An unforgettable debut about the pain, joy, and occasional beauty of childhood and its nearly unspeakable dangers.

Like Lionel Shriver’s We Need to Talk About Kevin and Donna Tartt’s The Little Friend, this gripping novel pulls you toward its unimaginable climax and will leave you haunted and heartbroken.

Spoiled but emotionally neglected Gemma, who seems to have everything, and semi-feral Pauline, who has less than nothing, are two very different ten-year-old girls growing up in a tough Yorkshire town in the 1970s. Pauline longs for the simple luxuries of Gemma’s life: her neatly folded socks and her clean hair. Gemma, upset by her parent’s breakup, loses herself in fantasies of meeting the child television star Lallie. When Lallie shoots a movie in their hometown, Gemma and Pauline grab the chance for their wildest dreams to come true. But the film becomes a terrible catalyst for the larger forces acting on the two girls, a dysfunctional adult world that trickles down to the children; and playground bullying escalates, with dreadful consequences.