Eve Green - Susan Fletcher

With the death of a mother and the abduction of a young girl, Susan Fletcher has written a vividly beautiful novel about the innocence and terror of childhood.

"For another death was yet to come - a swift, snatched death. It made ditches seem darker and sleep harder to find. It meant that if the wind picked up quickly enough, and without enough warning, I'd run."

Following the loss of her mother, eight-year-old Evie is sent to a new life in rural Wales - a dripping place, where flowers appear mysteriously on doorsteps and people look at her twice. With a sense of being lied to she sets out to discover her family's dark secret - unaware that there is yet more darkness to come with the sinister disappearance of local girl Rosemary Hughes.

Now many years later Eve Green is waiting for the birth of her own child, and when she revisits her past something clicks open in her mind and her own reckless role in the hunt for Rosie's abductor is revealed, along with the understanding that through her suppressed grief and the strange friendships made during her first Welsh summer Evie learnt hard lessons - about trust, identity, guilt, love, and how to survive when love is gone.

A truly beautiful and hypnotic first novel.