEASE DATE: 15 July 2019
Trade Paperback ISBN 9781925700374 $29.99 AUD
Ebook ISBN 9781925700411 $9.99 AUD
Contact: Anabel Pandiella 02 8076 7122 | Mob: 0412 699 556 | E: anabel.pandiella@panterapress.com