I Am A Wolf Tonight
Reviewed By Janet Mawdesley May 6, 2025
Author Thelma Ainsworth
Distributor: Amazon UK
ISBN: 978-1839528866
Publisher: Brown Dog Books
Release Date: 28 March 2025
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Thelma Ainsworth is like most people; she grew up, studied hard, faced life’s challenges as best she could and eventually married. As a Lawyer in the Royal Air Force she enjoyed her work as a prosecutor and spending time with her friends but realised time and her biological clock, was ticking.
She met and eventually married, after a somewhat challenging courtship, to use an old fashioned word, Jonathan Ainsworth; she also married his parents and the lifestyle they and Jonathan had developed over many years, which proved as time went on, to be distressing, confrontational and challenging.
I Am A Wolf Tonight is her story of life with Jonathan and finding a way through the chaos that eventually was their married life together. She shares with candour the distress caused by a domineering mother in law, the lack of love and comfort from Jonathan, the difficult births of both their son’s and the lack of empathy shown to her during a severe and debilitating time of post-natal depression.
When Jonathan, a research Doctor and Physician was diagnosed with untreatable and fast moving pancreatic cancer she was devastated, inconsolable and in complete shock. In a rare moment of truth and intimacy Jonathan thanked her for showing him why intimacy was so important in a relationship.
Jonathan passed away far sooner than expected, leaving Thelma to cope with everything that came next. His funeral, his unpleasant and non-supportive family, her desperate distress and two little boys who had just lost their father.
Thelma Ainsworth has, with truth and candour, written a brilliant memoir of life, family, friends and what happens when it all goes horribly wrong, which will resonate with anyone facing similar challenges.
I Am A Wolf Tonight is the first book in the Surviving Badly Memoir series which concludes with Thelma facing up to her future as a widow, a mother and sole income earner for her little family.
Book two will continue her journey as she takes the first tentative steps into a completely different lifestyle she feels ill equipped to undertake, but is determined to do it, fear and all!
In writing this memoir she wants to tell her story, not because she feels any more special than anyone else, but to tell her story, her way, to finally find her voice! In doing so she reaches out to others travelling a similar pathway, to encourage them to find their voice, to find their audience and to tell their story.