Penny Batchelor

Occasionally I think that if she weren’t already dead, I’d want to kill Gemma myself…

How can you live up to the memory of someone you hardly remember?

Annie is five when her sister, Gemma, leaves for school and never returns, changing her family’s lives forever.

Feeling unloved and neglected by her grieving parents, Annie leaves home at 16, sick of living in the shadow of her ‘perfect’ but absent sister.

However, after getting fired from her job and dumped by her boyfriend, a broke Annie returns home to care for her sick mother, uniting again with bitter resentment as she discovers her room has become a sewing room while Gemma’s remains a well-kept shrine.

With encouragement from her best friend, Annie decides it’s time to discover what really happened to Gemma, for all their sakes.

To solve this mystery, Annie must put herself through danger. But can she handle the dark truth? Or is it safer to let some secrets stay buried?

Mum-of-two Audrey is horrified when during a moment of distraction in the park, her pram with baby Wilfred in it rolls down the hill and into a pond. Fortunately for her, Claire Jones is nearby and rescues Wilfred, soothing Audrey and daughter Antonia with coffee and cake in a nearby cafe. No harm is done.

However, the frightening experience dents Audrey’s confidence and she replays the events over and over, convinced she can’t have forgotten to put the brake on. To make matters worse she keeps spotting a shadowy figure everywhere she goes and becomes sure that someone is stalking her.

Audrey’s fears are escalating when a catastrophic reaction to a bee sting sends her into a coma – and into hospital – but once again her new best friend is on hand to step in.

Does Claire really have Audrey’s best interests at heart?

And if not, why has she inserted herself so cleverly into Audrey’s life?

Will Audrey ever recover?

And will her real friends be able uncover the truth before it is too late?

A twisting tale of intrigue and deception – and of what happens when your worst nightmare comes true.