Nancy Tucker

Chrissie knows how to steal sweets from the shop without getting caught, the best hiding place for hide-and-seek, the perfect wall for handstands. Now she has a new secret. It gives her a fizzing, sherbet feeling in her belly. She doesn't get to feel power like this at home, where food is scarce and attention scarcer. Fifteen years later, Julia is trying to mother her five-year-old daughter, Molly. She is always worried - about affording food and school shoes, about what the other mothers think of her. Most of all she worries that the social services are about to take Molly away. That's when the phone calls begin, which Julia is too afraid to answer, because it's clear the caller knows the truth about what happened all those years ago. And it's time to face the truth: is forgiveness and redemption ever possible for someone who has killed?

From the bleak reality of a body breaking down to the electric mental highs of starvation, Nancy’s life has been held in thrall by food. Told with remarkable insight, dark humour and acute intelligence, this is a profound, important window into the workings of an unquiet mind.