STILL STANDING: From the shores of Belfast to the lights of Dublin

In this memoir of love, loss, and renewed hope, Denise Robinson shares her story of surviving unimaginable heartbreak and living to tell the tale. She’s still standing, and stronger than ever. Standing like a true survivor.

Growing up as the middle child in a hardworking family in Northern Ireland during the Troubles, Denise learns early that life can be beautiful and painful in turns. Throughout her childhood and adolescence, her father’s unspoken, steadfast love helps her to  endure psychological and physical maltreatment from her mother, but it cannot completely save her. And while the pattern of abuse instills in her an inferiority complex and a distorted image of love that she will carry with her for much of her life, it also teaches her to dig deep to find the inner strength she will need to survive. 

Denise is beautiful, bright, ambitious, and entrepreneurial; however, “men have a way of getting between me and my dreams.” Even as she goes from strength to strength in her career path, she discovers that the road to love is a rocky one. As she navigates dating, relationships, breakups, marriage, and divorce, she learns the difference between love, sex, and obsession. More than once, she is faced with searing betrayal and loss. Each time, she finds the courage to get back on her feet and start a new life, with only her beloved dogs and her best girlfriends by her side.

With time, experience, plenty of self-reflection, and an excellent therapist, Denise comes to understand why she has been looking for love with all the wrong people and in all the wrong ways. Most importantly, she learns to love herself.

With honesty, insight, and a double shot of humor, Robinson brings the reader on her journey from the shores of Belfast to the lights of Dublin. Her story of having loved and lost many times over, the lessons she learned, and the friends she made along the way will inspire anyone who has fought or is fighting to break free from a toxic relationship or is dealing with its aftermath.