"She could already feel the dryness in her throat, the catch in her voice, when she’d have to stand up in class and tell everyone what her grandparents did. After the other kids read out their work on ..."
- Sanjida Kay
"She felt as if she had no bones, like a jellyfish, hooked from the sea. She walked slowly towards them, her ears ringing, but they ignored her. All except for Levi, who stood at the end of the bridge,..."
"The lines began to sing, a shrill, electric song, and then the cacophony of the train roared out of the darkness. The carriages were almost empty and painfully bright as they hurtled along the tracks ..."
"Most of the vegetables in the allotments had died back but one, tended by a Jamaican man, was full of squash. They lay among the dying leaves, rimmed with frost, huge, orange and alien, half hidden by..."
"A cool white, wintry light glazed the buildings on the highest hill: Will’s memorial, the unsightly chimney from the hospital, the modernist cathedral in Clifton. The jumble of styles and eras lent th..."
"When Autumn was born, it was as if she recognized her, as if she’d always known that it would be her, this little person who had come to live with her and reside permanently in her heart. It was a lov..."
"Autumn put in the DVD she’d been watching every night. It was Deadly 60. It was all about animals that could be a bit tricky if you tried to catch one. There was something comforting about watching it..."
"Autumn began to run. She felt an icy terror flood through her. He must have been waiting for her. He’d followed her all the way here. To this open, empty place. He knows where I live."
"She couldn’t tell how long she’d been searching for her daughter. It was dusk, but it had seemed darker as she ran through the wood, tripping on hooked tree roots, her feet crunching through crisp, cu..."
"There was no sign of her daughter, no sign of a small body crumpled by the railway."