Donna Jean ( Deejay ) Banwin and Betty Fiddick - ordinary working women and the heroines of this novel by bestselling writer Anne Cameron - are living proof that the common woman is about as common as a thunderstorm.

When the story opens, DeeJay and Betty don’t know each other. They’re about the same age, and they’re both growing up low-rent in small BC cities, in families that give ‘dysfunctional’ a whole new meaning. DeeJay’s mother has a weakness for junk and violent men, and Betty gets left alone at home when she isn’t being raped by her stepfather.

But the survival instinct is a strong one, and if both women grow up angry, they also grow up tough, smart, compassionate and honest. So when their paths cross in the middle of a sexual assault case, DeeJay and Betty are ready to put their heads and hearts together to end the cycle of abuse and pain.

The nightmares won’t stop on that very day. But by the end of this shocking, funny, un-put-downable novel, you just know that even if the gains are small and incremental at first, nothing will ever be the same.