Before We Began

There was nowhere to go and nothing to do. Absolutely, definitely nothing to do. Even the matter of our boredom - held up and studied from all sides - had long since been exhausted as a topic of conversation. We sat around the shed in a vacant silence, broken only by the rustling of Julia's fingers as she picked at the insides of the sofa. All we ever do is sit around I complained. Sophie Barrett lives an odd, cautious, life until the morning she arrives to find her colleague has committed suicide in the basement of the shop where they both work. The death raises frightening, long-buried questions that Sophie can no longer afford to ignore. To answer them, she must return to the summer she was fourteen and a friendship between three very different girls, bound together by time, place and a life-changing secret. Julia, all energy and swagger, Nancy, lost in her own peculiar universe and Sophie, the follower, fearful and admiring. But while they dream, events are already in motion that will propel them towards tragedy, taking their innocence and threatening their friendship itself.


Genre: Literary Fiction