A WINCHESTER-based writer has published a new book on domestic abuse.

Susana Cory-Wright's novel My Cousin’s Cousin published her novel on July 28 through Troubador, a business that helps authors self-publish.

The plot follows the lives of playboys Emil and Rafael whose carefree existence is disrupted by the arrival of their much younger cousin Ino.

Over the next few years, the seemingly glamorous lives of all three will change irrevocably.

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Susana Cory-Wright (Image: Susana Cory-Wright)

Themes of alcoholism and domestic abuse are explored alongside the nostalgic pull of ancestral homes.

Can Emil shirk his responsibilities to pursue a lifelong dream? Will Rafael be able to reconcile the present with a reckless past? Can Ino ever find the contentment she craves?

Susana Cory-Wright was born in Canada but has since lived in the UK. For a time, she worked as a Spanish to English translator. Her other publications include The Catalan House, The London Wife, Maud Beerbohm Tree: Lady of the Stage, a trilogy about a family during the pandemic and Tolstoy’s Beard.

She is currently working on a fictionalised account of Peter the Great’s first wife.

Susana said: “As we all know, domestic abuse is the silent affliction that shadows so many families but what interests me, is the silence that so many women still prefer to uphold rather than speak out.

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"And particularly in middle class, well-to-do families that appear on the face of it to be doing just that, well. Those are the situations that fascinate me. There is still such a stigma and shame to admitting to it – there is the disappointment and realisation that a marriage is already failing before it has already begun because of the violence within. But then the ‘victim’ is a ‘victim’ twice – over as he or she is unable to disentangle from the tropes society (still) puts upon her.

"In smaller communities this is more difficult I would say than in a large city where there is less of keeping up with the Jones or what will the neighbours say.

"From my own experience, I’ve been told not to write about certain situations that it would be too upsetting to family members. Which is precisely why these situations should be written about, even if under the guise of fiction. How else can women feel empowered to change their situation?”