Seizing the Ivy. A Pompey Tale

By: Barbara Parsons 

Ivy on the warpath!
A veteran ward sister and nurse, Ivy Maude Gorwick survived years of bicycling to work in 
a blacked-out city beneath the flak-rattled night skies of World War Two. She now anticipates a respite from years of hard work and lonely widowhood as a resident of The Glebe Repose,
a modish elderly care facility.
But things are not as they seem, and there are still battles to be won. Ivy fights for her convictions with dignity against bureaucrats and bunglers.
At once poignant and humorous, this is the touching story of a proud woman’s painful adjustments to the realities of aging, changing standards, and mother-daughter misapprehensions.

Barbara P. Parsons was born in Portsmouth, England, to a naval family. After working overseas in many different lands, she came to the U.S. with her American husband in 1973. She presently resides in Prince Edward Island, Canada. She was active for many years in green and animal liberation issues, and contributed articles to Sierra Club’s Wildlife Involvement News and edited the UFETA (Unitarians for Ethical Treatment of Animals) newsletter.  Her novel, Beulah Kettlehole and the Patriarchal Ice, was first published in 2001 by the Writers Club Press and reprinted in 2016 by Bunim and Bannigan.

Author photograph by Sandra MacDonald
Cover illustration by Aidan Searle, Egg Creative  eggcreative.ca