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‘It’s highly readable and is written with wisdom and compassion’ Kate Saunders, THE TIMES
‘Moving and poignant’ STAR MAGAZINE
‘A well-wrought, honest book that is generous with its insights and tender in all the right places’ DAILY EXPRESS
Thirteen-year-old Dan hasn’t returned home and his parents don’t know whether he’s run away, been kidnapped – or something worse. For one family the world as they know it is about to fall apart. At first Dan is sleeping rough, revelling in his independence. But with every passing day, his world is becoming darker and more frightening. A hundred thousand children run away each year. Most come back. But will Dan?
Dan’s mother, Eve, a drama teacher, can’t focus; his father, Max, only knows how to flee his own demons; and his aunt, Martha, while trained to control difficult situations as a prison officer, struggles to hold it all together. Dan’s story is told against a grown-up drama of love and shifting loyalties and two sisters who were best friends until Max came between them. Gradually, all three begin to recognise just how badly they have failed the missing boy.
Rachel Billington has written a tense and emotional novel about the day-to-day existence of a contemporary family living through their worst nightmare. Anguish and hope move across the pages until the final breath-taking denouement.
‘Moving and poignant’ STAR MAGAZINE
‘A well-wrought, honest book that is generous with its insights and tender in all the right places’ DAILY EXPRESS
Thirteen-year-old Dan hasn’t returned home and his parents don’t know whether he’s run away, been kidnapped – or something worse. For one family the world as they know it is about to fall apart. At first Dan is sleeping rough, revelling in his independence. But with every passing day, his world is becoming darker and more frightening. A hundred thousand children run away each year. Most come back. But will Dan?
Dan’s mother, Eve, a drama teacher, can’t focus; his father, Max, only knows how to flee his own demons; and his aunt, Martha, while trained to control difficult situations as a prison officer, struggles to hold it all together. Dan’s story is told against a grown-up drama of love and shifting loyalties and two sisters who were best friends until Max came between them. Gradually, all three begin to recognise just how badly they have failed the missing boy.
Rachel Billington has written a tense and emotional novel about the day-to-day existence of a contemporary family living through their worst nightmare. Anguish and hope move across the pages until the final breath-taking denouement.
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Reviews
Billington explores the difficulties of growing up and growing older with exquisite attention to detail
It's highly readable and is written with wisdom and compassion
Sacrifice... combined with the suggestion that through suffering Eve, Max and Martha are brought to a state of greater love, understanding and honesty, is really the moral heart of the novel
This easy-to-read tale is moving and poignant
Tautly written and well paced, this is a very readable novel about a difficult and all too common situation
Dan is a subtle study; his vulnerability, his innocence, his resourceful intelligence and his dawning moral sense are wonderfully convincing
Billington keeps the tension rising, and it all feels horribly believable
A well-wrought, honest book that is generous with its insights and tender in all the right places