"Heartfelt, thrilling, and emotionally complex, this is the author's best work yet." --Publishers Weekly, STARRED review

Two women will do whatever it takes to protect their own - no matter the cost to anyone else.

Cerys leaves her life behind in a fiery wreck. Lily slips away from hers early one morning, silent as a shadow. Both are mothers. And both are desperate.

When the two women are thrown into each other's paths, they strike a tentative bond. Cerys is a mother with no children to care for anymore, and Lily is doing all she can to take care of a four-year-old on her own. But each keep secrets from the beginning--the scars, the loneliness, and, most importantly, who they actually are. They need to work together to survive, but how can they trust each other? Because everybody knows: the longer a secret is kept, the worse its consequences will be when the truth comes out.

As the past catches up with them in the form of a deranged father with a shotgun, Lily especially finds herself backed into a corner. But mothers will do what they must to protect their children, no matter who else gets hurt along the way.

A deeply emotional and complex thriller that explores motherhood, love and the desperate need to protect it... at any cost.

Jarratt, Laura

Laura Jarratt is a Carnegie Medal and Waterstone's Children's Book Prize nominated author. She lives in rural Cheshire with her husband and their two children.